Last year, the residents of Park Drive North fought against what they believed was an oversized development in downtown West Orange. The Planning Board, including Mayor Susan McCartney who voted with the majority, denied the application to build a 12-unit apartment building with eight variances at 410 Main Street. But that short-lived victory has been undone because of a filing mishap at Town Hall.
The town government missed a crucial deadline to file its affordable housing plan and this has opened the township up to six builder’s remedy lawsuits, including one from the owner of 410 Main Street. These types of lawsuits are intended to help the township meet its court-ordered affordable housing obligation of building 660 new units.
Last week, the Town Council voted 4-1 to approve the settlement, allowing the project to proceed. Councilwoman Joyce Rudin was the lone dissenting vote. By reaching a settlement with developer Moshe Sugar, the township hopes to get “immunity” — or protection from further lawsuits. The 410 Main Street project is the first of six builder’s remedy lawsuits to be settled and will provide two units towards the goal of 660 units.
Bill Mills, Park Drive North resident, pleaded to the Town Council last week to vote down the settlement to no avail, arguing that the development poses not just an inconvenience to residents with regard to street parking but safety issues that were addressed during the Planning Board hearings.
“This application makes no sense to anyone except the greedy developer who is trying to make money at the expense of my neighbors, my friends, and the people who live in the area,” Mills said. “The township is in a bad place right now with the need for affordable housing, but I don’t think this is the solution.”
Township Attorney Mark Semeraro, who brokered the settlement, said he recommended that the Town Council approve the settlement because not doing so would “expose us to greater harm.”
“No one wants these projects in their backyards, I get it,” Semeraro said. “My role as township attorney is to fight against overdevelopment, and the cornerstone of getting that done is making sure we have an affordable housing plan and immunity from other developers coming in developing additional pieces of property.”
Councilman Joe Krakoviak, who voted for the settlement, placed the blame on “unfair” New Jersey laws that dictate the affordable housing requirements.
“It is unquestionably unfair to each resident there, but the state Supreme Court, the state legislature, and the previous governor simply don’t care about the negative impacts of the affordable housing law,” Krakoviak said. “But the council has one of the first of many difficult decisions to make to get the township and its residents out of this unholy mess, trying not to make things even worse for this township.”
If all six builder’s remedy lawsuits are settled and the proposals are built, the township would see a total of 1,224 new units built, 278 of which are affordable. And that doesn’t even meet half of the township’s 660 affordable housing obligation.
But those numbers alone don’t show the whole picture. The township’s affordable housing plan, which was eventually adopted in November, also lists more developments that will help meet its court-mandated quota. This includes an already approved 142-unit building at 200 Pleasant Valley Way and the proposed rezoning of Rock Spring Golf Course to allow a 150-unit project. An additional cause of concern is the plan’s proposed redevelopment of the evacuated apartment complex at 275 Northfield Avenue, victim of a rockslide in 2021 to allow a 60-unit apartment building there.
The effect these new developments will have on infrastructure, the public school systems, public safety, and the township’s finances, especially at a time when the township is still reining in its staggering $170 million debt, is a glaring problem that town officials will eventually have to come to terms on.
One issue that is still the subject of debate lately is why the township missed the deadline for filing its affordable housing plan.
Mayor Susan McCartney said that the Town Council’s failure to renew the contract with planning consultant, the Nishuane Group, in April 2025 had left the township in a “precarious” position.
“That left us two months shy of meeting the deadline for the affordable housing plan,” McCartney said. “That narrative has to end now because the facts have to be straightened out.”
However, Krakoviak said McCartney should have left the Town Council more time to approve the contract.
“It says it in about a dozen places in the law, the deadline to file the affordable housing plan was June 30, 2025,” Krakoviak said.
“Everyone knew for more than a year what the deadline was,” Krakoviak said. “I just have a hard time thinking we could have put together a plan in two months.”
