Last week, the New Jersey Sierra Club sent letters to the Attorney General’s Office and the Department of Consumer Affairs expressing concern that the City of Lambertville is still moving forward with a controversial development project during the COVID-19 health emergency.

Instead of addressing our letter or the need to delay the proposal during the health emergency, Lambertville Mayor Julia Fahl made the following statement, which was factually wrong and misleading: “The City of Lambertville has been working on a new settlement agreement for an affordable housing alternative long before the coronavirus was ever an emergency. The claim that the city is using this public health crisis in an opportunistic way is untrue and irresponsible. Gov. Murphy announced in executive orders that affordable housing is essential ongoing work, and the city has gone above and beyond any of our statutory requirements to ensure public participation in our public process.” – Julia Fahl, New Hope Free Press, April 10, 2020.

Governor Murphy’s Executive Order 122 states: “The physical operations of all non-essential construction projects shall cease when this Order takes effect. ‘Essential construction projects’ shall be defined as the following … Residential projects that are exclusively designated as affordable housing.” Executive Order 122 was signed on Wednesday, April 8, 2020.

Jeff Tittel, Director of the New Jersey SIerra Club, responded: “The Governor’s EO referred to ongoing construction, not Council Meetings. It was about projects that were 100% affordable, not a zone change through an overlay zone. Julia Fahl is deliberately misleading the public and giving out false information. There is not any ongoing construction for 100% affordable housing projects in Lambertville. She is proposing an overlay zone and a change to the town’s Affordable Housing Plan at the City Council and Planning Board, which is not construction. This is not 100% affordable housing – it isn’t even 20% affordable housing. She just wants to move 5 units of affordable housing to the police station site as an excuse to build a 5-story market rate building for her developer friends.

“This is shameful. In the middle of a pandemic, when people are worried about their health and families, truthfulness matters. To deliberately mislead the public is not only wrong, it is detrimental to the people of Lambertville. What’s worse – it is a violation of her oath of office. She is proposing just 5 units of affordable housing within a 5-story apartment building. That is nowhere near 100% affordable housing, and therefore is not ‘essential’ under the EO.”

Lambertville Mayor Julia Fahl continued: “While the city’s amended settlement agreement with Fair Share Housing Center calls for redevelopment of the police site, it does not obligate the city to move forward with full consolidation of municipal services or the construction of a new building. Redevelopment of the police site will necessitate that we find a new home for the police. The city is in the first steps of considering how best to address our facility needs. That could look like a few services consolidated in a current city facility, a new building with limited or full consolidation, or just a new police site. We are still early in the process.” – Julia Fahl, New Hope Free Press, April 10, 2020.

Jeff Tittel responded: “Once again, she is misleading the public. Under the agreement, once the city signs off and gets the court to sign off they will have 90 days to adopt the Redevelopment Plan for the police station. That means that there is no going back. The police station will have to be sold, and that site will have to be developed with the affordable housing that the city has agreed to. No matter what Mayor Fahl says, once they sign the agreement and it is signed off by the court it is written in stone. They have talked about temporarily moving the police station to West Amwell, but they will eventually have to build a new complex. There has been a lot of misinformation about this whole issue on affordable housing and Fair Share. I spoke with Adam Gordon of Fair Share, who I’ve known for a long time, to address this issue.”

Adam Gordon, Executive Director of Fair Share Housing Center, stated: “Mayor Fahl instigated the change to Lambertville’s Affordable Housing Plan even though the plan was already in place. I suggested the CVS site as an alternative, but the Mayor rejected it. She also asked me to remove the Closson Property from the list, which I had supported keeping as an inclusionary site.”

Jeff Tittel, Director of the New Jersey Sierra Club, released the following statement: “Mayor Fahl is hiding behind the change she made to our Affordable Housing Plan so that she can sell the police station and push for a new City Hall. The City of Lambertville already has an Affordable Housing Plan in place that was approved in May 2018. That plan, which has all of the units and designated sites, has already been accepted by the courts and now the town is supposed to be implementing it. Instead, she is trying to change the overlay zone and move 5 units of ‘Future Need’ affordable housing to the police station site.

Julia Fahl warned that Lambertville could face a builder’s remedy lawsuit if this project doesn’t move forward. Jeff Tittel responded: “This is another fear tactic by the Mayor that is not at all accurate. Builder’s remedy lawsuits can only be instigated by property owners or developers who own property in town. First of all, they cannot sue because there is already an Affordable Housing Plan in place that does not include this ridiculous project. Secondly, since she wants to put this development on a city-owned site only she or the Police Chief could initiate a builder’s remedy lawsuit. Her argument makes no sense. Is she herself going to sue the City of Lambertville? The only way that the town would be liable for this kind of lawsuit is if the City sues itself. In fact, by reopening Lambertville’s Affordable Housing Plan, which was already accepted by the courts, she is making us more vulnerable to builder’s remedy lawsuits from any property owners in town.

Jeff Tittel continued: “Under New Jersey’s State Development and Redevelopment Plan, the City of Lambertville is designated as Planning Area 4B: Rural and Environmentally Sensitive. This means that the town is not supposed to be promoting growth. The Mayor’s plan is to force growth onto the city, which is in violation of the State Plan and is inconsistent with the City’s Master Plan. There were already locations for these units in the Affordable Housing Plan, and she is unilaterally trying to change that. They could use other pieces of property in Lambertville, like CVS, the property the City owns behind CVS, the former River Horse Brewery Site, the City property behind the Lambertville station, the former Ferrell Gas site, the Closson Property and many more alternative properties. Meanwhile, she has removed the overlay zone from other sites in town, like off of Clinton Street and at the end of Wilson Street.

The process is designed to keep the public from being informed and from participating. Jeff Tittel stated: “They are holding their meeting while people are sitting at home, worried about their health, jobs, and how to pay their bills. They are using the coronavirus outbreak as cover so that the public cannot fully participate. People cannot access town documents while the town is closed during the health emergency, so they cannot read the zoning plan or other documents. The meeting will be streamed via Zoom, which means that people cannot ask questions or put on a full show of opposition. This is undemocratic and goes against public participation. Holding the meeting online is discriminatory because people who are low-income, elderly, and handicapped do not have access to computers or do not have internet access at home. This format severely limits the ability of the public to address the government.

“These projects are entirely wrong for Lambertville, and Mayor Fahl knows it. She is trying to push through her new City Hall using the police station site for affordable housing as a ruse to get it done. Designating the site for affordable housing is inappropriate because the City already has an affordable housing plan that has locations for all the units. This is a low move to push forward a project that will change the character of the town for future generations during a period when the public has virtually no ability to comment on it. It seems as if corporate lobbyists and developers are taking over our town to suit themselves and the businesses they represent. If the Town Council and Mayor are so concerned about the coronavirus and the impact to the town, they should delay the meeting until there can be a real public hearing where the public can show up. This is just as much about democracy as it is about the future of Lambertville.”