Senior Center: More on developer's to-do list

Senior Center, showing parking, unfinished roof garden, lack of solar panels on roof.
(Google maps.)

Plainfielders were reminded at the Council's last business meeting of outstanding issues at the Senior Center / Monarch condos at 400 East Front Street.

Speakers were particularly vexed over moves by P&F Management (Dornoch's latest alias) to enforce a parking scheme that would put seniors who drive out in the open lot instead of under the covered area, and the veterans' pleas for access to their promised Veterans Center.

Corporation Counsel Dan Williamson said he had written to both P&F Management and the towing firm that this move was unacceptable and that no vehicles were to be towed from the premises.

Williamson noted that P&F Management still needed to work out some final points with the Planning Board over unfinished items from the Developer's Agreement (see here, and note on viewing at end of this post), including a parking plan (see Section 7. (a)(vi)) and the finishing of the 'roof garden' (see Section 7. (a)(v)).

To which I would like to see added the ROOFTOP SOLAR PANELS required by the development agreement (see Section 7. (a)(viii)), which are not present and are never discussed though there has been no modification of the Developer's Agreement as far as I know.

As for the Veterans Center, the Developer's Agreement addresses this issue in two places: Section 7. (a) (iii) says the veterans area shall be used as a sales model until all units are sold (page 4), and Section 8. (b), which provides that upon sale of ALL the condo units, the developer shall convey 'a fee simple interest' in the Veterans Center to the City for $1 (page 8).

The Developer's Agreement quite clearly lays the responsibility on 'the purchaser', i.e. the developer (Dornoch/P&F) to 'design, implement, complete and operate the property in compliance with this agreement'.

So, when will Mr. Fishman face the Planning Board to resolve the outstanding issues?

That is a good question. I hear that he does not return the mayor's calls (tit for tat?). But we also have information from the Rahway Rising blog that he does the same with our sister city. Not only that, he has defaulted on a development project there, which the city has taken back from him.

So, it seems it may be a while before the issues are formally resolved.

Meanwhile, rereading the Developer's Agreement, I noted in Section 8. (a), that there is a deed restriction on the Senior Center providing that the center is for 'purposes and activities undertaken by senior citizens and for no other purpose' (emphasis added -- DD).

Does that mean that the City Council put the City in default of the terms of the Developer's Agreement by holding two of its budget hearings in the Senior Center conference room?

Now, that would be ironic.

NOTE ABOUT VIEWING THE DEVELOPER'S AGREEMENT BELOW:

The upside-down problem comes from the way Staples did the scan.

Here's the fix --

• Click on the document window and make sure it is loaded.
• Right-click on the document and select 'Rotate clockwise'; this will make a quarter-turn of the document. Do it again and the document will be right-side up and easy to read.
• If you're left-handed, you can rotate counterclockwise, as long as you do it twice.
• Note however, that if you revisit the document in the future you will have to rotate it again.

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Dornoch-UCIA Agreement

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• Plainfield Today --
• 10/27/2010:  "Seniors new bargaining chip in developer dispute?"
•  9/14/2009:  "Monarch Condo documents: Developer's Agreement"
  

-- Dan Damon [follow]

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