IS BERKELEY TOWNSHIP TRYING TO LOSE THE LAWSUIT FILED BY K. HOVNANIAN?
Would the leadership of a township deliberately try to lose a lawsuit in order to benefit a developer to the detriment of their own constituents? A recent inspection of the record in the case of K. Hovnanian v. Berkeley Township raises this troubling question. The history of this case as is often the case with things legal is long. On March 15, 2001 the Berkeley Township Council, with encouragement from Save Barnegat Bay, voted not to accede to the request of developer K. Hovnanian to rezone the 800-acre New Jersey Pulverizing site on Route 9 in Bayville so as to allow the building of 1,600 new homes. Immediately prior to that vote Save Barnegat Bay had publicly questioned the Townships motives in waiting over six months without denying K. Hovnanian this lucrative but highly unpopular rezoning. We questioned whether favoritism was being shown to K. Hovnanian in order to benefit certain politically connected Democrats. The Democratic leadership of Berkeley Township expectedly vehemently
