By Linda Seida, Staff Writer
WEST AMWELL — A lawsuit filed by the Fulpers, a farming family and major landowners in West Amwell, against the township over its reserve septic ordinance has been settled.
The agreement reached by the two parties exempts the Fulpers’ General Development Plan from the ordinance.
The settlement was accepted Oct. 13 by NJ Superior Court Judge Edward M. Coleman in Somerset County.
The agreement means the land named in the GDP, if developed, would not be required to reserve two separate areas per unit for a septic system and a backup. The second area would be held in reserve in case the first one fails.
The ordinance calls for the sewage areas to be equivalent in size, and they must be at least 30 feet apart.
The lawsuit was dismissed with prejudice, according to court papers. The term “with prejudice” means the court has made a final determination, and the plaintiff, in this case the Fulpers, cannot file another lawsuit based on the same grounds.
Mayor Thomas Molnar said he could not comment on the settlement yet per a directive from the township’s litigation attorney, Howard Cohen. Township Clerk Lora Olsen directed all questions to Mr. Cohen.
Neither Mr. Cohen nor the Fulpers’ attorney, Patrick McAuley, responded to requests for interviews.
The township’s Board of Health, also named in the Fulpers’ lawsuit, has not yet voted on the amendment to the ordinance that would be required to exempt the Fulpers’ GDP.
The township has spent upwards of half a million dollars fighting the suit since it was filed late in 2006, after the Board of Health adopted the ordinance in September 2006.
In filing their lawsuit, the Fulpers asked the court to invalidate the ordinance, calling it ‘arbitrary, capricious, unreasonable and in bad faith.” They alleged the ordinance reduced the value of their land along Lambertville-Rocktown Road so the township could purchase development rights for a lower price. They also alleged the township breached the terms of the general development agreement.
The suit was filed by four members of the Fulper family, including then-Zoning Board of Adjustment Chairman Robert Fulper II and his father, former township mayor Robert Fulper Sr., Sarah J. Fulper and Frederick R. Fulper, as well as two Fulper corporations.
The suit named as defendants West Amwell Township, the Township Committee, the township’s Board of Health and the General Development Plan Committee.
The Fulpers entered into the GDP with the township in 2003. The plan called for the preservation of some of the family’s land in exchange for the ability to cluster 67 units on a parcel with a minimum lot size of 1.13 acres.
In the GDP, the Fulpers also agreed to a building moratorium on 130.4 acres along Lambertville-Rocktown Road provided a receiving zone for the transfer of development rights was created within three years. No receiving zone was created.
The Fulpers amended the lawsuit in January 2007 to include a new woodlands protection ordinance and the township’s plan to apply nitrate dilution analyses to new developments.
”The (reserve septic) ordinance exempts projects that had previously been granted subdivision approval, but it purposely does not exempt projects that had previously been granted GDP approval,” Robert Fulper II said in a letter to the editor in July 2009. “Our GDP was and is the only such project and our request for such an exemption was rejected. This simple exemption could have avoided the litigation completely, but the township’s refusal to work with us gave us no options to resolve our differences without litigation.”
The mayor of the township in 2009, William Corboy, responded to Mr. Fulper’s claims with his own letter to the editor a week later.
”The GDP protects the Fulpers from a change in zoning only,” he said. “The Fulpers understood they would be subject to all new local ordinances or state regulations and publicly accepted that.”
He continued, “The Fulpers suggest that the reserve septic ordinance harms them, but have yet to demonstrate how. Nobody else has had a problem complying with this minimal requirement to protect public health. Multiple studies and experts have shown that West Amwell needs this protection to avoid future public health problems.”

