Cottage Club tax case remanded to Superior Court

By Katie Wagner, Staff Writer
   In another chapter of the Cottage Club’s battle for tax-exempt status with the state and Princeton Borough, the New Jersey Supreme Court last week remanded a ruling sought by the eating club for Princeton University students to Superior Court.
   During the summer, Cottage Club, which is located on Prospect Avenue, made a motion for the Supreme Court to order the state Department of Environmental Protection to issue the Cottage Club a certificate granting it tax-exempt status as a historic site.
   Last week, the Supreme Court denied the motion without prejudice, giving the Cottage Club the ability to file the motion in Superior Court, as well as in a lower court.
   ”We’ll be taking action in the Superior Court, most likely in the law division,” said Thomas M. Olson, the Cottage Club’s attorney in the case. Mr. Olson is of the law firm McKirdy and Riskin in Morristown.
   The borough has acted as a respondent to the Cottage Club’s motion, taking the position that state legislation makes it clear that the eating club should not be tax-exempt.
   The Cottage Club is seeking repayment of the more than $380,000 in property taxes it paid to the borough between 2001 and this year.
   A Supreme Court decision affirming the tax-exempt status of the Cottage Club made in May 2007 was quickly followed in summer 2007 by state legislation enacted to negate that decision and to hold the club to a 2004 state statute requiring tax-exempt historic sites to be open to the public for at least 96 days a year. Mr. Olson has said that the club is usually open to the public 12 days a year.
   In 2001, the Cottage Club had filed an application for historic certification, but was denied the certification in October 2003 by the commissioner of the state DEP. At that time, the commissioner stated that he intended to promulgate regulations that would require more extensive public access in order to qualify for tax-exempt status as a historic site.