In a major ruling that has halted a high-rise proposal from going forward, a judge said Thursday that the Jersey City Planning Board was not properly constituted when it approved the Millennium Towers project.
The ruling cheered those who had opposed the plan from the beginning. The City of Hoboken joined some Jersey City grassroots groups to stop construction of the dual 43-story high rise, which was slated to rise on the corner of 18th Street and Jersey Avenue in Jersey City near the Hoboken border. They contended that the buildings would block views from the Heights and snarl traffic at the already-congested border.
“Hopefully, the city will realize it needs to be more responsive to the community,” said Ron Hine of Hoboken-based Coalition for a Better Waterfront, “and not simply cater to developers.”
Last year, the Planning Board voted to recommend to the City Council changes to a redevelopment plan for the area that would allow the buildings to climb higher. After the City Council approved the amended redevelopment plan, the Planning Board was then able to approve a site plan for the Millennium Towers project.
Superior Court Judge Jose Fuentes struck down both the Planning Board recommendation and the subsequent site plan approval Thursday.
A Jersey City official complained last week that the decision eliminates several positive changes that were made to the redevelopment plan.
“They’ll increase density, increase traffic, there’ll be less open space and they eliminated the light rail stop,” said Mayor Bret Schundler’s chief of staff, Tom Gallagher. “Gee, that’s what I would call smart growth.”
After hearing arguments from attorneys on March 16, Fuentes ruled that a majority of the Planning Board members who voted on both the plans should not have been allowed to do so.
“Six of the eight members present on May 9, 2000, were not lawful, bona fide members of the Planning Board,” Fuentes wrote. “A similar outcome applies as to the June 20, 2000 meeting where Millennium’s site plan application was approved.”
The members’ legality was cast into question when it was learned that many were serving on the board well after their terms had expired. As such, the mayor could dismiss these “holdover” members at any time.
Fuentes was particularly scathing on this point, and he charged the city with a “wholesale disregard for the statutory guidelines establishing the terms of office for individual members.” He further wrote: “This also impugns the independence of the Planning Board as envisioned by the Legislature when it adopted the Municipal Land Use Law.”
He implicated the mayor as part of the problem:
“Without a fixed terms [sic] of office, members are reduced to an ‘at will’ status,” he wrote, “serving at the pleasure of the Mayor. While local zoning decisions are not completely insulated from political considerations, they cannot be rendered wholly subservient to them by the failure of the Mayor to abide by the law.”
One member who voted on the plan, Carmelo Sita, was not a resident of the Jersey City at the time. He has since been removed from the board.
John O’Donnell, the attorney for Millennium Towers who also represents the Jersey City Economic Development Corporation, had argued that the project should not be penalized for the city’s negligence. Fuentes sympathized with the developers and noted they were “entitled to some relief.” He ordered the city to pay Millennium Towers for both the court costs and the cost to bring the project before the city. The project had been plagued with controversy from the outset. A vice president and major player in the development, Joseph Lucarelli, had served time in jail in the mid-’90s for defrauding a savings and loan in the 1980s in conjunction with a high rise project he headed. That project stands a mere block away – at 689 Marin Blvd. – from the Millennium Towers site.
Gallagher said the city would fight the judge’s decision.
“We believe the decision of the municipal council [in approving the changes to the redevelopment plan] is the definitive decision here,” he said.
If the city does not appeal successfully, the project’s developers would have to scale their plans down and submit new plans to the Planning Board.
The developers could not be reached for comment Friday.