Mahwah October 3, 2012 THE VILLADOM TIMES IV • Page 5 Judge puts retail mall at legal crossroads by Frank J. McMahon The fate of the Crossroads Developers LLC retail mall is in the hands of Superior Court Judge Alexander Carver III and the future of the project is literally at a crossroads. Crossroads Developers LLC is currently presenting site plans to the Mahwah Planning Board to construct a 600,000 square foot retail center on the site with two big box stores, a tenplex theater, 200,000 square feet of retail shops along a pedestrian corridor, and an athletic field. The subject property is the 140-acre International Crossroads site at the intersection of Routes 17 and 287. On March 31, 2011, the zoning of the property was changed from office park use to retail use. That decision by the Mahwah Township Council is being challenged in Superior Court by the Committee to Stop the Mahwah Mall, a group of residents who object to the construction of a retail mall on the Crossroads site. The council repealed the rezoning ordinances on Sept. 1, 2011, and that action is also being challenged in Superior Court. That lawsuit was filed by the developer against the township seeking to nullify that repeal. At the trial of those lawsuits on Sept. 21, Judge Carver listened to about two hours of oral arguments from Michael Kates, the attorney for Committee to Stop the Mahwah Mall; James Jaworski, the attorney for Crossroads Developers LLC; Andrew Fede, Mahwah’s township attorney; and Peter Scandariato, the Mahwah Planning Board attorney regarding the two lawsuits. He gave all the attorneys until Oct. 12 to provide him with findings of fact and points of law, which he will review before issuing his ruling in both lawsuits. The fate of the retail mall, therefore, is currently unresolved. The primary argument made by Kates was that former Mahwah Councilman John DaPuzzo should have recused himself from the vote to introduce the rezoning ordinance in February 2011 because DaPuzzo’s wife is the township’s director of recreation and the developer’s plan called for donating an athletic field to the township as part of this project. Kates said the field donation created a conflict of interest. Kates cited case law to support his argument and pointed out that the question of a potential conflict was raised when the rezoning ordinance was introduced, and yet, he said, DaPuzzo cast the deciding vote to introduce the rezoning ordinance. He also pointed out that DaPuzzo is a founding member of the Mahwah Schools Foundation and has continuously served as a trustee for approximately 12 years and he was aware that Crossroads Developers LLC contributed $5,000 per year to the foundation from 2000 through 2010. Those donations placed the developer in the highest category of donors, Kates said, and he claimed DaPuzzo served on various committees of the foundation, including one that sent mailings to corporations soliciting contributions of services, monies, and property. “A member of the public could reasonably infer that John DaPuzzo’s vote was influenced by the donations made by Crossroads to the foundation,” Kates argued, adding that DaPuzzo was deeply committed to the foundation’s success. “It is not unreasonable to assume that Crossroads’ generosity toward the foundation may have influenced DaPuzzo’s objectivity,” Kates said, noting that the donations to the foundation stopped in 2011 after the rezoning ordinance was enacted. “Even if the donations were not intended to influence DaPuzzo,” Kates argued, “they had the ‘likely capacity’ to (continued on page 12)