Greens at Chester Settlement: Lawsuit and Consent Decrees

The Greens at Chester settlement was not a single deal but three separate agreements that closed out a federal housing-discrimination lawsuit against the Town of Chester, New York, and Orange County. Orange County settled in November 2020, the Town of Chester entered a consent decree with the developers in April 2021, and the New York Attorney General reached a separate fair-housing consent decree with the town in June 2021. No defendant admitted wrongdoing. Together the agreements cleared the administrative path for the 431-unit development to be built, capped home sizes and permit fees, and put the town under three years of fair-housing supervision.¹

What the Lawsuit Alleged

Greens at Chester LLC bought the 117-acre site off Conklingtown Road for $12.1 million in October 2017. Its managing partners, Jehuda (Joseph) Landau and Livy Schwartz, are members of the Hasidic Jewish community. The property already carried a 2010 town settlement granting final subdivision and site plan approval for a 431-unit cluster subdivision, and that earlier agreement barred the town from rezoning the parcel or imposing new regulations on the project unless it was specifically exempted.²

On July 19, 2019, the developers filed a 101-page complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and the Fair Housing Act, seeking $100 million in compensatory and punitive damages.³ The complaint named the town, Orange County, County Executive Steve Neuhaus, and several individual town officials.¹

The core allegation was that officials had run a “concerted, systematic effort to prevent Hasidic Jewish families from moving into the Town” through zoning, permitting, and land-use decisions.⁴ The clearest example was a Floor-to-Area Ratio law introduced on January 24, 2018, and enacted March 15, 2018. The developers said it would force units as small as 577.5 square feet; the Attorney General later characterized the law as an effort to make homes “uninhabitable for families.”² At a 2018 public meeting, then-Supervisor Alexander Jamieson said, “We’re doing what we can to alleviate 432 Hasidic houses in the town of Chester,” adding, “There’s nobody on the board, nobody who wants the development to go through.”⁵

The complaint also described permit denials in November 2018 and June 2019, mandated rerouting of a sewer line, a required road relocation, and buyout offers of $20 million and then $30 million that the developers rejected.⁴ Town officials responded that permit denials reflected house sizes exceeding what the town had approved.⁶ On December 5, 2019, Attorney General Letitia James moved to intervene on the developers’ side, alleging violations of the Fair Housing Act’s prohibitions on religious and familial-status discrimination.⁷

The 2020 Settlement With Orange County

Judge Philip Halpern approved the county settlement in November 2020. Orange County paid no damages and admitted no wrongdoing; the agreement was structured entirely around removing administrative friction from the approval pipeline.⁶

The county agreed to defer all decisions about the adequacy and quality of the development’s wells to state agencies, without attempting to influence those reviews. It committed to accepting wastewater from the project at the county-owned treatment plant in Harriman, provided the town had sufficient remaining allotment. It formally acknowledged that the project was “fully approved by the County with respect to any approvals it has the power to grant,” except for a still-required letter from the county health commissioner. And it set concrete response deadlines: 30 days on bathing or swimming facility applications, 20 days on written correspondence, and two days on phone calls.⁶

The 2021 Consent Decree With the Town of Chester

Judge Halpern approved the town’s consent decree on April 29, 2021, and the case was terminated on June 22, 2021. As with the county, the town admitted no liability.⁸¹

The decree set firm limits on what the developers could build. In Phases A, B, and C, the average lot coverage across the three phases was capped at 36 percent, with no individual lot exceeding 42 percent. In Phases D and E, semi-attached homes were limited to an average of 2,850 square feet per unit, with no single unit larger than 3,000 square feet, excluding unfinished basements.⁸

Money terms were equally specific. The developer paid the town $150,000 upfront, held in a segregated account and credited against building permit fees. Those fees were fixed at $1.00 per square foot for the first 215 homes and $1.25 per square foot for the remaining 216. Every other town-imposed construction and inspection fee was frozen at February 2021 levels for five years. The developer was also permitted to convert 32 of the 431 approved residential units into a commercial center.⁸

One provision reached beyond the project itself. The developer agreed to deliver a letter supporting the town’s Community Preservation Development Fund, which was held in escrow and would be released to the town only after the 40th building permit was issued and only if the town was not in breach of the decree.⁸ The decree also called for 20 additional building permits to be issued simultaneously with the court’s approval.⁹

The Attorney General’s Fair-Housing Consent Decree

On June 18, 2021, the Attorney General’s office announced its own consent decree with the town, resolving the state’s intervention claims. The town was required to adopt and publish a fair housing policy, appoint a Fair Housing Compliance Officer, and provide annual fair housing training to every employee and official involved in planning, zoning, permitting, or construction decisions.¹⁰

The Attorney General’s office kept the right to audit the town’s land-use applications and records during the decree’s term. The court retained jurisdiction to enforce it for three years, after which the claims against the town defendants would be dismissed with prejudice. Each side bore its own costs.¹⁰

Where Things Stand

Construction moved slowly while the litigation was live. The developers had finished site preparation, roads, and water and sewer lines by August 2019 but had no permits to build houses.¹¹¹²⁶ As of April 2025, construction was reported to be in full swing, with the developers estimating that residents would begin moving in during the summer of 2025.¹³

One piece of related litigation continues on a separate track. The town sued its insurers over the roughly $375,000 it spent defending the case. A court ordered its former insurer, Allied World Assurance Co., to cover those costs, and Allied World appealed.³ In January 2024, the New York Supreme Court Appellate Division vacated a related $228,033.78 judgment that Allied World had won against Greater New York Mutual Insurance Company, finding Allied World had not carried its burden on certain financial calculations, and sent the matter back for further proceedings.¹⁴ That insurance dispute does not affect the developers’ settlements or the fair-housing obligations the town accepted.

1
CourtListener. Greens at Chester LLC v. Town of Chester
2
NY Attorney General. NYAG Proposed Complaint in Intervention
3
Record Online. Chester Settled Federal Lawsuit With Greens at Chester Builders
4
NY Attorney General. Attorney General James Ends Discriminatory Housing Practices Against Jewish Families in Chester
5
The New York Times. Jewish Discrimination Hasidic AG NY
6
Record Online. Judge Approved Partial Settlement in Greens at Chester Lawsuit
7
Lohud. Chester Orange Developers Federal Lawsuit Alleged Discrimination
8
Chester NY Official Website. So Ordered Consent Decree
9
Chester NY Official Website. Exhibit D to Consent Decree – Construction Game Plan
10
NY Attorney General. OAG Consent Decree With Town
11
Record Online. New Tactic in Greens at Chester
12
Record Online. Chester Issued Two Permits for 431-Home Greens at Chester Project
13
Daily Monroe. Construction at Greens of Chester Development Is in Full Swing
14
FindLaw. Allied World Assurance Company v. Greater New York Mutual Insurance Company