Jones Lang LaSalle
Vice chairman, attorney step down from hearing development application
04/13/2006
By LINDA SADLOUSKOS Staff Writer
TEWKSBURY TWP. - An application to build a mix of 175 age-restricted and affordable housing units south of Route 78 is on the agenda for the Planning Board’s meeting next Wednesday, April 19, pending the board’s ability to find another attorney to guide the board through the hearing.
Citing a situation that could be perceived a conflict of interest, the board’s vice chairman, William Mennen, and Board Attorney Daniel Bernstein stepped down from hearing the application at last Wednesday’s meeting of the board.
Bernstein, the Planning Board’s attorney, said Mennen had raised the issue after the applicant’s attorney introduced an environmental consultant from the firm of Ecol Sciences Inc. to present testimony on the housing development by K. Hovnanian Homes which is planned along both sides of Route 523 just south of the Route 78 interchange.
In his profession as attorney, Mennen, who was working with Bernstein, had some time ago employed Ecol Sciences of Rockaway in a legal matter regarding Somerset Airport, Bernstein explained last Friday.
Although Ecol Sciences had earlier been on Hovnanian’s roster of experts who would testify on the proposed Rockaway Village project, Bernstein said that he had not connected the two cases in his mind before last Wednesday’s meeting, when Mennen raised the issue.
Douglas Fenichel, a spokesman for K. Hovnanian Homes, said last Thursday that the applicant was planning to continue the hearing process and presenting testimony before the Planning Board with the assumption that, "Things will continue to go forward on schedule."
Fenichel said he understood that the board was actively seeking a new attorney to preside at the hearings for the proposed Hovnanian project. He added that a site walk of the property is still scheduled for Saturday, April 22. Interested residents should contact the Planning Board office beforehand, he said.
Tewksbury’s Land Use Administrator Shana Crane confirmed last Friday that the application remained on the agenda for Wednesday, April 19, unless it was removed because of the lack of counsel by the next scheduled Planning Board meeting on that date.
But a statement issued last Sunday by Citizens to Save Tewksbury (CST), a group of residents who have been following the hearings on the Hovnanian proposal, called the series of hearings before the Planning Board since Feb. 1, "disjointed, difficult, frustrating and costly to everyone."
Basil Hone, a member of CST, said the citizens had hired the environmental consulting firm Thonet Associates, and had paid for representatives from that firm to sit through a few meetings at which scheduled speakers were switched around, and opportunities to question the applicant’s experts were lost.
Hovnanian’s application to undertake a 175-unit inclusionary housing development south of Route 78 has "given rise to more public concern than any other township development. The level of the public’s desire to participate with well researched and knowledgeable testimony is unprecedented," according to the statement from CST.
The Planning Board’s "changes or attempts to change the procedures which the public is ordered to comply with disturbing frequency, leaving concerned residents without expertise in land use law with the uncomfortable feeling that they may not be given a full opportunity to be heard. CST trusts the Planning Board will be as mindful and respectful of the public’s right to participation in the proceedings as the Board must accord to applicants," the statement continued.
The issue of another possible conflict of interest had been raised the previous month, after environmental consultant James Cosgrove testified on the issue of whether a possible change in status of a state wastewater treatment discharge issued for an office project years earlier to Bellemead Corp. would affect the project’s ability to be built.
At the next meeting, the question was raised of a conflict of interest because a member of Cosgrove’s firm had previously been employed as a consultant for Tewksbury Township.
Bernstein said that the board and its counsel had chosen to err on the side of caution in even avoiding the appearance of a conflict so as not to jeopardize the board’s position in ruling on the application. "We are playing it extraordinarily conservative" in avoiding the appearance of a conflict of interest, Bernstein said.
In its statement, CST said that Mennen or Bernstein should have been aware of the conflict since Ecol Sciences had been hired months ago for the Hovnanian application.
Bernstein said the issues of potential conflicts have been coincidental and that the name of the firm "didn’t register" while he was providing legal counsel in the two separate cases.
The Planning Board had also spent time during several hearings discussing another possible snafu in the proceedings, the state’s potential revocation of a wastewater treatment discharge permit previously issued to Bellemead Corporation for a treatment plant that would discharge into the Readington side of the North Branch of the Rockaway Creek.
Partially because the proposed change in use for the property, the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) is considering revoking the permit that had been issued in 1998. Hovnanian has maintained that the permit file had been updated to include information on the new project and meet newer environmental standards and that, even if the permit is revoked, the developer should be able to obtain a new permit.
Public input at a hearing on the issue of the permit sponsored by the state DEP at the Old Turnpike School on Thursday, March 30, was overwhelmingly against the continuation of the permit, residents said.
Fred Mumford, a spokesman for the DEP, said on Monday that the state would now need to consider the public comments and documentation submitted on March 30. Mumford said he could not speculate on how long the DEP’s analysis would continue.
The public can still submit written reports on the subject to the DEP until this Friday, April 14.
Additional information is available by calling DEP’s environmental regulations section at 609-292-4864, Mumford said.
However, in the meantime, land use law requires the Planning Board to continue its hearing of the Hovnanian application pending the outcome of the state’s ruling, Fenichel said on Monday. He added that Planning Board approval could be granted to the project contingent upon obtaining an approved sewerage treatment system.
The CST statement said that only one township official had been seen in attendance at the March 30 hearing, and asked why more officials weren’t present on such an important issue for the township’s future.
©Recorder Newspapers 2006
Vice chairman, attorney step down from hearing development application
04/13/2006
By LINDA SADLOUSKOS Staff Writer
TEWKSBURY TWP. - An application to build a mix of 175 age-restricted and affordable housing units south of Route 78 is on the agenda for the Planning Board’s meeting next Wednesday, April 19, pending the board’s ability to find another attorney to guide the board through the hearing.
Citing a situation that could be perceived a conflict of interest, the board’s vice chairman, William Mennen, and Board Attorney Daniel Bernstein stepped down from hearing the application at last Wednesday’s meeting of the board.
Bernstein, the Planning Board’s attorney, said Mennen had raised the issue after the applicant’s attorney introduced an environmental consultant from the firm of Ecol Sciences Inc. to present testimony on the housing development by K. Hovnanian Homes which is planned along both sides of Route 523 just south of the Route 78 interchange.
In his profession as attorney, Mennen, who was working with Bernstein, had some time ago employed Ecol Sciences of Rockaway in a legal matter regarding Somerset Airport, Bernstein explained last Friday.
Although Ecol Sciences had earlier been on Hovnanian’s roster of experts who would testify on the proposed Rockaway Village project, Bernstein said that he had not connected the two cases in his mind before last Wednesday’s meeting, when Mennen raised the issue.
Douglas Fenichel, a spokesman for K. Hovnanian Homes, said last Thursday that the applicant was planning to continue the hearing process and presenting testimony before the Planning Board with the assumption that, "Things will continue to go forward on schedule."
Fenichel said he understood that the board was actively seeking a new attorney to preside at the hearings for the proposed Hovnanian project. He added that a site walk of the property is still scheduled for Saturday, April 22. Interested residents should contact the Planning Board office beforehand, he said.
Tewksbury’s Land Use Administrator Shana Crane confirmed last Friday that the application remained on the agenda for Wednesday, April 19, unless it was removed because of the lack of counsel by the next scheduled Planning Board meeting on that date.
But a statement issued last Sunday by Citizens to Save Tewksbury (CST), a group of residents who have been following the hearings on the Hovnanian proposal, called the series of hearings before the Planning Board since Feb. 1, "disjointed, difficult, frustrating and costly to everyone."
Basil Hone, a member of CST, said the citizens had hired the environmental consulting firm Thonet Associates, and had paid for representatives from that firm to sit through a few meetings at which scheduled speakers were switched around, and opportunities to question the applicant’s experts were lost.
Hovnanian’s application to undertake a 175-unit inclusionary housing development south of Route 78 has "given rise to more public concern than any other township development. The level of the public’s desire to participate with well researched and knowledgeable testimony is unprecedented," according to the statement from CST.
The Planning Board’s "changes or attempts to change the procedures which the public is ordered to comply with disturbing frequency, leaving concerned residents without expertise in land use law with the uncomfortable feeling that they may not be given a full opportunity to be heard. CST trusts the Planning Board will be as mindful and respectful of the public’s right to participation in the proceedings as the Board must accord to applicants," the statement continued.
The issue of another possible conflict of interest had been raised the previous month, after environmental consultant James Cosgrove testified on the issue of whether a possible change in status of a state wastewater treatment discharge issued for an office project years earlier to Bellemead Corp. would affect the project’s ability to be built.
At the next meeting, the question was raised of a conflict of interest because a member of Cosgrove’s firm had previously been employed as a consultant for Tewksbury Township.
Bernstein said that the board and its counsel had chosen to err on the side of caution in even avoiding the appearance of a conflict so as not to jeopardize the board’s position in ruling on the application. "We are playing it extraordinarily conservative" in avoiding the appearance of a conflict of interest, Bernstein said.
In its statement, CST said that Mennen or Bernstein should have been aware of the conflict since Ecol Sciences had been hired months ago for the Hovnanian application.
Bernstein said the issues of potential conflicts have been coincidental and that the name of the firm "didn’t register" while he was providing legal counsel in the two separate cases.
The Planning Board had also spent time during several hearings discussing another possible snafu in the proceedings, the state’s potential revocation of a wastewater treatment discharge permit previously issued to Bellemead Corporation for a treatment plant that would discharge into the Readington side of the North Branch of the Rockaway Creek.
Partially because the proposed change in use for the property, the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) is considering revoking the permit that had been issued in 1998. Hovnanian has maintained that the permit file had been updated to include information on the new project and meet newer environmental standards and that, even if the permit is revoked, the developer should be able to obtain a new permit.
Public input at a hearing on the issue of the permit sponsored by the state DEP at the Old Turnpike School on Thursday, March 30, was overwhelmingly against the continuation of the permit, residents said.
Fred Mumford, a spokesman for the DEP, said on Monday that the state would now need to consider the public comments and documentation submitted on March 30. Mumford said he could not speculate on how long the DEP’s analysis would continue.
The public can still submit written reports on the subject to the DEP until this Friday, April 14.
Additional information is available by calling DEP’s environmental regulations section at 609-292-4864, Mumford said.
However, in the meantime, land use law requires the Planning Board to continue its hearing of the Hovnanian application pending the outcome of the state’s ruling, Fenichel said on Monday. He added that Planning Board approval could be granted to the project contingent upon obtaining an approved sewerage treatment system.
The CST statement said that only one township official had been seen in attendance at the March 30 hearing, and asked why more officials weren’t present on such an important issue for the township’s future.
©Recorder Newspapers 2006
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