Village Keepers had claimed that the MVA approval violated a Township ordinance requiring proof of hardship before the former post office building could be demolished.
The Township, which owns the land and the building, is in the process of selling it for a retail/apartment project by JMF Properties that will include a three-story building with 20 units and five retail shops.
A hearing on the appeal had been set for Nov. 10 before the Planning Board.
But in a statement issued this morning, Village Keepers backed off:
Village Keepers Withdraws Planning Board Hardship Appeal
MAPLEWOOD, N.J.—OCT. 21 The Village Keepers, a nonprofit
advocate for responsible development, today announced the withdrawal of its
attempt to persuade the Maplewood Planning Board to stop the plan for
demolition and new construction at the old Post Office site. That attempt was based on a 2014 town
ordinance which requires proof of significant financial hardship before
buildings in Maplewood Village can be demolished.
“Sometimes you can fight city hall,” said Village Keepers
Board Chairman Dirk Olin. “But we concluded that — even though a robust
plurality of residents has clearly demonstrated their opposition to this
project — the governing body has exploited
technicalities and ignored protocols in a way that allowed it to force approval
of this travesty. Its leaders wanted to bulldoze the building, so they steamrolled
their own process to get what they wanted.”
Village Keepers Vice Chairman Fred Profeta, who has also
been acting as general counsel for the effort, explained that, beyond frustrating popular will, backroom maneuvers and last minute site plan revisions by Mayor
Vic DeLuca and the developer (which thwarted the public’s ability to analyze
and comment before a Planning Board vote), had eliminated the hope of an impartial vote on
the hardship issue.
“Last week the Planning Board voted 9-0 to approve the site
plan for this project, despite a wide range of
infrastructure and environmental concerns,” said Profeta. “The new
drawings, prepared in detail beforehand,
were suddenly unveiled by DeLuca and the developer after 10:00 P.M. on the
night of the Planning Board meeting. But the Planning Board voted on them
anyway! The unsafe additional load on our antiquated sewer system would have been
reason enough to deny peremptory approval
of these new plans. Beyond that, the town’s own law requires it to prove that
adaptive reuse of the existing building would present a significant financial
hardship compared to new construction. That is clearly not the case, but the
chances of proving it to this Planning Board, on which Township Committee
members DeLuca and Jerry Ryan currently
sit (and will not recuse themselves), are now certainly zero. And the costs of proving lack of hardship in
a court of law on a further appeal would simply have been too high for all
concerned.” The Planning Board had scheduled the hardship hearing for early
November.
Speaking for OhNo60, a group that is allied with Village
Keepers, John Harvey said: “This
announcement is an unfortunate but realistic response to the manipulations by
the Township Committee that we have all observed. Yet this development remains too big, reflects
architecture which is inconsistent with the Village style, and is based on a
deal that is a financial disaster for taxpayers.
Our governing body is giving away prime real
estate for a ridiculously low price and is throwing in a whopping tax break on
top of everything else. Add to that an
increased parking load, stress on our sewers, and detriment to the Village
economy – and one has to wonder why our leaders were so resistant to the idea
of stepping back and taking a ‘second look.’
It’s a mystery but it’s also a tragedy.”
All of the objecting parties agreed that the recent abuse
and controversy required long-term reform. In essence, the governing body never
genuinely incorporated public input into its original thinking — nor into what
should have been its rethinking after
so many different parties raised so many profound and credible objections.
“It’s ironic that the Village downtown was just voted the
best in New Jersey,” said Olin. “That designation might survive the building of
this ill-conceived structure, but it certainly will not survive any more
incursions on our distinctive Village architecture and scale. We have to make
sure that the town’s rules for development — and those who interpret those
rules to create responsible public policy — are changed
as soon as possible.”
It is unclear what other actions the group may take to continue its opposition to the plan, which was recently given provisional approval by the Planning Board.
It is unclear what other actions the group may take to continue its opposition to the plan, which was recently given provisional approval by the Planning Board.
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