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State ends 17 years of litigation to settle with East Cape May Associates
The state will pay $4.8 million of a $7 million settlement with a developer to prevent the construction of houses on 78 acres of oceanfront property in the town of Cape May, state officials announced Wednesday.
The developer, East Cape May Associates, a Florida-based partnership that owns the land, will be able to build on the remaining 18 acres.
The settlement resolves 17 years of litigation involving the state and East Cape May Associates. The developer wanted to begin building single-family houses on the land in the early 1990s. East Cape May Associates sued the state in 1992 after the Department of Environmental Protection declined to issue permits needed to enable construction to begin.
Under terms of the settlement, the 18 acres will be the site of 71 market rate homes and 14 affordable houses. The remaining 78 acres will be purchased jointly by the DEP and the town of Cape May and preserved as open space. Cape May will pay over $2.2 million.
"This is an important settlement for our environment, and for the people of New Jersey. Through this agreement, we are preserving a vital shore resource while also resolving long-standing litigation — litigation that, for many years, held the future of this environmentally significant land parcel in doubt," said Attorney General Anne Milgram.
"Having been involved in this case for many years, I'm delighted that we are finally closing the book on litigation and opening a wonderland of undeveloped coastal property that serves as a refuge for birds and many other species of wildlife," said Acting DEP Commissioner Mark N. Mauriello.
Located east of Pittsburgh Avenue in Cape May, in an area known locally as "Sewell's Point," the 96-acre parcel sits between the Atlantic Ocean and Cape May Harbor. The property is a well-known stopover for migratory birds — including some threatened and endangered species — that fly from the Arctic and Maine to South America. The parcel is also the last remaining undeveloped, privately-owned property of its size in New Jersey that is within walking distance of the ocean.
East Cape May Associates originally announced a plan to build 366 single-family homes on the parcel, and gained municipal subdivision approval for such a project. The DEP subsequently rejected permit applications required for the project, and the developer filed suit claiming the state's permit denials were tantamount to improper "taking" of its property.
Litigation throughout the years at both the trial and appellate court levels failed to resolve all issues. Ultimately, a settlement was reached through mediation, which was presided over by the late state Supreme Court Justice Daniel O'Hern. The American Littoral Society participated in the mediation process.
Under terms of the settlement, the DEP has committed to issuing permits consistent with agreed-upon parameters for the 18 acres set aside for development, and Cape May has committed to rezoning the land for housing within the larger 96-acre tract. The settlement also provides that the DEP and Cape May can jointly pursue passive recreation projects on the land.
The $7 million price for the land to be preserved as open space is expected to be funded through a $2.2 million grant to Cape May from the Garden State Preservation Trust local program, and a $2.2 million local match. In addition, the state Green Acres program is expected to fund $2.6 million of the purchase.
—TOM HESTER SR., NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
Homes are built for people who want to live there and who are willing to pay for it. Despite the clamoring from viro activists, there is nothing evil about that. Those who wanted the land preserved, with homeowners kept out, should have offered to pay what the land was worth to the owners. Instead they tried to seize it with a regulatory taking overriding the town permits, created a 17 year nightmare of litigation and "mediation" benefitting only lawyers, and now the taxpayers are being forced to pay millions more for the land -- sold under ceaseless political pressure and economic strangulation against the owners. This is worse than the eminent domain abuse for which NJ is so notorious. They are not "saving" anything, which terminology is only spin used to cover the actual nature of their actions.
Only viro pressure groups and lawyers benefit from such unethical tactics coercing people out of their own property. This ideologically inspired corruption in the state should be cleaned out permanently.