BY JOYCE BLAY
Staff Writer
The Jackson Planning Board on Monday denied an application filed by developer Mitch Leigh seeking final approval of a 130-home subdivision known as Leigh at Jackson. The board refused to hear the application after Leigh failed to provide three reports he was told would be required at that time.
The proposed subdivision was part of a 1989 preliminary approval for 1,641 homes.
Board members had given the applicant 60 days from Aug. 16 in which to provide an updated environmental impact statement and traffic report, as well as a stormwater management report, which was not required in 1989.
Attorney Ray Shea, representing the applicant, said he had an updated traffic report but that it had not been sent to the township. He said Leigh had refused to provide the stormwater management plan since he contended that the preliminary approval in 1989 had grandfathered the right not to provide one.
Shea based his legal argument on the case of Toll Broth-ers vs. the Planning Board of Pohatcong, according to Pat-rick Sheehan, the board’s attorney.
Sheehan said the Toll Brothers case established the precedent that a planning board is required to hear an application if it is received before a prior approval expires, even if the hearing takes place after the approval has expired.
Leigh’s preliminary approval for the balance of the 1,641 homes that the board granted in 1989 expired last year. His application for the 130-home subdivision was submitted before that date.
In 2002, Leigh proposed using the preliminary approval to build Towne Centre, a town-within-a-town concept that would have combined a residential component for 5,400 residential units with a commercial component and an artists village.
Township Committee members publicly said they would refuse to rezone the municipality to enable Leigh to build that many homes.
As a result, Leigh submitted a separate application to the Zoning Board of Adjustment for preliminary approval of Jackson Commons, a 2.9-million-square-foot commercial development on East Commodore and West Commodore boulevards and Cedar Swamp Road that would have been the commercial component of Towne Centre. The zoning board may vote on the Jackson Commons application this month.
Leigh submitted a separate application to the Planning Board for final approval of a 130-home subdivision known as Leigh at Jackson, the former residential component of Towne Centre. Leigh at Jackson is on West Commodore Boulevard, across the street from the proposed Jackson Commons.
“You made it very clear” you would supply the reports, Deputy Mayor Joseph Grisanti told Shea on Monday. “I don’t know if we should grant any more time. We gave the applicant his chance. I’d like to make a motion to deny” the application.
Grisanti went on to say that an article in the Aug. 26 Tri-Town News had not indicated why he had requested that the Leigh at Jackson application be carried for 60 days, even though other board members had stated in the article that the application was being carried due to a lack of the three reports Leigh had failed to provide at the Aug. 16 meeting.
In a letter to the editor that appeared in the Sept. 3 Tri-Town News, Grisanti said he wanted to close any legal loopholes. He denied that the complaint was in any way related to his current re-election bid to the Township Committee.
Prior to the board’s vote on Monday, Shea made an appeal to members not to deny the application. He indicated that Leigh would seek legal redress based on the Toll Brothers decision.
“[Then] let a judge decide,” said board Chairman Marvin Krakower.
Planning Board engineer Ernie Peters said that a checklist of other requirements had not been provided by the applicant either, including waivers or submissions granted by state or local agencies.
“If you deny this application we’ll never have the chance” to submit them, Shea said.
Krakower said the environmental impact statement was the only item that had been received, which made the application incomplete.
However, Grisanti said the application was complete or the board would not have scheduled it to be heard.
“This is a motion to deny,” he said. “We just required updated reports” which the applicant did not provide.
The board voted unanimously to deny the Leigh at Jackson application.
After the vote was taken, residents in the audience applauded the action.
Tom Bovino, a spokesman for Leigh Realty, said as he was leaving, “We’re disappointed. That’s the only comment we have.”