A judge ruled last week to temporarily stop the process that could lead to a public vote on a high-rise tax abatement granted to a developer by the city.
In a decision made via video monitor link-up, state Superior Court Judge Mark Nelson told both the city clerk and the City Council to maintain the “status quo” on a tax abatement issued for Millennium Towers, a project at 18th and Grove streets near the Hoboken border.
For now, it means that the referendum process, started by residents angered at the abatement for a proposed high-rise, has stopped. Had the judge not ordered the halt, the City Council could have decided, at least until Tuesday, to revisit the tax abatement ordinance and either repeal it, or to let it go to a public vote.
But attorney John O’Donnell, who represents Bayonne-based Millennium Towers, filed a complaint Monday in State Superior Court claiming that the ordinance is not subject to referendum. O’Donnell could not be reached for comment.
The judge will hear arguments in that matter on Dec. 15. How he will rule is anyone’s guess.
“The decisions have not been clear on this subject,” said Tom Fodice, an attorney in the city’s law department. Past court rulings, he said, exempted ordinances on matters like budgets from referendum. But Vito Brunetti, president of Riverview Neighborhood Association, an attorney and opponent of the project, said, “I think case law is on our side in this case.”
Added Brunetti, “We were told when we started doing research, that there would be a challenge to what we were doing. We didn’t know what type of challenge.”
This is the latest in what has become a saga for a 3.1-acre sliver of land on 18th and Grove Street on the Jersey City/Hoboken border. Long a jumble of warehouses and vacant brownfields, the site, the city had hoped, would spur a renaissance in the area.
Not so fast
But when residents in the Heights and Downtown first learned of the project earlier this year, they argued that the 43-story luxury high rise would block views of the Manhattan skyline and create traffic nightmares in an area known for gridlock. While the project won approval from the city in the spring, shouting and accusations punctuated the meetings. Meanwhile, questions had arisen over the developer’s past. A vice president of the company, Joseph Lucarelli, was convicted of having defrauded a savings and loan bank over a decade ago and later served jail time for a project at 689 Marin Blvd., which stands a block from the proposed Millennium Towers site.
At the time of approval, Brunetti promised that his group would continue to fight the project. He opened a number of fronts against the towers, including a lawsuit this summer to overturn the rezoning of the area that cleared the way for the project, and a petition drive that led to the referendum in question now. Hoboken filed a separate lawsuit against the project, claiming that Jersey City had not given regional consideration in approving the plan.
Developers are seeking a light rail stop for the project, and the city said the towers could only be built if a light rail stop was approved by NJ Transit. The state’s transportation system has not given approval for the light rail stop, but discussions are ongoing.
If the judge allows the referendum to go forward, the council may not want to reverse itself on the matter, said some city sources. Should they choose to repeal the abatement, the developer might have grounds to sue the city.
City Clerk Robert Byrne estimated that a referendum vote could cost the city $200,000.