Developer plans 637 townhomes at former Ramapo golf course

Town board and land-use panel need to weigh in

A photo illustration of the former Minisceongo Golf Course at 110 Pomona Road in Pomona (Getty, Minisceongo Golf Course)
A photo illustration of the former Minisceongo Golf Course at 110 Pomona Road in Pomona (Getty, Minisceongo Golf Course)

A Ramapo golf course may trade hole-in-ones for homes for hundreds as a long-gestating housing proposal finally gets before the town.

A developer filed plans for a 637-townhome project at 110 Pomona Road in Ramapo, the Rockland/Westchester Journal News reported. That’s the site of the former Minisceongo Golf Course in Rockland County.

Joseph Kazarnovsky and Mark Mandelbaum purchased the 144-acre golf course in 2016 for $32 million with plans to build hundreds of townhomes, but nothing came of it in the years that followed. It was unclear from the Journal News story if they are behind the plans just filed, but the proposed development is still called Miller’s Pond.

The project also calls for 103,000 square feet of commercial space for retail stores within the community. While adding a significant number of homes, the project would not be the walkable, transit-oriented development that Gov. Kathy Hochul wants in the suburbs of New York City.

Miller’s Pond resurfaced when the town board referred the plans to the Ramapo Community Design Review Committee, which is scheduled to hold a Zoom meeting on the matter next week.

The project will test Ramapo’s recent zoning overhaul, which requires a developer to receive town board approval on projects of 20 acres or more. The site’s zoning only allows for 122 houses.

Kazarnovsky previously said the development would preserve the character of the community and wouldn’t resemble New York City or Manhattan. He couldn’t be reached by the publication for comment.

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It still figures to generate the standard suburban opposition to large residential development.

In 2017, one local woman, citing traffic concerns, told the Journal News that only single-family homes should be built on the former golf course.

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“We sold our house in Brooklyn to come and have country living in Pomona,” Naomi Blackman said then. “We didn’t move here to come to someplace that is overrun with homes.”

The Pomona development is not the only large one proposed in the area. Businessman Harvey Klein recently paid $35 million for a 150-acre parcel belonging to the New York Country Club in New Hempstead, the biggest parcel in the village. Plans haven’t been filed for the property, but the village mayor voiced support for a single-family development on the site.

— Holden Walter-Warner

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