EMERSON—The borough will pursue condemnation of the long-stalled Emerson Station redevelopment and bring in a new builder after terminating Emerson Redevelopers Urban Renewal as the borough’s official redeveloper. The Borough Council voted 5-0 on Sept. 2 to revoke the company’s designation.
Mayor Danielle DiPaola told Pascack Press Sept. 4, “The Borough plans to protect the taxpayers by proceeding with condemnation and moving ahead with a new developer that has yet to be chosen. Any new developer would be required to comply with agreed-upon affordable housing third-round requirements.”
The mixed-use downtown project was supposed to deliver 29 affordable units between 2015 and 2025 — 22 on-site and seven off-site — but progress has been beset by delays and disputes.
Borough attorney John McCann said the redeveloper ignored a July 31 Notice of Default that gave it 30 days to respond. “The defaults are many in the agreement, regardless of what their position is,” McCann said. “They have not made any good-faith efforts to ameliorate the simple sharing of information and paper stuff that could have been sent to us, files, information, anything. Zero.”
Instead, he said, the redeveloper asked for a meeting with the court over prior litigation that has already been resolved. “That was really outside the scope of the demand placed upon the redeveloper by the Notice of Default,” McCann said.
The borough has also filed a Notice of Termination, charging that the redeveloper failed to pay property taxes for the past year and missed its construction deadlines.
“From a legal perspective they have been put on notice. There is no ability to ‘cure’ the termination because they were terminated for two purposes,” McCann said Aug. 19. “We are well past the time period they had to construct the project.”
Editor’s note: This updates Michael Olohan’s Sept. 3 exclusive, “Revoked! ERUR no longer borough’s redeveloper,” posted Sept. 3.