The planned conversion of future development at the former Chestnut Ridge from townhouses to condominiums advanced Monday night with the clearing up of a mistake in a deed related to common areas belonging to the homeowners association.

The Bloomingburg Zoning Board of Appeals, which also functions as the village’s planning board, approved the subdivision of a single lot of 94 acres into two lots after a public hearing during which nobody spoke. According to the parties involved, the association never should have owned the entire 94 acres. One of the new lots covers 14 acres of common area directly around the 107 townhouses that have been built at Chestnut Ridge, now called Emerald Living Estates. The second 80-acre lot, much of it vacant land, will be conveyed to Emerald Living Estates, said John W. Furst, the attorney representing Emerald. The property is expected to remain vacant. The homeowners’ association previously approved the subdivision, which will also relieve it of the tax burden associated with ownership.

The public hearing on the second part of the conversion plan remained open and will be continued at a date yet to be scheduled.

The Chestnut Ridge site plan originally approved included 396 individual lots for townhouses. The new plan would consolidate the lots yet to be developed into a single parcel. The parcel would then be re-subdivided into lots for condominiums. Each condo building will have more than one unit, but the total number of units would remain at 396, Furst said.

The maps for the new plan were submitted by The BerkCo Group, a real estate investment group including Israel C. Berkowitz. The project engineer is Aliasgar Rangwala, of Gandhi Consulting Engineers and Architects.

The ZBA meeting followed the regular monthly meeting of the village board, which also addressed development-related issues. The board agreed to clarify village policy regarding the failure of developers to pay fees associated with their projects. From now on, applicants should not even be allowed to come before the ZBA unless all the fees have been paid, Mayor Russell Wood, Jr., said. At the moment, the village is owed roughly $40,000, he said. The money is for engineering, legal and building inspection fees that the village covers. Wood said all municipalities deal with this problem, but the issue is more acute in a small village than in a town or city with vastly bigger budgets.

The trustees also opened and kept open a public hearing on road specifications meant to ensure longevity and reduce the frequency of repairs. As the code now requires, developers must put down 12 inches of item 4 gravel, five inches of binder and a topcoat of two and a half inches of asphalt on roads that may be turned over to the village. The mayor said he would entertain reducing the binder to four inches and adding a layer of fabric to reinforce and stabilize the base. The fabric would be cheaper than the additional inch of binder.

But, Wood said, reducing the binder further or reducing the depth of gravel is not a good decision in the long run. While it would make road construction cheaper for developers, the village would end up repairing the roads more often. He pointed out that the regulations in question are for major roads, and the code does account for lesser roads. Wood said he’d talked to engineers, highway superintendents and contractors and they all stood by numbers like those in the village code.

The trustees also reappointed Israel Fleischman as chairman of the ZBA for five more years and Jacob Jaroslowitz as a member for another three years. It appointed two new board members — Joel Reich for a two-year term and Samuel Posen for a one-year term. Alternate members Benzion Markowitz and Ben Jacobowitz were each reappointed for one year.

Finally, the trustees decided to invite a representative of Thompson Sanitation to the next board workshop session on Thursday in response to villagers’ complaints about erratic garbage pickups. Trustee Chaim Friedman was especially adamant about getting the service the village pays for according to the contract with Thompson. If the problems can’t be resolved, Friedman said, the village needs to put the job out to bid and find another sanitation company.

Wood also told the board that two pumps and a control panel at the Emerald Living Estates sewage pumping station were most likely zapped by lightning in Thursday’s storm. The station was back online the following day, but the bill for the repairs is likely to be around $40,000. Wood said he has already put in a claim with the village’s insurance company.