Planners K.O. Spring Creek

VERNON-Seventeen years after it was first proposed and five months after the Vernon Township Zoning Board began a series of hearings, the proposal to build 372 townhouses at the Legends Resort is officially dead. The board voted 6-1 against approving the project proposed by Spring Creek Holding Company and Shinnihon, USA. Although officials expect the owners to come back with another proposal, it will have to be filed under different rules and new zoning regulations that weren't in effect when the project was first introduced in 1988. The environmental impact statement done at the time is no longer valid. And land across Route 517 from the entrance to Legends that was slated for townhouses is not zoned single-family residential. The vote came as a surprise to many. At the last hearing, the board had emphatically instructed the developers to present a firm timetable for the project centered around the renovation of the 500-room hotel originally built as a Playboy Club. On Feb. 17, the developers came back hoping to receive final approval for their site plan. Instead, they were told the plan was not in the best interests of the township. Voting against approval were board members Henry Capro, Chris Feuhrer, David Langer, Glen McLaughlin, Jacob Smith, and Valerie Seufert. Voting for approval was Warren Olsen. The meeting to hear the revised application for preliminary site plan approval was a continuation of a meeting from Jan. 20 and was the last chance for the applicants to apply under their current plan. The applicants, armed with mock-ups of the proposed housing and hotel, were suggesting a resort-style development consisting of 372 upscale town homes, selling for $440,000 and up, as well as a complete renovation of the hotel. "We wanted to ensure that the hotel was brought back to the representations that they brought to us originally," said Henry Capro, board member. Capro, along with fellow board members McLaughlin and Chris Feuhrer raised concerns over the phasing of the renovation schedule of the hotel. They agreed that this meeting was significant for the future of Vernon Township. At the start of the meeting, John Lehman, the project engineer for Spring Creek, introduced a phasing schedule that would tie renovation of the hotel to the issuance of Certificate of Occupancies (CO's) for the town homes. In this original schedule, there were four phases. The board reacted immediately to the length and consequence of the phasing schedule. "I don't feel like we are being protected here," said Capro in response to the linking of only partial hotel renovation, including the lobby, the main hallways, the restaurant, the pool and spa, and the owner's club rooms, to the issuance of the 101st C.O. At one point in the meeting, Valerie Seufert, speaking on behalf of the board, asked the applicants if they would like a recess to finalize their phasing plans in response to the board's dismay at the schedule proposed at the beginning of the meeting. Lehman and Tom Collins, attorney for Spring Creek, responded after the break with a shorter, more concrete phasing schedule. The revised schedule broke down into one phase: before the issuance of the 101st CO for the town homes, the complete renovation of the hotel, interior and exterior, would be completed. It was this phasing schedule that the board took to vote with them. "We are going to have to put a lot of money into the ground and a lot of money into the hotel," said Lehman before the board went to vote. In fact, the total proposed spending for the renovation of the hotel alone will be near $20 million. Echoing concerns the board had raised at previous meetings regarding this application, several citizens spoke out over development of the resort and its impact on the town. "This thing has been dragging on for so long," said Kathy Duffy, whose home and property border some of the land proposed for development. "Are there going to be any guarantees based on this timetable? I mean are they really going to stay to this (proposed) plan?" Carol Carmody, who lives near the proposed development, asked, "What about wildlife? Are we going to just keep pushing it further back? No wonder we have so many instances of animal contacts." The township's environmental commission had urged the board to reject the proposal, citing threatened species on the property and possible damage to the aquifer. The lone assenting vote was Warren Olsen's. "Vernon is supposed to be a resort-oriented town, and I thought this was a reasonable approach to bringing the original idea to fruition," he said in explaining his support. "I felt that the representatives would be easy to work with." Olsen felt that most of the problems with traffic and phasing would be worked out in subsequent requests for building permits with the town. Other board members disagreed with Olsen. "The hotel phasing was not much of a plan when they first arrived here tonight,' said McLaughlin. "I was surprised." "I didn't feel that what was presented was resort housing," said Seufert. "Resort-oriented amenities were not being added." Al Warrington, a visiting consultant for the applicants, was concerned after the meeting. "I am surprised, that is all I'll say." Board member Glen McLaughlin expects this to be only a brief hiatus for the meeting of these two bodies. "They'll be back," he said.