By Mike Deak, MyCentralJersey.com
March 20, 2023
The township will be fighting a courtroom battle on many fronts in defense of its ordinance restricting warehouse development within its borders.
The Township Council and Planning Board are facing three lawsuits challenging the ordinance first adopted in 2022 and amended in February.
One of the lawsuits in Superior Court in Somerset County consolidated six separate suits into one.
Two other lawsuits challenging the ordinance are not in the consolidated case before Judge Kevin Shanahan.
The judge has denied a motion by the Township Council and Planning Board to dismiss the consolidated case.
In answers to the lawsuits, attorneys for the Township Council and Planning Board deny allegations their actions in enacting the ordinance were “arbitrary and capricious and unreasonable” but were in accordance with state laws.
The ordinance was adopted in 2022 after residents’ opposition to the development of warehouses grew and protests were held.
Since 2018, more than two dozen applications for warehouses totaling several million square feet have been made in Somerset County’s largest and most populous municipality as e-commerce increased.
In 2020, the Township Council adopted an ordinance creating a new Business-Industrial (B-I) Zone that allowed warehouse development and included extensive requirements regulating their construction to reduce impact on residential areas.
That ordinance, according to the lawsuits, was supported by the Planning Board approval of a Master Plan amendment that addressed increases in office vacancies and was intended “to encourage commercial and industrial development in areas with access to major regional highways (Interstate 287) and in established areas” by permitting warehouse development.
But 18 months later in July 2022, the Township Council introduced an amendment to the ordinance to change warehouses from a permitted use to a conditional use with “significant” conditions.
The lawsuit charges that the township “did not provide any data or studies to document any adverse impacts resulting from warehouse development.”
After that ordinance was adopted, the first lawsuit was filed, followed by others, arguing the ordinance was “contrary” to the 2020 Master Plan amendment.
Then in December 2022, the Township Council introduced another amendment to the ordinance which eliminated warehouses as a permitted or conditional use in the B-I Zone.
In January, the Planning Board adopted an amendment to the Master Plan to remove warehouse development as a permitted use in the B-I Zone. The Planning Board also found that the amended ordinance was not inconsistent with the new Master Plan amendment.
The lawsuit charges that the Planning Board adopted the Master Plan amendment without “any studies, reports or analysis” that supported it.
The update, the lawsuit charges, “was prepared in a cursory and expedited manner, without any input from landowners and businesses that will be directly affected by this dramatic change in zoning.”
The change, the lawsuit charges, “constituted a drastic reversal of the township’s land use policy without any planning process. No studies or empirical evidence were provided to support the drastic changes.”
The Township Council, despite “strenuous” opposition from impacted property owners, adopted the ordinance Feb. 14.
Plaintiffs in the consolidated case are SHI International; Northern Nurseries Inc.; MCS Franklin II; PES Franklin II; LLL 46; Toranco Executive I, II and II; Onyx 1718; North Washington and Helaine Heller Marital Trust.
Also filing suits were 5 Belmont Associates and El-Ion Franklin.
Email: mdeak@mycentraljersey.com