September 21, 2011 THE VILLADOM TIMES IV • Page 5 Mahwah Crossroads objectors press township to take action by Frank J. McMahon Members of the Committee to Stop Mahwah Mall have asked both the Mahwah Council and the township’s planning board to either reject the Crossroads site plan application that was recently filed by Crossroads Developers LLC, or to seek a declaratory judgment in Superior Court to determine if the developer should be barred from proceeding with the application. Specifically, CSMM asked the council to pass a resolution calling on the planning board to reject the site plan application. The council has decided not to act on the committee’s request for legal reasons, and the planning board has decided not to act until it receives a legal opinion from its attorney. Mike Richards and Susan Chin presented CSMM’s request for a resolution to the council. Richards and Chin helped organize CSMM group along with several other residents who oppose the rezoning of the Crossroads property and the development of the land into a retail mall with big box stores, professional office space, a 10-plex theater, and recreation fields. Richards emphasized that the council’s intent when it adopted the ordinance that repealed the rezoning ordinances was to overturn the zoning change. He urged the council to “live up to your integrity and do what is right.” Chin told the council the developer circumvented the will of the people by rushing to submit the site plan before the council repealed the rezoning ordinances. She asked the governing body to advise the planning board that the council would be supportive if they chose to reject the Crossroads application and not even hear it. Council President John Roth responded to the residents by explaining that the planning board is an autonomous body, and the council cannot direct that board. “I can’t think of a stronger statement to the planning board or anyone else,” Roth said speaking of the council’s vote to repeal the rezoning ordinances. Other members of the council also voiced concern about the legal ramifications of trying to influence the planning board. The council later went into a 15-minute closed session with Township Attorney John Conte to discuss the ramifications of agreeing to such a request. Following that closed session, Roth advised the public that, based on the attorney’s advice, the council would not pass the requested resolution because it would not be appropriate to do so. Richards, Chin, and the other CSMM members also pressed the planning board at its last public meeting to reject the site plan outright or to file a lawsuit asking a Superior Court judge if the township is entitled to an “equitable exception” to the new Time of Application Rule. That rule requires a site plan to be reviewed according to the zoning that is in effect for a property when a site plan is submitted, as opposed to the previous Time of Decision Rule, which required an application to be reviewed according to the zoning in effect when a land use board makes a decision on the site plan. Richards read a letter from the group’s attorney, Michael Kates, asking the planning board to reject the application on the basis of the “equitable exceptions” in the Time of Application Rule inasmuch as the application was submitted by the developer one day before the ordinances that changed the zoning of the property to retail were repealed by the council. The exceptions Kates referred to were explained by Stuart Koenig, a noted land use attorney and senior associate counsel to the New Jersey League of Municipalities, who wrote about the Time of Application Rule in a published article. In that article, Koenig points out that several “equitable exceptions” created by the courts for developers under the previous Time of Decision Rule may now be available to municipalities under the Time of Application Rule. Koenig used an example, similar to the situation in Mahwah, where a developer, aware that an ordinance is about to change, engages in a race of diligence in an effort to defeat the public good by submitting an application for development prior to the completion of the lengthy process required for adopting such an ordinance. “It may very well be that the equitable exceptions created by the courts for developers under the Time of Decision Rule may now be available to municipalities, and the public at large, under the Time of Application Rule,” Koenig stated. One of the other speakers at both the council and planning board meetings was George Cimis, who has 40 years of experience on the township’s zoning board of adjustment. He explained to the council and the board that the determination of the completeness of the site plan is critical in order to decide if the site plan was legally submitted (continued on page 6)