JERSEY CITY – A U.S. District Court judge has tossed out a lawsuit filed last fall by a developer who had alleged that former City Council President Mariano Vega conspired with various city agencies and other public officials to take his property without compensation.
When New York City-based developer Neil Sorrentino, who built the Washington Commons residential property at 311 Washington St., filed his lawsuit last September, the city’s corporation counsel called his allegations “baseless.”
U.S. District Court Judge Jose Linares has now dismissed Sorrentino’s suit, ruling that his allegations have been argued and dismissed in other courts.
In June 2004, Sorrentino received approval from the Jersey City Zoning Board to build Washington Commons, a mid-rise condo development in the Powerhouse district. The development was to include 68 market-rate condo units and parking.
According to city officials, Sorrentino requested permission to build more units in Washington Commons than city law allows. Sorrentino ultimately requested, and was granted, a density variance that allowed him to construct additional units in the building.
The city granted this variance on the condition that Sorrentino include seven modestly-priced live/work units that would be set aside for artists, in accordance with the city’s vision for the Powerhouse Arts District.
Construction on 311 Washington began in 2004, and soon after, Sorrrentino applied for a 20-year tax abatement for the development.
Sorrentino alleged that in early 2007 Vega told him he had to turn the seven artists’ units over to the city for free – far less than what he thought he was owed. The developer also claimed that Vega wanted two units for relatives.
The city filed a motion asking the court to dismiss Sorrentino’s lawsuit, a motion that was granted on January 19.
In his ruling U.S. District Court Judge Jose Linares wrote: “These same parties have litigated the instant set of facts in nine New Jersey Superior Court hearings, two appellate division decisions, and two New Jersey Supreme Court denials of certification. There is no question that this case is now far beyond the confines of this court’s jurisdiction. Accordingly, it is ordered that [the] defendants’ motion to dismiss [the] plaintiff’s complaint in its entirety is granted; and it is further ordered…that the clerk of the court shall close the file in this matter.”
Sorrentino has raised his allegations in two previous lawsuits that were filed in Hudson County Superior Court. Those cases were dismissed because judges ruled that the developer waited too long to file a case and the statute of limitations had run out. One court also ruled that he had not adequately exhausted non-legal channels to resolve the matter.
Mariano Vega is currently in prison in connection with a 2009 federal sting operation into political corruption, unrelated to the Washington Commons project. – E. Assata Wright
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