Judge to rule on 4-acre zoning issue in Holmdel
Appeals court overturns earlier ruling that action was politically motivated
JERRY WOLKOWITZ Brandon Yang, 6, looks for goodies inside Easter eggs following an egg hunt in Matawan Saturday.
HOLMDEL — After years of litigation, the HMF case is almost at its end.
The state Appellate Court, sitting in Trenton, handed down a ruling on March 1 overturning a lower Superior Court judge’s decision regarding 4-acre zoning in the southern end of the township.
According to attorney Robert Munoz of Lomurro, Davison, Eastman & Munoz, Freehold, who represented the township, Judge Robert Feldman "ruled that 4-acre zoning was improper because the township utilized a nonbinding referendum and because the decision to rezone the area was a political decision."
The case goes back to 1991 when the Planning Board gave preliminary site plan approval to Chase Manhattan Bank and HMF Ltd. Liability Corp. to build office complexes on large parcels of land on Holmdel Road and Route 34, respectively. HMF wanted to build a 1 million-square-foot office complex on Route 34 lots that were zoned OL-2 and OL-3, office laboratory use. According to court documents, the board’s resolution granted HMF rights against changes in its preliminary approval for 10 years.
Chase dropped out of the lawsuit, and the Holmdel Road parcel it was to build on was preserved as open space and farmland last year.
Three months after Planning Board approval was granted in 1991, a nonbinding referendum was presented to residents to see if they would like to have the office laboratory properties rezoned to allow only agricultural or large-lot residential uses. Sixty percent of voters wanted the change. Studies were conducted throughout 1992 "which culminated in an amendment to the township’s master plan in 1993," according to court documents.
An ordinance was introduced by the Township Committee in September of 1994 which rezoned the parcels to low-density residential.
In the original lawsuit by HMF and Chase, Feldman ruled that "the planning done for Holmdel was planning done to accomplish political goals and not zoning goals."
"Now we have reached a new type of zoning. It’s a new type of planning concept," he said in his ruling. "If it looks like the voters will accept it, it’s a viable plan. If our elected positions may be jeopardized, it’s not. That is the antithesis of planning; that is electioneering."
The appeals court’s decision states that "the first of the judge’s conclusions may be correct but it is irrelevant. A zoning amendment adopted for the worst political motives is entitled to a presumption of validity and cannot be struck down if, on its merits, the ordinance was lawfully adopted … and fulfills a reasonable zoning purpose."
Munoz said that Feldman’s entire decision has been reversed, but the appeals court remanded the case back to Feldman because it wants him to make findings about the 4-acre zoning question.
"The initial issue was office vs. residential," Munoz said. "The appeals court wanted to know if the 4-acre zoning is consistent with the area. In my mind it is, and I think we proved that."
Munoz said that the 4-acre zoning is consistent with both the state’s master plan and the county’s. "The idea was and is to keep the area more rural than other parts of the township," he said.
Feldman has until the end of April to make another ruling.