47710
Northjersey.comHackensack hospital object of suitSUNDAY, AUGUST 11, 2013
BY HANNAN ADELY
STAFF WRITER
THE RECORD
HACKENSACK — The city and zoning board are expected to go to court on Friday to fight a lawsuit alleging that the board unfairly denied an application for a 19-story medical building that was strongly opposed by neighborhood residents.
The zoning board, however, will not be represented in court by its former attorney, Richard Malagiere, who faced controversy but had community support to keep him on the case.
The Zoning Board of Adjustment rejected the application for the proposed Bergen Passaic Long-Term Acute Care Hospital in January 2012, saying that the project would bring traffic and parking problems to the residential neighborhood.
But the project didn’t get a fair shake, the applicant claimed in the lawsuit, filed in November in state Superior Court. Bergen Passaic LTACH alleged that city officials conspired to delay the process and tainted the outcome with bias and prejudicial comments.
Malagiere declined to seek reappointment as board attorney in January. He never publicly said why, but his decision came weeks after a fire at a Johnson Avenue home he owned with land-use lawyer Carmine Alampi and Anthony Errico. The house had many illegal electrical connections, and the fire was the result of faulty wiring, officials said. The Record also found that the owners didn’t have an occupancy permit and that the premises had not undergone a safety inspection. Serious violations also were found at an adjacent home they owned.
Some residents insisted Malagiere be kept because of his experience and knowledge of the case, and they even made it a topic in the spring City Council race. The Prospect Avenue Coalition, a resident’s group, held three forums to get candidates’ views on the proposed hospital and asked all of them if they’d keep Malagiere after the election.
Stepped down Malagiere decided on his own to step down from the case in late May, shortly after a new City Council was elected, officials said.
Laura Kirsch, the new zoning board attorney, who was appointed in April, has taken over the case. The case file was lengthy but not complicated, she said.
"You do what you have to and yes it took time, but we got it done," said Kirsch, a Hackensack-based attorney with expertise in zoning and real estate.
The new interim city attorney, Thomas Scrivo, will represent the city in the case, in place of the former City Attorney Joseph Zisa.
The applicant wanted the hospital building to include 10 floors of patient rooms, a dialysis center with 63 stations and a medical day-care center for up to 180 adults.
The company claimed the medical center would fill overwhelming demand for long-term acute care and dialysis while meeting the needs of a growing senior population.
The project needed special city approval because the property is zoned for residential use and the facility would have exceeded lot, parking and other building restrictions.
Bergen County Superior Court Judge Alexander Carver will hear the case. Carver has announced that he will retire Sept. 1, and it’s unclear whether he plans to rule on the case before then.
Email: adely@northjersey.com
- See more at:
http://www.northjersey.com/news/219150461_Hackensack_hospital_object_of_suit.html?page=all#sthash.tkQzXm26.dpuf