Builder played by the
rules; board did not

This week, residents of Howell and the members of the Howell Planning Board found out what the price is for denying a residential development without a substantial reason. The price is that the builder sued the board and won.

In a stinging decision that rebukes the board for many of its actions in this application, state Superior Court Judge Lawrence Lawson, sitting in Freehold, overturned the board’s denial of an application filed by U.S. Home.

The judge’s ruling apparently clears the way for U.S. Home to build 135 homes on the 203-acre Schuch-Hascup property on Route 524 in northern Howell.

Lawson agreed with a claim U.S. Home made in a lawsuit it filed against the board that the April denial of its development application was "arbitrary, capricious and unreasonable."

While we do not like to see Western Monmouth County’s shrinking supply of farmland disappear under yet another residential development, reviewing the facts of this case makes it clear the applicant did not have a fair chance to obtain approval for its plans.

Although Mayor Timothy J. Konopka was probably correct in his statement — made prior to the start of hearings on the application — that the U.S. Home development would have a measurably negative impact on Howell in areas such as traffic congestion and more schoolchildren, as Lawson wrote in his decision, "A board may not deny an application in light of inconsistency with the general welfare of the municipality or sound planning. Rather their decisions must be made within the framework of the standards prescribed by the subdivision and if pertinent, the zoning ordinances."

Whether or not one agrees with that, it is the law. The time to address those "general welfare" issues was in the years prior to when Route 524 became a two-lane corridor filled with residential developments. The "general welfare" of Howell — on Route 524, anyway — was already bad when this application came in.

The judge went on to say in his written opinion that U.S. Home "is correct in their assessment that the board’s decision to deny the application is without factual support in the record."

Perhaps the Howell Planning Board would have had a better chance to make its case for denial had it operated by the rules. As Lawson pointed out in his opinion, in many ways the board did not do that.

Residents always demand that developers stick to the rules with their plans. In this case it appears the developer did that, and it was a group of appointed representatives who — although their hearts might have been in the right place in attempting to forestall more development — did not go about that task in a lawful manner.