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Andover hearings go public
Wednesday, March 7, 2007
By Bruce A. Scruton
Herald Staff Writer

ANDOVER BOROUGH — The public and Andover Borough Council on Tuesday continued the journey down the paper trail of letters, memos and minutes which has marked nearly two decades of a development company's efforts to build nearly 600 homes in the borough.

"I think it's important. The public needs to know what was going on here all these years,'' said Donald Daines, co-counsel for Beazer Homes, which is fighting an attempt by the Borough Council to revoke a general development plan put in place in 1989.

While the council voted to revoke the agreement last year, a court sent the issue back to the borough because Beazer Homes and Sussex Properties, the owner of the 233-acres on the northwestern side of the borough, were not properly notified of the hearing.

While Monday's opening session of the public hearing provided some theater from the opening statement of Daines, Tuesday's three-hour-long session relied on architect Constantine Karalis flipping through documents and explaining the process of meetings, studies and more studies as Sussex Properties sought to get state and county approvals for everything from sewer and water systems, to highway access, down to the quality of water in a nearby trout stream. Some documents even relate to whether Andover Borough should be classified as rural or urban.

Karalis has been with the project ever since George Syngelides first approached the town in the mid-1980s. What came out of those early negotiations was the general development plan, approved by the Planning Board in 1989, and an associated agreement with the Borough Council. Under the plan, Syngelides could built some commercial space and the 590 units, which would include single-family homes, townhouses and apartments.

Beazer Homes, a national home builder with projects in several states, came into the process about six years ago.

When the council revoked the agreement and plan last year, it said Beazer Homes and Sussex Properties failed to submit a preliminary site plan within five years. While the property owners obtained extensions from the Planning Board, it is the council's position that the extensions need to be granted by both boards.

Near the end of Tuesday's session, Karalis got to a document from 1994 when Sussex Properties received a one-year-extension. He finished with document 84 of the more than 300 documents to be entered as exhibits.

Testimony will resume at 7 p.m. March 21 at the borough firehouse on Route 206. Two other sessions are scheduled for March 26 and 29.

After adjournment, Daines said he realizes the process seems tedious, "but it's like stepping stones. We need to go from one to the next to the next to tell the story."

2007 The New Jersey Herald