Roseland appeals several of the town’s permitting conditions

In a surprise move that town attorney Mark Bobrowski believes has everything to do with the upcoming ballot initiative to repeal 40B, the Roseland Property Company — the New Jersey developer that recently won the right to build a major housing project off Randolph Street following a lengthy legal battle — has decided to appeal the town’s permitting conditions to the state Housing Appeals Committee.

Although Bobrowski did not seem overly concerned with the news, he said the conditions that the zoning board placed on the developer last month after exhausting all of its legal options are fairly common in affordable housing cases and rarely appealed. What’s more, he said the nature of Roseland’s appeal seems to indicate that the company is in a rush to obtain a building permit, which suggests it might be trying to protect itself in the event that ballot Question 2 passes in November.

Under the terms of the proposed repeal, developers holding affordable housing permits would stand to lose them if they do not have a building permit for at least one unit of housing in hand by January 1, 2011.

Bobrowski said Roseland is objecting to several of the town’s conditions, but is principally opposed to the ZBA’s insistence on final plans for the entire 220-unit development — including a “full, definitive rendering” of the project’s storm water management facility — before any building permits can be issued.

“The board is entitled to a final set of plans,” said Bobrowski, who has made this request on behalf of dozens of communities and has never once encountered an objection. “It’s a standard condition. It’s the nature of the beast.”

Of course, every case is different, and Bobrowski expects Roseland to point to the fact that its project includes two separate components: a 196-unit apartment complex and a subdivision with 24 single-family homes. He said they will likely argue that definitive plans should not be required of both from the outset; in that case, he said the town would be “perfectly happy to break [the approval process] into components.”

However, Bobrowski said it would violate the spirit of the condition if Roseland attempted to secure approval for one single-family home at a time, especially because a single building permit would be enough to preserve the entire 40B project even if the affordable housing law is ultimately repealed.

At this point, however, Canton has few other options than to wait for the hearing, which Bobrowski said should be scheduled within the next few weeks. ZBA Chairman Paul Carroll said town officials are also planning to meet with Roseland representatives beforehand, although he would not speculate on the nature of the meeting.

Bobrowski said Canton could appeal an unfavorable ruling by the Housing Appeals Committee, but only as it relates to the ZBA conditions. He said the town cannot fight to reject the project altogether as that decision has already been overruled multiple times, including twice by the state’s highest court.

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Note: Regarding the ZBA conditions reported by the Citizen last week, Bobrowski said the developer is not objecting to the town’s request for a traffic light at York and Randolph streets; however, he said the request for soccer fields, while discussed as a possible form of mitigation earlier in the negotiation process, has been “off the table” for quite some time.

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Posted by Jay Turner on Aug 5 2010. Filed under News, Town Government. Both comments and pings are currently closed.