(August 2000)

The City of Hoboken has filed suit against its neighboring municipality, the City of Jersey City, its Planning Board and Redevelopment Agency for approving the controversial $150 million, twin 43-story Millennium Towers project. Two civic organizations, the Coalition for a Better Waterfront and the Riverview Neighborhood Association, in a separate action, have also filed a complaint in opposition to the Millennium Towers development.

The two law suits charge that the City of Jersey City failed to provide testimony or studies that justified the amendments to the Jersey Avenue Redevelopment Plan that escalated building heights from 110 to 440 feet. Hoboken’s complaint submitted to Superior Court by Attorney Hugh B. McCluskey claims the amendment “was adopted solely for the benefit and under the pressure of defendant Millennium Towers, LLC and United Diversified, LLC.” The City of Hoboken also cited concerns about traffic that will be generated by this 551-unit project to be located less than 100 feet from the Hoboken border. Traffic from Millennium Towers would spill onto two of only three heavily used north-south thoroughfares, Grove Street and Jersey Avenue, that link Hoboken to Jersey City.

The Mayor and Council proceeded to amend the Jersey Avenue Redevelopment Plan on June 14, 2000 increasing the height limit four times the former standard of 110 feet and increasing the density permitted by 20%. On June 20, two weeks before the new ordinance was legally in effect, the Jersey City Planning Board approved the preliminary site plan application for Millennium Towers.

At the May 9, 2000 meeting, the Planning Board Chairman, Gerald Sheehan, contended that the amendments to the ordinance were not in response to any particular application. The complaint of the Coalition for a Better Waterfront and Riverview Neighborhood Association, however, points out that the development application for Millennium Towers was dated on February 9, 2000, over a month before the Planning Board first took up the issue of amending the redevelopment plan. The plaintiffs’ complaint states, “the developer had shot an arrow, and the City then proceeded to draw a bulls-eye around the arrow.”

Two municipal employees, Charles Tooke, on March 14 and Gerald Sheehan on May 9, chaired meetings of the Jersey City Planning Board that reviewed the amendments that benefited the Millennium Towers developers. According to the plaintiffs’ complaint this violated the Municipal Land Use Law which prevents municipal employees from serving as chair or vice-chair of planning boards. It is the intent of the state law to prevent employees of a city, particularly in this instance where a project is being vigorously supported by the City administration, from acting in a manner that might be viewed as partisan.

The complaint of the civic groups also site a conflict on the part of Planning Board member Carmelo J. Sita, a building trades union official who is also an officer of the Hudson County Laborers Pension Realty Corporation. Sita voted to approve the project and spoke in its favor. The complaint asserts that he and his employer could both stand to benefit from this project and he should have recused himself. Union pension fund money may also be providing the financial backing to build the Millennium Tower project. At the May 9 Planning Board meeting and again at the June 14 Council meeting that approved the amendments, building trades union members and union officials packed the council chambers and boisterously backed the Millennium Towers project.

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