Palm Tree, New York, United States

🇺🇸 Palm Tree is a town coterminous with the village of Kiryas Joel in Orange County, New York, United States. New York's first new town in 38 years, it came into being on New Year's Day 2019 as the result of a referendum that came about due to zoning and other conflicts between residents of the village of Kiryas Joel, inhabited by the Satmar Hasidic community, and the municipality to which it belonged, Monroe.

History The village of Kiryas Joel was created in the early 1970s at the behest of Satmar rebbe Joel Teitelbaum, whom 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 were elected as town justice in the 2018 or 2019 elections.

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