[In the News] MORE TROUBLE: CP in Trouble w/ state Over Aurora

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[In the News] MORE TROUBLE: CP in Trouble w/ state Over Aurora

Posted By: The Resident
Date: Thursday, 3 May 2007, at 11:50 a.m.

Cliffside Park violating open space laws and giving developers below market rent for office space:
State stops building of units in Cliffside
Thursday, May 3, 2007
By ERIC HSU
STAFF WRITER
CLIFFSIDE PARK -- State open-space officials have blocked a developer of million-dollar condos who received permission to build a sales office in a borough park despite state regulations forbidding the move.
The developer had struck a deal with the borough to build the office, which is nearly complete. It is across the street from the site of the condos, which will be two towers of glass and steel on the Palisades. In return, Teaneck-based Aurora Development Partners LLC had agreed to pay monthly rent of $2,000 and make $150,000 in renovations to the park.
But neighbors, including lawyer Laura Castelli, were incensed when they saw the sales building going up in their neighborhood park, a quiet spot favored by kids and grandparents. The sales center site occupies about a third of the park's usable area.
"It's shocking how they've now fenced it off. They're stuffed into this tiny little triangle of a park," Castelli said. "What made [the borough] think this was appropriate or proper?"
Castelli said she made inquiries with the town that were brushed off. She said she then contacted the state Department of Environmental Protection, which sent inspectors two weeks ago and ordered the construction stopped.
Judeth Yeany, the chief of legal services and stewardship for the state's Green Acres program, said the department intervened because the park falls under open-space regulations, which tightly restrict the use of parkland. Yeany said at a minimum the borough would have been required to apply to the state for a special use permit.
"Our position is it's an illegal diversion," she said.
The proposed condos consist of 131 units on Adolphus Avenue with sweeping views of Manhattan and the Hudson River. The 1,800- to 3,300-square-foot units, with interiors by noted French designer Philippe Starck, are expected to fetch from $1 million to $2.5 million each.
Chris Diktus, the acting borough administrator, said the town had no idea Green Acres restrictions applied to the park when the deal was struck.
Dave DiSciascio, one of the partners in the Aurora development, said the idea to renovate the park had in fact been a request by neighbors that arose during public hearings on the project. The park was last renovated in 1993.
"I'm putting in a new swing set, new benches, pavers. When the trailer is taken out of there it will be resodded," DiSciascio said. "It will be beautiful when I'm all done. This is what the community wanted."
Mayor Gerald Calabrese said he's intent on appealing the state's ban because the project is a net gain for the borough.
Diktus said the borough did not reference any particular benchmark in arriving at a rent figure of $2,000 a month. The figure was originally authorized by the council at $2,500 in December, but in the final license agreement, signed in February, was set at $2,000, which Diktus said was a new negotiated rate.
The sales office measures about 1,728 square feet. A rough going rate for office space in Bergen County is $25 per square foot, said Curtis Foster, a broker in the East Rutherford office of the commercial real estate firm Cushman & Wakefield. At that rate, the market rent for the office would be about $3,600 per month. The total park land designated as an easement for the developer is 10,660 square feet.
Yeany said other open-space rules require that if any land is lost it must be replaced with double the space. In addition, she said that any rent drawn from deals for parkland must be earmarked only for recreation and parkland uses.
Yeany said the state hasn't made a decision about how to proceed.
"Because it's such a substantial structure, the damage is already done," she said. "Do you try to get the best you can because it's already there?"
E-mail: hsu@northjersey.com

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