August 25, 2025, Planning Board Special Meeting Transcript - WEHI

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 109 Orange, there is an ordinance through the town council which created this environmental commission. I am going to caution Mr. Redwine before he chooses to speak, make any statement about this project, that there is a settlement agreement between my client and the Township of West Orange. It's a settlement agreement that was entered into in connection with the towns own declaratory judgment litigation which was filed in July of 2015. That settlement was consummated in 2020, after five years of pending litigation. I'm not going to read it verbatim, I'm not going to go through every provision, but there is an unqualified obligation for this township who voluntarily chose to include this site in its third round affordable housing plan, decided to pursue approval with the assistance of a court appointed special adjudicator to the Superior Court of New Jersey and decided to comply with its settlement obligations by zoning the property and putting in the IH zone that this Planning Board is now considering here this evening. In that settlement agreement there is an unqualified obligation by my client to cooperate with the town and for this township to cooperate with my client to defend the settlement and to support this project. That being said, any statement to the contrary could be viewed as a breach of that settlement agreement and my client would