HOBOKEN–Developers and concerned citizens alike will have to wait another month to hear whether the Hudson County Board of Chosen Freeholders will allow a controversial plan to build residential towers on a pier in northern Hoboken to go forward.
On Tuesday evening, the board voted 6-0 to reschedule the hearing to Oct. 28 after it could not muster the simple majority of Freeholders necessary to form a quorum.
Hudson County is one of several public entities from which developer Shipyard Associates LP must receive approval before it can move ahead with its project featuring two 11-story towers on the empty pier adjacent to Weehawken Cove and Fifteenth Street.
In 2012, the Hudson County Planning Board rejected its application. Shipyard Associates appealed the decision in Hudson County Superior Court, which remanded the appeal to the Board of Freeholders in July.
Eight of the nine Freeholders were present at Tuesday’s special meeting—Thomas Liggio called in sick. However, Anthony Romano, who represents Hoboken and Jersey City Heights, and Doreen DiDomenico recused themselves as current members of the Planning Board, and Freeholder Jeffrey Dublin had to leave due to a family emergency.
Albert Cifelli voted on the motion to reschedule but could not count towards a quorum because was present via conference call.
The proposed development, known as the Monarch at Shipyard, needs county approval because it abuts county roads and sewers. According to the Fund for a Better Waterfront, an activist group that has been involved in several Monarch-related court cases, Planning Board commissioners at the 2012 hearing questioned why Shipyard had classified the Hudson River Waterfront Walkway as a street.
Shipyard Associates, a subsidiary of Hoboken-based Ironstate Development, first received permission to build on the pier in 1997. In 2012, it decided to pursue a second residential building on the pier instead of three tennis courts included in its original plans.
Mayor Dawn Zimmer and the Hoboken City Council have come out strongly against the Monarch project. Earlier this year, the City Council passed two flood protection ordinances that would forbid new construction on Hoboken piers.
The city says it is bringing its laws in line with new FEMA flood danger maps, whereas Shipyard Associates asserts that it is being deliberately targeted.
The county planning board is the only standing rejection of the Monarch project. Hoboken and a number of local community groups have challenged the project’s approval by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection and a Superior Court reversal of the Hoboken planning board’s rejection. The cases are ongoing.
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