Appellate Court will hear appeal of 3 Monarch Towers cases on Feb. 28

In 2011, when the Shipyard Associates first proposed the Monarch Towers project, immediate opposition arose from the City of Hoboken, the Fund for a Better Waterfront (FBW) and neighborhood residents. Nearly six years later and after settlement talks between the City and developer has faltered, the protracted legal battle continues. Next month, four of the five cases will be taken up by the courts.

On February 6, 2017, Hudson County Assignment Judge Peter Bariso will convene attorneys representing plaintiff Shipyard Associates and defendants City of Hoboken, Hudson Tea Building Condo Association and FBW in a case management conference. The Shipyard Associates have challenged the amended flood ordinance adopted by the City of Hoboken that prohibits building residential projects on piers over the Hudson River.

In 1997, the Hoboken Planning Board approved the 1160-unit Shipyard Project on 9 acres at Hoboken’s northeastern waterfront. Those approvals also included a developers’ agreement with the City of Hoboken. Once the Shipyard Associates built the first six parcels of this project , including all the residential units approved, they were required to build the final parcel — Development Block G — as open space including tennis courts, a tennis pavilion and the final segment of the Shipyard’s Hudson River Waterfront Walkway.

But in 2011, the Shipyard Associates, brothers Michael and David Barry, reneged on the 1997 Planning Board approvals and developers agreement by proposing instead to build two 11-story residential towers on this final parcel.

One of the appeals coming before the Appellate Court on February 28th concerns the City’s suit against Shipyard to enforce the developers’ agreement. Hudson County Judge Patrick Arre dismissed the City suit in favor of Shipyard Associates. One of the key arguments that will be made by FBW attorney Renee Steinhagen of New Jersey Appleseed Public Interest Law Center is that the circumstances pertaining to the Shipyard development had not changed significantly and thus Judge Arre’s ruling was made in error.

The second appeal pertains to a January 2014 ruling by lower court Judge Nestle Rodriguez that granted automatic approval for the Monarch Project claiming that the Hoboken Planning Board was out of time to make a ruling on the application. This was a highly controversial ruling as it is a part of the state’s Municipal Land Use Law that is rarely invoked. The Hoboken Planning Board attorney argued that the board was not in fact out of time. FBW’s attorney also pointed out that the Monarch application was not complete, a requirement for the clock to start running on any application deadlines.

The third appeal coming up before the same panel of Appellate judges on February 28th concerns the denial of the Monarch application before the Hudson County Planning Board and Board of Chosen Freeholders. These denials were overturned in lower court and thus appealed by the Hudson Tea Building Condo Association. The City is not a party to this suit.

On February 28, 2017 at the Middlesex County Courthouse in New Brunswick, the Appellate Court will hear oral arguments in these appeals of three lower court rulings. These three appeals will be heard by the same panel of judges.

In February 2014, the Shipyard Associates filed suit against the City of Hoboken in an attempt to overturn Hoboken’s amended flood and corresponding zoning ordinances adopted in December of 2013. The suit was filed in United States District Court in Newark, New Jersey. The City passed these ordinances in response to Superstorm Sandy, and in conformance with newly adopted federal and state standards to protect communities from flood hazards. The ordinances prohibit residential development on piers and platforms over the Hudson River; thus, the Monarch Towers proposal is in violation of these laws.