The Sparta, N.J. club wants to install a gate and begin charging non-members to park in its lot, which is on private property but has been used by the public in the past because of limited parking available for a nearby shopping plaza.
A state Superior Court judge said he will have a decision within two weeks on whether the Lake Mohawk Country Club in Sparta, N.J., can begin charging non-members to park in the club’s lot, the New Jersey Herald reported.
Judge Stuart Minkowitz heard final arguments from attorneys representing Sparta’s Planning Board and Zoning Board of Adjustment and the club on January 2, the Herald reported.
The case stems from a lawsuit that was filed in 2017 after it was unable to work out a solution over the parking situation with local authorities.
The private country club, with mandatory membership by property owners within the Lake Mohawk Reservation, is located on the shores of the lake, with the parking lot located across the street.
The club owns the lot, and both club and lot predate the local township’s zoning laws and are part of the original 1930s development of Lake Mohawk, the Herald reported.
In 2016, the club made an application to the township Zoning Board to make repairs and renovate its parking lot to provide landscaping but also add parking spots, the Herald reported. Included in the plans was a set of gates, which had been previously approved by the Planning Board.
Because the renovations carried a hefty price tag, the club’s trustees also wanted to include a system by which non-members would have to begin paying to park in the lot, the Herald reported.
Although privately owned, and posted as private parking only, the club had allowed the general public to use the lot, because there was little parking available for customers of the businesses in White Deer Plaza, which adjoins the parking lot, the Herald reported.
In addition, the club had also leased parking spaces in the lot to the township, which had previously owned property adjacent to the lot, the Herald report stated. There were also other parking spaces set aside as part of township approvals to various businesses around the parking lot.
Since its founding, the members of the club had paid for previous improvements to the lot, but the price tag for the new improvements was quite steep and the paid public parking was seen as a method to offset the membership’s financial burden, the Herald reported.
After multiple hearings before the Planning Board, the vote to approve ended in a tie, meaning the plans were rejected, the Herald reported. That vote, with no opinions voiced by the board’s members for or against the idea, and the following formal decision led the country club to file the suit challenging the Planning Board decision, arguing there was no basis on the record for the rejection.
The formal decision was formulated by the board’s attorney and approved only by those who had voted against the parking lot, the Herald reported.
The country club contends that the 19 reasons to reject the parking lot plan were not supported by any evidence presented during the hearing and were not articulated by members of the board during the vote, the Herald reported.
After the sides had filed their written briefs and were near to setting a trial date, Judge Minkowitz set aside the case and, looking for a way to settle the lawsuit out of court, asked the country club to approach the township’s Zoning Board of Adjustment for a decision, the Herald reported.
According to the Herald report, the Zoning Board held only one meeting on the issue, hearing only from the country club, which presented a transcript of the Planning Board’s several meetings. The Zoning Board then rejected the country club’s request.
The meeting then continued with the country club seeking a variance of the zoning regulations, the Herald reported. It presented a professional engineer and a professional planner as witnesses. There were no witnesses or presentations against the country club’s plan.
The Zoning Board then moved to reject the request for a variance, with no members making any statements as they voted, the Herald reported.
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