Palm Tree, New York


Palm Tree is a town in Orange County, New York, United States. New York's first new town in 38 years, it was created by a referendum that came about due to zoning and other conflicts between residents of the village of Kiryas Joel, New York, inhabited by the Satmar Hasidic community, and the municipality to which it belonged, Monroe, New York.

History

The village of Kiryas Joel was created in the early 1970s at the behest of Satmar rebbe Joel Teitelbaum, who the village was named for, as a semi-rural retreat for his Williamsburg, Brooklyn-based community. Over time, the need to annex additional land in order to accommodate Kiryas Joel's burgeoning population created zoning conflicts with the town of Monroe. These conflicts were eventually solved with a referendum, which passed overwhelmingly on November 7, 2017, that resulted in an amicable split from Monroe and the creation of the town of Palm Tree, which was to be coterminous with Kiryas Joel.
On June 14, 2018, special legislation was passed that moved up the target date by one year. The bill was signed by Governor Andrew Cuomo on July 1. The town became official on January 1, 2019, with officials elected in November, 2018 being sworn in on that date. No candidates ran for town justice in the 2018 or 2019 elections, and Palm Tree remains the only town in the state without a justice court, as the law requires.

Etymology

The name "Palm Tree" is a calque of the surname/family name of Joel Teitelbaum. In Yiddish, teitel means "date", and baum "tree".