Town square plan hearing postponed

Sides disappointed; applicant misses

public notice deadline

By elaine van develde

Staff Writer

ust when they thought it was on, it’s off again. So goes the latest turn of events surrounding the upcoming Middletown Zoning Board hearing on the proposed Route 35 town square.

Right at the final hour on Thursday, the first board hearing, slated for tomorrow night at Middletown High School South, was canceled with no new date set.

The reason for the postponement: improper notification of the hearing to the public.

The applicant, Mountain Hill Group LLC, failed to publish a newspaper notice 10 days prior to the hearing as required by state law, a township press release said. That same release also said that, given the circumstance, the board had no recourse but to cancel the meeting.

"I think we all would have preferred to go forward with the hearing," said Anthony Mercantante, township planning director. "However, it’s not a matter of choice; it’s a matter of legality."

The hearing would have focused on whether township-based developer Mountain Hill should be allowed to expand the planned development zone on land it owns from 85 to 137 acres. Currently, 85 of the 137 acres — bordering Route 35 north from Kings Highway East to Kanes Lane — are zoned for planned development use while the remaining 52 are zoned M-1, or light industrial use. Mountain Hill plans to build a $150 million, 137-acre mixed-use development on the site.

When conceptual plans for the center were released more than a year ago, developer intentions were declared and controversy ensued. However, the actual use variance application had not been officially deemed complete until now.

The canceled meeting would have been the official time to get complaints and kudos on the record. Public hearings were to start at Middletown High School South to accommodate an anticipated large crowd.

Through a broadcast e-mail, Mountain Hill’s attorney, Gary Fox of Fox and Gemma, Ocean, said the hearing is expected to be rescheduled within the next two weeks, but had to "be postponed because the required paid advertisement (noticing residents about the hearing) had been received at the Asbury Park Press at 5:15 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 15, but was not handled by the newspaper staff until Monday, Feb. 18 , the date it was to be published."

Fox’s e-mail reiterated that there is a 10-day prior publishing requirement by law concerning such a public meeting. The e-mail document also said that Mountain Hill "has been eager to present its plan before the Zoning Board for the past year. "Unfortunately, there is no choice but to reschedule until mid-March," the e-mail read.

Though Fox claimed the delay was unintentional, the Concerned Citizens of Middletown, the grassroots group that has rallied against the center from its conceptual inception, see the delay in a different light.

"This is typical of the way they (Mountain Hill) have operated since the beginning. Nothing has ever been done right," said Linda Gumina, Concerned Citizens’ secretary. "They say they’ve been waiting anxiously to have their official plans heard, yet they missed a critical deadline to advertise the hearings. Mr. Fox is a land-use attorney. I can’t honestly believe that he wasn’t aware of the legal boundaries and deadlines for advertising a public hearing. He should know how to follow proper procedure. Maybe [he was] hoping for preferential treatment so this thing (application) could be rammed down the public’s throats without a chance for them to prepare or think. We knew they had to notice people, why didn’t they know?"

Not only was the pending rescheduling annoying to the Concerned Citizens, it was costly and inconvenient, Gumina said. Some "5,000 plus postcards were sent out on Tuesday [Feb. 19] alerting group members to the Zoning Board hearing," she said, which cost the group an estimated $500 for printing and mailing costs.

Concerned Citizens still plans to hold a membership meeting at 6:30 p.m. tomorrow at the Middletown Library on New Monmouth Road. They had planned to hold it prior to the Zoning Board hearing.

Speaking on the group’s behalf, Gumina said she can’t help but think the missed deadline is a stalling tactic considering the fact that the application was supposed to be complete in November and a first hearing was purported to take place then.

The application remained incomplete until Jan. 25. In line with the state Municipal Land Use Law, there is a 120-day timeline in which an application must be heard.

Mercantante said last week that the deadline oftentimes is stretched at the request of both a township and a developer in cases of a controversial, large development.

While no new date has yet been set for the hearing, Concerned Citizens said that some apparent land excavation is going on on the site of the town center. The property owners are tree farmers.

Gumina said that when inquiries to the township were made about the activity, the answer was that such activity is considered within the bounds of tree farming.

"This is different," Gumina said on Monday morning. "They’re moving huge piles of dirt out there. As far as I know, that’s not tree farming. We know what tree farming is. They’ve been doing that for years on the property. This is much different.

"There are bulldozers and a lot of dirt being moved around right in back of John Simonian’s (Concerned Citizens vice president) house. It looks an awful lot like they’re trying to change typography, not knock down trees," she said. "If they really are doing excavation, and it sure looks that way, then it’s just a part of a recurrent theme with Mountain Hill. They’re just moving on ahead without a thought."

Planning Director Anthony Mercantante said on Monday that the township’s "building department is checking on that today. The property owners do have a farmland assessment for woodlands management, an official term for cutting down trees. Because of the farmland assessment, the owners are required by the state to complete a certain amount of tree removal each year.

"This is characteristically the time of year in which that is done. Still, in light of the complaints by neighbors and the claim of unusual activity, we will be certain to check into it today," Mercantante said.