Student Wins Essay Contest with the Horn Antenna And Builder’s Remedy Lawsuit
- Kin Gee
- May 26, 2023
- 3 min read
May 26, 2023 - A 5th-grade student at Holmdel’s Indian Hill School submitted an essay on the Horn Antenna and won first place in the annual Monmouth County Historical Commission essay contest.
In his May 12 newsletter, Holmdel school district Superintendent Dr. J. Scott Cascone said that the student, Yulan Chen, wrote about the Horn Antenna because of its “connection with her dad, an astrophysicist who works with radio waves”. Superintendent Cascone said that the student believes the site should be preserved for future generations.
The student joins her fellow Indian School students as part of a young chorus of voices that wants to preserve the Horn Antenna at its current location. TJ Mann and Jess Burden, 5th-grade and 6th-grade students, respectively, spoke at a Holmdel Township Committee meeting in March urging the Township Committee to save the Horn Antenna. After they spoke, they presented a petition that they started and garnered over 200 signatures. TJ Mann called the Horn Antenna “the pride of Holmdel.”
Builder’s Remedy Lawsuit
At Tuesday night’s meeting, Holmdel Township Committee passed a resolution authorizing the Township Attorney to file a motion to be an intervenor in what is commonly called a builder’s remedy lawsuit filed against Middletown Township.
According to the lawsuit filed, Adoni Property Group alleged that Middletown Township has not met its affordable housing requirements under the Mount Laurel decisions and the New Jersey Fair Housing Act. It now seeks a court order allowing the developer to build almost 500 apartment units on two properties, one on Red Hill Road and one on West Nut Swamp Road, that total 21 acres, adjacent to and behind Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center at Exit 114 of the Garden State Parkway.
Holmdel’s interest is that the traffic of the proposed developments will flow onto Holmdel via Crawfords Corner Road or Red Hill Road.
In 2015, Middletown filed a declaratory judgment lawsuit seeking temporary immunity against a builder’s remedy lawsuit. However, in what some considered to be a bold move at the time, Middletown pushed back against the state-mandated affordable housing obligations and withdrew from the proceeding in 2019 stating it thought the Fair Share Housing Center was being unreasonable.
Unfortunately, this also left Middletown open to a builder’s remedy lawsuit like the one just filed by Adoni Property Group. In response to the lawsuit, Middletown introduced an ordinance last week authorizing the use of eminent domain to acquire the properties.
It will be interesting to see whether a judge will allow the use of eminent domain to usurp a builder’s remedy lawsuit on an after-the-fact basis.
Could this happen to Holmdel as well? And is there an implication for the Horn Antenna and Crawford Hill?
Like the Sword of Damocles, the threat of affordable housing obligations and a builder’s remedy lawsuit seems to hang overhead in the efforts to preserve Crawford Hill and the Horn Antenna.
In March 2015, a Supreme Court ruling left the administration of affordable housing plans to be decided by an NJ Superior Court judge, the Fair Share Housing Center (“FSHC”), and local municipalities.
A few months after that ruling, Holmdel Township filed a lawsuit for a “declaratory judgment” action that protected it from a builder’s remedy lawsuit and allowed it time to work out an agreement to satisfy the latest round of affordable housing. Unlike the situation with Middletown, Holmdel Township and FSHC reached an agreement for Round 3 in January 2019 which was approved by Judge Linda Grasso Jones.
The Judgment signed by Judge Jones ordered that Holmdel Township “satisfies both its prior Round Obligation and the Third Round (1999-2025) Prospective Need obligation …” and that for the period from July 1, 2015 to July 1, 2025, the Township “shall have the complete immunity and repose from any and all Mt. Laurel lawsuits, including ‘builder remedy’ lawsuits, …” Emphasis added.
In 2025, there is every reason to believe that Holmdel Township can file for a declaratory judgment like it did in 2015 and protect itself from any builder’s remedy lawsuit while it works out a settlement for the next round of affordable housing.
Unlike Middletown, Holmdel Township is currently in full compliance with affordable housing regulations and is fully protected by a court order. Furthermore, Holmdel amended its resolution authorizing the redevelopment study of Crawford Hill to include the use of eminent domain before any builder’s remedy was filed.
Any argument of the threat of affordable housing obligation and a builder’s remedy lawsuit against preserving the Horn Antenna and the Crawford Hill property appears to be misleading and greatly exaggerated.
For a more detailed discussion of the Horn Antenna/Crawford Hill property and the threat of a builder’s remedy lawsuit, please see:
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