Byram's dream plans get legal wake up call

Family accuses Byram Township of employing eminent domain tactics to force its plans, By Kathryn Kaplan Byram - As the battle heats up over control of land the Byram has earmarked for it’s Village Center, the lawyer representing the property landowner is charging the township with using eminent-domain-like tactics. Township representatives have in the past said the municipality would never consider the confiscation of private property for public use. And they have asserted that they want to work cooperatively with those effected by the municipality’s plans to build a housing, commercial and public usage site on some 65 acres at the corners of Lackawanna Drive and Route 206. However attorney Barry Mandelbaum, who represents the largest landowner affected by the plans, the Stabile family, claimed recently that the reality of the situation is something completely different and the municipality is not negotiating in good faith “I don’t know how many letters I wrote to have a meeting with them, to set up a meeting”, said Mandelbaum. “After one meeting early on, they never once responded.” The Stabile family owns between 58 and 60 acres of land Byram wants set aside for the future growth. In order to better control what type of development can be done on the private property, the council recently designated the site as a “redevelopment” area. That move, asserted Mandelbaum, was a just a ploy on the township’s part to tie the hands of the landowners to forced them to do what the municipality wants. The family recently filed lawsuit trying to stop the designation. “Now the township wants to control it by labeling it as in need of re-development, which is tantamount to calling it blighted,” said Mandelbaum. “They want to deny the Stabile family the right to develop it.” Additionally, Mandelbaum explained, by changing the zoning requirements, the municipality is in fact forcing the Stabile family to acquire five more acres of land from adjacent property owners in order to bring the total of the land parcel to 65 acres, the minimum required to develop the site under the new provision.According to Mandelbaum, that move was just another way to wrestle private property away from its owners. “Originally the property could be developed with 60 acres”, said Mandelbaum. “All of the sudden they changed the zoning so that they could take it away from the Stabile family. Now (the family) has to acquire additional land before they can do anything with it. They (the township of Byram) are doing what ever they can to remove it from the Stabile family.” Township lawyers have yet to respond specifically to the suit however, Byram Township Manager Gregory Poff said the municipality is looking to a solution that would be acceptable to all the parties involved.