By Doug Carman, Staff Writer
HIGHTSTOWN Developer Larry Regan said he is withdrawing his plans and ending his involvement with two vacant buildings of the old rug mill on Bank Street after his attorney received a letter from Hightstown’s attorney stating the Borough Council’s disapproval of his proposed low-income senior housing complex.
Rather than take up the borough’s offer to attempt to come up with another plan, Mr. Regan said he would not consider the site any further, canceling a pending deal to buy the property from developer John Wolfington.
”At this point, yes, we’re not planning anything additional,” Mr. Regan told the Herald on Tuesday.
After discussions with the Borough Council that were closed to the public, Regan Development publicized its plan Feb. 7 to take two of the three buildings at the 7-acre Bank Street site, convert them to 85 to 90 apartments for low-income senior citizens, then get the two buildings on a registry of historic landmarks.
However, residents and every member of the council quickly objected to the developer’s request to make a $45,000 “pilot,” or payment in lieu of taxes, to the borough. The property had a 2010 tax assessment of about $105,000.
Mayor Steve Kirson said the borough currently collects “in the upper $30s” per year from the vacant property in its current shape, so Mr. Regan’s offer was not that tempting to the council, while residents also balked at the proposal.
”Once you make that decision, you lock the borough into a very long relationship,” Mayor Kirson said. “We didn’t eliminate it entirely; we need an opportunity to see where the market is.”
Mayor Kirson also said that he had spoken to Mr. Regan once since the presentation and was told that the developer considered mixing low-income and market-rate senior housing units at the rug mill property, but Mr. Regan told the Herald he no longer had any plans to purchase or develop it.
Councilman Larry Quattrone, the only current council member who was in office when Mr. Wolfington sued the borough in 2008, said he has not heard anything from Mr. Wolfington since Mr. Regan’s failed proposal, and that because no one else has come up with a new plan, the borough again is back to square one trying to get the property developed.
”I’m disappointed that he’s (Mr. Reagan’s) pulling out. I was hoping that he would come up with some better deal,” Mr. Quattrone told the Herald on Tuesday. “We just have to see what comes forward. … He didn’t come up with a deal that I thought was decent, but he could have.”
Council President Isabel McGinty said Tuesday she is still interested in hearing any other proposals that come forward, though like Mr. Quattrone she has heard nothing else come up yet.
The council itself also took some flak from a few residents for allowing Mr. Regan to even present the idea. Several members of the council responded with disclaimers at its Feb. 22 meeting saying that they only agreed to let the developer present the plan to the public, which by no means meant that they endorsed it.
Mr. Regan, who labeled himself as “the white knight” before the council during his Feb. 7 presentation, said TD Bank, the mortgage holder over the rug mill property, asked him to step in and buy the property from Mr. Wolfington during his ongoing lawsuit against the borough.
Mr. Wolfington, who purchased the mill property in 2004 for $3 million, sued the borough in 2008 after the council rejected his request that it allow him to create 130 apartments on the property and pay $350,000 to the borough in lieu of reconstruction work on the nearby borough hall. Mr. Wolfington argued before the lawsuit was filed that the project was not financially feasible with the original 82 units proposed and even with the 96 the council permitted by 2006.

