‘They’d like feedback’

Discussion of a large-scale distribution center on the former Chubb Insurance property began in spring 2021 between Warren Township officials and the tract’s owner, recently released emails show.

A pair of private presentations were held, roughly one year before a contentious April 2022 public hearing at which the Warren Township Committee ditched proposed warehouse zoning, which then spurred a lawsuit.

The emails were released in late January in response to an anonymous Open Public Records Act (OPRA) request, filed through the website opramachine.com. The correspondence is viewable on that online site.

Meanwhile, Somerset Associates, the Mountainview Road property’s owner, and the municipality are scheduled for a case management conference with state Superior Court Judge Kevin Shanahan on May 8, according to documents posted on the state’s judiciary portal.

Attorneys for the two sides quarreled via letters last fall over the release of information during the case’s discovery phase. In a letter to Shanahan on Jan. 23, Somerset Associates attorney Michael Saffer requested a 45-day adjournment of a scheduled February conference.

“Somerset is pleased to advise that it is working on a matter that it expects, within those 45 days, to likely render this action moot,” Saffer wrote to Shanahan. Saffer noted that Warren Township’s attorney concurred with the adjournment request.

The emails posted on the opramachine site show that Warren officials were open to at least hearing a pitch for a distribution center in 2021 before the proposal generated vocal community opposition.

Several related emails to the committee from then-Township Attorney Jeff Lehrer were heavily redacted prior to their OPRA-requested release, presumably under attorney/client privilege. Those redacted emails are also posted on the opramachine site.

Other released correspondence shows that four officials received the initial presentation about the former Chubb property from its owner. That first presentation was attended by then-Mayor George Lazo, Township Committeeman Vic Sordillo, Township Administrator Mark Krane and Township Planner John Chadwick, according to the emails.

A second presentation was scheduled for other officials who had been absent. The second presentation occurred in June and was attended by then-committee members Mick Marion and Jolanta Maziarz, the emails show.

Lazo emailed colleagues on May 3, 2021, saying, “A few weeks back on Friday 4/16, John, Vic, Mark and myself met with a group interested in the former Chubb site. We participated in a presentation of ideas that I would like all of you to see.”

An attorney representing Bridge Industrial Partners emailed Maziarz and Lehrer on June 9, 2021 with the details of a draft PILOT (Payment in Lieu of Taxes) abatement for a roughly 780,000-square-foot distribution center. Bridge was the intended redeveloper of the Chubb site just off Interstate 78.

The second presentation was held on June 25, 2021. Marion emailed colleagues three days later noting that he and Maziarz had attended. 

Marion wrote that the possibility of a PILOT was discussed “which we said was a non-starter.”

“Clearly they want to take next steps and are very anxious for some feedback from us,” Marion added.

The proposal moved along in the preliminary stages. The Planning Board conducted a study in fall 2021 designating the Chubb site as an area in need of redevelopment.

When the distribution center zoning was unveiled by the committee in March 2022, Marion and Maziarz opposed the measure, but they were outvoted. It was introduced by a 3-2 margin. A month later, all five committee members rejected it when community objectors packed the public hearing.

The letters in the courts portal, along with other public documents, paint a complicated picture of the distribution center proposal and litigation.

The correspondence exchanged by the two sides last fall shows them trading charges and counter-charges regarding whether complete information was being released during the litigation’s discovery phase. 

During civil case discovery, litigants seek documents from each other such as consultants’ reports and emails to help build their respective legal positions.

In Oct. 6, 2023 correspondence, Saffer wrote that he, Lehrer and another Somerset Associates attorney had on “numerous occasions” discussed a possible resolution involving a Whispering Woods settlement.

In legal terms, a “Whispering Woods” hearing is a public hearing held for the populace to have reasonable advanced notice of the terms of a proposed settlement.

In a Sept. 25, 2023 letter, Saffer objected that it was unclear from the discovery documents  produced by Warren Township exactly whose files had been searched for requested material.

Saffer wrote that it appeared some committee members had used personal and business email addresses, rather than their municipal accounts, to transact township business and communicate about matters related to the suit. 

As the redevelopment area designation was discussed by the Planning Board in fall 2021, Chadwick reviewed certain facts about the Chubb property.

Chadwick told the board that the 535,000-square-foot former Chubb headquarters building is “obsolete” and that the owners had tried unsuccessfully to market the property for four years, according to minutes of a September session. 

The property’s value had dropped from $89 million to $22 million, Chadwick noted. That decline impacts the township’s finances and it will continue without some redevelopment, he added.  

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