February 20, 2013 THE VILLADOM TIMES IV • Page 3 Mahwah Crossroads hearing to continue without ruling by Frank J. McMahon The Mahwah Planning Board’s public hearing of the Crossroads Town Center application is expected to continue Feb. 25, despite the fact that Superior Court Judge Alexander Carver III has not yet issued a ruling in the two lawsuits filed by the Committee to Stop the Mahwah Mall and Crossroads Developers, LLC. Crossroads Developers, LLC plans to construct a 600,000 square foot retail center on the site with two big box stores, a 10-plex theater, 200,000 square feet of retail shops along a pedestrian oriented corridor, and an athletic field. The subject property is the 140-acre International Crossroads site at the intersection of Route 17 and I-287. The public hearing of the site plan before the planning board began in January 2012 and has been pending while the lawsuits were being heard in court. The ruling from Judge Carver could come at any time, although, according to the attorneys in the case, there is no time requirement for the judge to issue his decision. The case was argued in court on Sept. 21. Attorneys for both groups and for the township and the planning board argued their positions at that time. Judge Carver directed the attorneys to provide him with findings of fact and points of law by Oct. 12, 2012. He said he would review those submissions before issuing his ruling in both lawsuits. Next week, the planning board is expected to hear testimony from a Crossroads traffic engineer about the plan for the internal traffic at the mall. The board previously heard testimony about a new plan for external traffic to access the site at its public meeting in December. The new external traffic access plan included the elimination of the mall access at Leisure Lane. The main entrance to the mall would be at the Crossroads North entrance, which is farther north on Route 17 past the Mountainside Road overpass. It also contains a new cloverleaf ramp for traffic exiting the mall at the intersection of Mountainside and Cross roads to reach Route 17 South without using the Stag Hill Road intersection. The Mahwah Council changed the zoning of the property from office park use to retail use on March 31, 2011. The Committee to Stop the Mahwah Mall, a group of Mahwah residents who object to the Crossroads plan, has challenged that decision in court. The council repealed that rezoning ordinance on Sept. 1, 2011. The developer filed suit against the township in an effort to nullify the repealing ordianance. In the lawsuit filed by the objectors, Michael Kates, the attorney for Committee to Stop the Mahwah Mall, argued that former Mahwah Councilman John DaPuzzo should have recused himself from the vote to introduce the ordinance to rezone the Crossroads property in February 2011 because his wife was the township’s director of recreation at the time. The developer’s plan called for donating an athletic field to the township as part of this project, a fact Kates argued created a conflict of interest. Kates also noted that DaPuzzo is a founding member of the Mahwah Schools Foundation and had continuously served as an MSF trustee for approximately 12 years, during which time he was aware that Crossroads Developers, LLC contributed $5,000 per year to the foundation from 2000 (continued on page 21)