Haddonfield Lumber Lawsuit Gets Court Hearing Monday

A lawsuit over a proposed apartment complex at the former Haddonfield Lumber site will come to a head next week, with oral arguments scheduled for Monday morning in Superior Court in Camden, and residents who filed the legal challenge say they feel confident going into the proceeding.

For those plaintiffs, it comes down to a fairly black-and-white line: whether the zoning board was justified in granting an application that required a pair of major variances.

“It's not your run-of-the-mill fence line,” said Robert Shinn, one of seven residents who filed the suit. “This is a major change in scope.”

The proposed 152-apartment complex got variances allowing housing where it’s currently prohibited and allowing buildings to be more than 35 feet tall, but Shinn said the question is whether Buckingham Partners, the developer for the complex, actually met the legal standard for those variances.

“It's hard to be objective when you're a plaintiff in the case,” Shinn said. “To me, reading the plain language of not only the law and the standard of proof required...it's pretty clear to me that they didn't meet the standard.”

While Shinn and other residents haven't shied away from speaking about their concerns, the parties on the opposing side have been nearly silent since the 2011 zoning board meeting where the decision was first made, and attorneys for both the zoning board and Buckingham Partners couldn't again be reached for comment Wednesday.

The case also gets another small wrinkle heading into oral arguments, after former Superior Court Judge Faustino Fernandez-Vina, who had heard the beginnings of the case in May, was promoted to the state Supreme Court. His departure means Superior Court Judge Lee Solomon will now hear the case, but Shinn said he's not concerned about that change, pointing to the fact Solomon is a nearby resident—the judge lives in Haddonfield—and should be familiar with the local concerns.

“I'm hoping he'll make the decision based on the law and the facts of the case,” Shinn said.

But Shinn acknowledged it's unlikely the Superior Court decision, which is unlikely to come until well after Monday's hearing, will be the end of the process—he said the residents are already prepared to appeal if they lose, and figures the developer is ready to do the same should the judge rule against the complex.

“We're not going to cross that bridge until we see it,” Shinn said.

Meanwhile, the fundraising effort that's helping drive the residents' legal effort continues, with more than 400 people kicking in money to this point, Shinn said.

“It's just gratifying—people usually feel powerless about this kind of thing,” he said. “The people are voting with their dollars.”