NARROWSBURG, NY — A building that was a former seasonal hunting cabin is now set to become a 10-family apartment building off Route 97 in Narrowsburg, near the intersection with Route 23. The project has been before the Town of Tusten Planning Board since August 2015, and on the evening of March 21 the board issued a special-use permit for the project to go forward.

As was the case in past appearances, neighbors who live near the project were on hand to object, while the developer’s attorney insisted at every turn that the project met the town’s code. There had been a couple of hitches: the building sat on two acres, and three are required for a 10-unit apartment for a residential (R1) district.

Zachery Keslon, the lawyer for developer Philip Geras, laid out the list of updates to the plan, which now includes more parking spaces and landscaping, and said the board should now award the permit.

There were a couple of points that everyone agreed could have held up the project. There is currently a moratorium on the construction of multi-family houses in town, but board chair Ed Jackson agreed, this one started before the moratorium was in place. If the building were new construction it could not have been built on less than three acres, but since this was the renovation of an existing building, the project could go forward. Jackson said the project adhered to the town law, and most, but not everyone, agreed.

Wanda Gangel, who with her husband Geoffrey lives adjacent to the property, read a portion of the code as follows: “The conversion of any building into a dwelling or the conversion of any dwelling so as to accommodate an increased number of dwelling units, or families, shall be permitted only within a Zoning District in which a new building for similar occupancy would be permitted under this Law.”

While there are parts of the code that seemed to suggest what Geras is doing is well within the code, the sentence quoted by Wanda seemed to suggest otherwise.

In the end, six board members voted to grant the special-use permit. One said that even though he believed the project met the town code, he did not believe that kind of development was what the people in the neighborhood “bought into.”

There is one more hurdle for Geras. He must get a permit to allow him to do work on a road at the development, but the road is owned by another neighbor, Clark Kelly. Kelly has insisted that the county will only grant a permit to the owner of the road. Kelson has said his client will have no problem getting a permit.