ANTI-POST OFFICE PLAN GROUP WITHDRAWS APPEAL

Village Keepers, Inc., the local group that has been opposing the Maplewood Village Post Office redevelopment project, has withdrawn its appeal of the Maplewood Village Alliance approval of the plan.

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.