A local non-profit is hoping to stop a high rise on a notable Jersey City campus on grounds that the zoning board failed to consider their own historic commission’s recommendations.
On August 4, Jersey City resident Robert Stein and the Beacon Neighbors for Responsible Development filed suit against Jersey City’s Zoning Board and a developer looking to halt a project at 595 Montgomery Street. The 18-story building in question would rise on a portion of land home to a historically preserved Art Deco complex known as The Beacon.
Jersey City’s Zoning Board approved the project’s subdivision and site plan back in May. The development has undergone numerous design changes over the past six years, with the original proposal dating back to 2019.
The developer, Jones Hall Associates, has been cleared to construct a 98-unit residential building that includes 7,184 square feet of medical office space. The property was designed to blend in with the sprawling complex, which is recognized as New Jersey’s largest site on the National Register of Historic Places.
But the Beacon Neighbors for Responsible Development argue in their lawsuit that the Zoning Board’s approvals of the project permits a building height of over 214, “which exceeds the R-4 Zoning [in the area] by well over 100 feet” and doubles the height allowed.
The lawsuit additionally claims that the application proposes to eliminate a “heavily forested existing park” at the entrance to the Beacon complex, which would wipe out an area that seniors in the nearby Jones Hall building use regularly.
“The application would shoehorn a building twice the permitted height onto a small parcel at the entrance to the Beacon: a piece of land not originally included within the Beacon’s redevelopment, because it serves as a wooded park for both the Beacon and for Jones Hall, currently home for older residents in financial or medical need,” the lawsuit says.
The application for the development had been the subject of at least three extensive hearings before Jersey City’s Historic Preservation Commission, after which the commission voted 6-2 to deny the application. Nevertheless, the lawsuit says that the Zoning Board “ignored the record” of the commission and “heard only limited public testimony” before approving the application.
The lawsuit includes a slew of other reasons why the development’s approvals should be voided, one of which is claims that the combined density of the approved new building and the existing Jones Hall exceeds the allowable density at the property by over 30%.
“Two skyscrapers at a density of 198 units will now be housed on the single acre, where only 150 units are permitted,” the case says.
The non-profit additionally claims that parking and traffic issues described by the public during several meetings were ignored by the Zoning Board, as well as “the over-close proximity of the proposed…building to existing buildings” on the Beacon campus.
The lawsuit is looking to void the development’s approvals by the board, which were “arbitrary, unreasonable and capricious” when signing off on the plan. A court date for the case has not been announced.
