News from Skylands CLEAN, Inc.

Developer regains Highlands approval

Friday, July 25, 2008
BY PAULA SAHA
Star-Ledger Staff

A three-judge panel of a state appeals court yesterday upheld a lower court ruling affirming a developer's approvals to build 104 townhouses in West Milford.

Before building, however, developer Trammell Crow Residential, or TCR, will need to get an extension on its exemption from the 2004 Highlands Act, a state law that restricted development in a huge swath of northern New Jersey. The townhouse site is in the Highlands preservation area, where development faces the greatest restrictions.

TCR originally was deemed exempt from the Highlands Act be cause its approvals predated the law, said the firm's attorney, Jonathan I. Epstein. But the exemption expired last year, while challenges from West Milford Township and the environmental organization Skylands CLEAN wound through the courts.

Skylands CLEAN had questioned whether the plan's original approval, from the 1990s, was valid. Epstein said yesterday the original approvals were obtained by another developer, and TCR took over the project because it believed the approvals were valid. The West Milford planning board, he said, wrongly denied his client final site plan approval because of "political pressure" from objectors.

Robin O'Hearn, executive director of Skylands CLEAN, called the decision a "crushing blow for West Milford residents who have guarded their water supply so carefully for so many years." She said her group would continue to watch the project as TCR moves forward and seeks other approvals.

©2008 Star Ledger