BY GLORIA STRAVELLI
Staff Writer
Attorneys for Monmouth County Friends of Clearwater have countered legal maneuvering by the federal government aimed at keeping the environmental group from joining a suit seeking to protect Sandy Hook from private development.
In a motion filed Oct. 7 with the U.S. District Court in Trenton, attorneys for Clearwater asked the court to deny a motion by the U.S. Attorney’s Office asking the court to dismiss Clearwater’s motion to join other plaintiffs in a suit seeking to nullify a lease for historic buildings at Fort Hancock awarded to a developer by the National Park Service.
The cross motion was filed on behalf of Clearwater and Save Sandy Hook by Paul Josephson, attorney with the Princeton law firm of Hill Wallack.
The motion responds to the U.S. Attorney’s Sept. 13 motion asking the court to dismiss Clearwater’s bid to join other plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed against the National Park Service in December on the grounds that the court did not have jurisdiction over Clearwater’s claim.
In August, Josephson filed an amended complaint asserting Clearwater had standing to join other plaintiffs in the suit because it had been treated unfairly when the NPS refused to lease the environmental group its longtime headquarters building on Sandy Hook on the basis that Clearwater did not have the funding necessary to rehabilitate its building.
The motion sought to add the environmental group as a plaintiff in the suit brought by Save Sandy Hook (SSH), a grassroots group opposed to commercial development on Sandy Hook, and James Coleman, a trustee of SSH.
In the cross motion filed Oct. 7, Josephson argued on behalf of Clearwater and Save Sandy Hook that the government’s argument that Clearwater was a “disappointed bidder” in a lease procurement was “outrageous.”
He said the NPS inspector general and the General Accounting Office had previously rejected challenges to the awarding of a lease to private developer Sandy Hook Partners, saying the lease wasn’t a procurement, but was carried out under the NPS’s historic leasing authority.
“By taking that nonprocurement position, the government was able to avoid administrative review,” the motion argues. “Now they seek to reverse course to evade judicial review as well.”
Josephson also rejected the U.S. Attorney’s argument that SSH and Clearwater lack standing because they have not been injured by the decision to privatize a portion of Sandy Hook.
“Clearly, SSH and Clearwater and the thousands of users they represent will be injured if SHP proceeds to privatize,” the motion continues, “especially under this ill-conceived and economically untenable plan.”
The lawsuit filed in December seeks to nullify the 60-year lease the NPS awarded to Sandy Hook Partners in July 2004 to redevelop 36 historic buildings at Fort Hancock and sublease them for a mix of uses. The suit claims the NPS altered terms of the RFP giving SHP an unfair advantage over other bidders, including Clearwater, by allowing the developer to provide financial commitments after the lease was executed.
Defendants in the lawsuit are the U.S. Department of the Interior, the National Park Service, NPS Northeast Regional Director Marie Rust, who signed the lease, SHP and its affiliate Wassel Realty Group Inc., and the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, whose commissioner, Bradley Campbell, is the state’s Historic Preservation Officer.
The NPS issued a Request for Proposals (RFP) for the leasing of Fort Hancock properties in 1999 and received 23 bids, including Clearwater’s proposal to lease Building 11, its longtime headquarters at Fort Hancock for an education and conference center.
The agency executed a Letter of Intent indicating it would award a lease to Sandy Hook Partners (SHP) in November 2001. Since that date, the agency has granted seven extensions of the time period during which the developer is required to demonstrate that sufficient financing had been secured for phase one of the redevelopment project.
The NPS signed a lease with SHP in July 2004, without the developer providing proof of firm financing commitments.
The suit claimed the NPS altered terms of the RFP, giving SHP an unfair advantage over bidders by allowing the developer to provide financial commitments after the lease was awarded when the RFP required proof of ability to finance the project.
Also, it said the NPS allowed SHP to show financing for only the first phase of the project and added four buildings and 293 parking spaces not stipulated in the RFP.
The plaintiffs also assert the park service is not requiring SHP to pay fair market value rent, that the project can have up to 70 percent commercial usage of the buildings, and that the lease does not assure historic preservation of the historic properties.
It claims the commercial use would degrade Sandy Hook, where threatened and endangered species live, and violate the National Environmental Protection Act.