MIDDLETOWN — A Superior Court judge is expected to render a decision soon after hearing final arguments in a legal dispute over a proposal to construct a private girls high school in Middletown.
Ron Gasiorowski, attorney for opponents of a plan to build a permanent campus for Trinity Hall on 64 acres along Chapel Hill Road, argued before Judge Paul Kapalko on April 23 that the approval granted by the Planning Board for the girls high school should be invalidated.
He argued that the public was not properly notified of the Planning Board meeting, and the resolution approving Trinity Hall’s plan was drawn up via email, in violation of the Open Public Meetings Act.
“The right of the public to participate was denied,” Gasiorowski said, asking the court to vacate the Nov. 5 approval and remand the application back to the Planning Board for a full hearing.
“It speaks volumes that … the public at large was deprived of their right to participate.”
However, Paul Snyder, the attorney representing Trinity Hall, argued that the Planning Board’s approval should stand.
“The Planning Board found in August that the only relevant objections presented by [the public] concerned the conditional use standards,” Snyder said.
He added that since those standards had previously been invalidated, the application should be approved.
Citing case law, Snyder asked the court not to remand the application back to the Planning Board, but to directly approve the plan.
Attorneys for opponents of the plan to build a campus for Trinity Hall on Chapel Hill Road sued to overturn the Planning Board’s approval of the school’s application last November. Trinity Hall is currently leasing space at Croydon Hall.
The approval was granted after an October court hearing at which Kapalko invalidated part of the township’s land-use code that had been cited by the Planning Board as the reason for its June 2014 denial of the application.
The Planning Board subsequently approved the application on Nov. 5.
After nearly two hours of oral arguments last week, board attorney James Gorman implored the judge to restrict the scope of any future Planning Board hearings if the application were remanded.
“I’m stuck in the middle,” Gorman said. “If this is remanded, we need detailed parameters or we’ll be back here again in six months.
“We need to be as specific as possible.”
Following the arguments, Kapalko and the attorneys gathered in the judge’s chambers, but Kapalko did not emerge to render a decision.
The Trinity Hall application would subdivide the 64-acre Chapel Hill property into two lots, leaving 26.3 acres undeveloped.
The remaining land would be developed in four stages to house academic and administrative buildings, a gym, an indoor pool, a soccer field and running track, tennis courts, a field hockey facility, locker rooms, and a performing arts and chapel facility.
The application sought preliminary approval for all phases and final approval for the first phase, which would involve constructing classrooms and a gym totaling 64,620 square feet.
The school, which is described as educating students in the “Catholic tradition,” is not recognized by the Diocese of Trenton. Enrollment is about 79 students for the 2014-15 year, up from 30 students the previous year.
Roughly 20 Middletown residents who were opposed to Trinity Hall’s application gathered in the Freehold courtroom.
Middletown resident Peter Tommaso said before the hearing began that he is concerned that allowing the school to be constructed would mean a loss of ratables.
“We could be reaping the benefits of increased tax revenue [from a residential development], so why devote 64 acres of prime residential land to a nonprofit, nontaxpaying entity?” Tommaso said.
He added that residents felt “stampeded” by the Planning Board’s Nov. 5 approval of the plan and agreed with Gasiorowski’s assessment that the meeting was not properly noticed.
Tommaso is among a group of residents who have joined together to form the Chapel Hill Neighborhood Association to provide a forum for promoting the interests of the neighborhood.