FOR RELEASE WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 22, 2003

HOLLAND TOWNSHIP, N.J. – A local citizens group today served the Holland Township planning board and a Flemington-based developer with a legal complaint charging that preliminary approval of a major subdivision in Holland was illegal.

Filed with Hunterdon County Superior Court, the complaint charges that some planning board members had a conflict-of-interest, that the application did not meet ordinance requirements and would create serious environmental problems, and that the board is denying the public their right to participate by continuing to accept new evidence from the developer after the public hearings have been closed.

After preliminary approval was granted to Hunterdon Capital, LLC on October 14, 2002, for a 15-lot development on Shire Road in the mountainous Highlands region of Holland, the public learned that one member of the planning board was a legally-defined abutter to the proposed development, while a second member lived across the street from the first. The neighboring board members seem to have had a personal stake in the outcome since during the last of three nights of public hearing on this proposal, planning board members acknowledged on the record that there would be an increase in the value of homes adjacent to the new subdivision that will feature houses planned to sell for nearly a million dollars.

"It is fundamental, basic land-use law in New Jersey that a planning board member who lives within 200 feet of a project cannot vote on it, and must not participate in hearings," said Stuart Lieberman, attorney for the citizens group. "That did not happen here, and the law is clear that we need to start the hearings all over again. If this had been revealed earlier, instead of the last day, a lot of time and money could have been saved by everyone. It’s just wrong!"

The complaint also charges that the planning board failed to take into account that the proposed subdivision would create many environmental problems, including "drinking water quality and quantity issues, wetlands issues, historic preservation issues, runoff issues, and steep slope issues."

The citizens group contends that the planning board failed during the hearings to require the developer to show how his plans met the requirements of local ordinances and is now allowing after-the-fact submission of proof.

"The board is now allowing the developer to submit new evidence after they’ve already granted preliminary approval," said Michael Keady, president of Friends of Holland Highlands. "This is completely backward from the law’s requirements, and it favors the developer over the public’s right to see all the evidence so they could ask informed questions during the public hearings – plus, our experts’ testimony would have addressed this new evidence."

It was also revealed during the hearings that a stream adjacent to the development, into which a detention basin would spill, was actually a state-protected Category I Trout Production Steam, although this was initially denied by the developer’s experts. The board approved a plan for the owner of the lot with the detention basin to do all the maintenance on the basin, ignoring testimony from the opponents’ expert that such owner maintenance never works and will not satisfy the legal requirement that calls for "no measurable change" to the trout-breeding stream.

"We’re confident that this illegal approval will be overturned," said Keady. "Then local officials in Holland will have a second chance to do the right thing for the citizens of the township and join with conservation groups to purchase the property and preserve this important resource as open space. There are simply too many dangers to water quality, health, and the rural character of Holland for this property ever to be developed."

Friends of Holland Highlands is soliciting donations to their fund for paying the legal costs associated with this court challenge. Those interested in contributing can write the group at 130 Shire Road, Milford, N.J. 08848, or they can get information on the group’s Web site at www.hollandhighlands.org

Friends of Holland Highlands is a non-profit organization of 135 members who are mostly Holland Township citizens and have banded together in an attempt to bring to the attention of Holland’s planning board the special resource value, environmental fragility, and developmental ramifications and limitations of the Highlands that occur in Holland.

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