BY JOHN SNYDER
OF PASCACK PRESS
EMERSON, N.J.—A group of business owners has moved in Superior Court to file an appeal with the borough over its Land Use Board decision in the last days of 2018 that agreed to demolish their sites on Block 419 and pave them over with an ambitious downtown mixed use redevelopment project.
The appellants are Tanveer A. Hassan, owner of Sendai Japanese Restaurant and Grill; Ozturk Eren, owner of Cozy Cafe and Grill; Ryan C. Parkes, owner of Parke5 Catering; and Caiqui Zheng, owner of Laurel Chinese Restaurant II.
According to a copy of the civil action, the business owners say the LUB was “misguided” and misused New Jersey’s Local Redevelopment and Housing Law (LRHL) in its march to clear the way for its for-profit redevelopment partner on Kinderkamack Road between Lincoln Boulevard and Linwood Avenue within a larger Central Business District Redevelopment Area.
The LRHL authorizes the governing body of a municipality to declare an area of need of redevelopment in certain cases.
The entrepreneurs seek to undo the LUB resolution, memorialized Dec. 28, 2018, and signed by then-Land Use Board Chairman Gary Schwinder, and ask for “other further relief deemed equitable and just.”
Profiteering alleged
Hassan, filing Feb. 12 on behalf of the appellants, said the borough’s alleged “misuse” of the law’s application “was nothing more than an egregious act of profiteering of developers and would be a manifest injustice to allow our adversary to proceed at this time.”
The borough received the suit Feb. 14 and the governing body took up in closed session Feb. 19.
The redevelopment project spawned lawsuits from property owners Dolores Della Volpe and 214 Kinderkamack LLC, who objected to the borough defining their properties as “blighted” and “areas in need of redevelopment” back in 2004.
They also challenged the borough’s recourse to the affordable housing law.
Affected were properties housing the former Ranchero Cantina restaurant, the Cork & Keg liquor store, Ranch Cleaners, and the Cinar Turkish restaurant.
On Feb. 6, 2018, the council agreed, with Councilwoman—now mayor—Danielle DiPaola dissenting, to ready its eminent domain powers pursuant to a 2016 agreement with Emerson Redevelopers Urban Renewal, an affiliate of JMF Properties.
The redeveloper partner now is Lakewood-based Accurate Builders and Developers of New Jersey.
The property owners’ attorney, Richard DeAngelis, said after the vote that the borough had been arguing “vigorously but erroneously” that land taking is applicable because the redevelopment plan was amended to include affordable housing.
“The borough’s affordable housing argument is nothing more than a sham to try and take private property for a redevelopment project without having to defend against my clients’ legal challenges to the redevelopment designation,” he said.
DeAngelis told Pascack Press a week later that should Emerson prevail through eminent domain then it would be that much likelier that redevelopers across the state would be able to snap up land for profit “through eminent domain ordinance, which authority derives from the Legislature and is not intended for this use.”
In fall, saying they were exhausted by the fight and threat, the owners agreed to sell to ERUR.
Agreements were signed Oct. 27, 2018 by Deborah Agnello representing Della Volpe; Alexander Lapatka of 214 Kinderkamack; Lamatina; and developer Giuseppi Forgione of ERUR.
As part of the settlement, the property owners agreed that they would “not object to the Block 419 Project in any forum.”
The borough agreed that it would “not seek to acquire the property, or any portion thereof, by condemnation for any reason.”
Then-Mayor Louis Lamatina said tenants were promised help resettling in the borough if possible, though at least one complained to the council in December 2018 that they had not been approached.
Was the area stagnant?
The new suit cites a 2007 New Jersey Supreme Court decision, Gallenthin Realty Development v. Borough of Paulsboro, that overturned a redevelopment designation based on the “stagnant or not fully productive” criteria contained in that law.
The court said in that case that the New Jersey Constitution authorizes government redevelopment of only blighted areas and that the Legislature did not intend the criterion to apply in circumstances where the sole basis for redevelopment is that the property is not fully productive.
The subsection applies only to areas that, “as a whole, are stagnant and unproductive because of issues of title, diversity of ownership, or other similar conditions,” the decision reads in part.
The law requires that properties must be so designated before the government can take them for the public good in exchange for fair market value.
Lamatina argued up to his last day on the dais in 2018 that the borough’s hands were tied, seeing as how its settlement agreement with Fair Share Housing, “required” the borough redevelop Block 419 to accommodate 22 of 29 units of affordable housing.
Those set-asides (four one-bedroom units, 13 two-bedroom units, and five three-bedroom units) remain part of the four-story mixed use project, “Emerson Station.”
The remainder of the 147 apartments onsite are studios to three-bedrooms units, 14,700 square feet of retail space, and a garage offering four floors and rooftop parking.
In the 2016 redeveloper agreement, the Borough of Emerson said it would hand over property—its Block 419 Lot 7, now used as the Emerson Volunteer Ambulance Corps—for a “fair market value” of $500,000.
In exchange, the redeveloper agreed to construct an emergency municipal services building at its sole cost, up to $500,000.
The project, a 50-foot-tall “continuous street wall” as measured by its rising and falling parapets, links together inside to give renters access to a lobby, club, and fitness center.
A traffic engineer for ERUR said the project would make great use of its proximity to public transportation.
DiPaola voted against much of the thrust of the redevelopment project—notably its fourth story and the eminent domain provision—and campaigned for mayor as a foe of overdevelopment.
She told Pascack Press on Feb. 20 that she could not comment on the suit. She said she was still working to schedule a meeting with the redeveloper on tweaking their plans, and referred additional questions to Borough Attorney John McCann, who was on vacation at press time.
After the Dec. 4, 2018 LUB meeting, she told Pascack Press, “This project was purposefully accelerated to get everything locked down before the change in our government. It has tied up every loose end—as well as the hands of any future governing bodies.”
In the wake of the LUB granting the project preliminary and final approval following what observers suggested was an unprecedented lack of scrutiny into the redevelopers’ plans, many residents called for change.