Phillipsburg’s announcement that 33 acres along the Delaware River, once slated for another massive warehouse, will instead be preserved through New Jersey’s Green Acres program was certainly cause for celebration, but it illustrates a troubling pattern. New Jersey’s warehouse problem is largely an entanglement of political power, connected to private firms who depend on overdevelopment and our public resources. Real estate moguls hold vast tracts of land hostage in undesirable condition until they can build a warehouse or pay themselves with our money to preserve it. These preservation deals are sometimes announced right before election day by the same actors driving the crisis. When the same political actors and firms who nurture warehouse proposals are praised for “doing the right thing” - by stopping them right before Election Day, ask yourself: was this preservation or political theatre? They win, the public loses. While technically legal, is it moral or ethical?
In 2023, nearly 600 acres of farmland in White Township were bought from Mr. Jaindl, a land-baron billionaire, for roughly $27.4 million in tax dollars, allegedly to stop construction of millions of square feet of warehouse complex, but $48,000 per acre is a very generous price to pay for farmland. After four years of citizen opposition, local Republican state officials suddenly broke their silence about White Twp’s situation to appear at a press conference announcing the land preservation, right before their last election. The core issue is conflicts of interest. Steinhardt and Perrucci are partners in a law firm that specializes in business related to warehouses and profits from overdevelopment of warehouses. Perrucci is the landowner, and owns Peron Construction, at the center of the Howard Street warehouse controversy. Those who challenge Perrucci fear retaliation and harassment. Council President Marino was threatened over the warehouse issue and two of his fellow Republican council members resigned, citing a lack of integrity in local government related to the bullying typical in Phillipsburg’s political organizations and to the developers and career politicians who control the town for their own self-interests.
Local politics are ultimately shaped by deep state Republican party boss Doug Steinhardt, Warren County Republican Committee Chairman with strong influence over who gets political support and who sits on local land-use boards, whose own Chief of Staff, Christopher Allen, voted for the unpopular warehouse going up in Belvidere.
The political pattern is obvious. Land speculators and their allies in government, sit on neglected open space, allowing it to decay until local powers-that-be ‘accept’ a warehouse. When residents object, they’re forced to fight to protect their neighborhoods and futures. Then, once public pressure peaks, the political machine pivots, arranging a “preservation deal” that spends millions in state funds to buy back what was already ours, a hostage scheme where the taxpayers pay their own ransom. The cost of this corruption? New Jersey’s disappearing farmland — over 22,000 acres lost in just five years. How many of those lost acres were in Sussex County?
What needs to change is our political system, currently run by Doug Steinhardt.
We need stronger conflict-of-interest laws and full public disclosure. Developer-connected law firms should not be permitted to hold influence over boards that decide projects they could profit from.You cannot count on state representatives like Doug Steinhardt to fight the warehouse developers for you, because he is clearly the embodiment of both. Replace Florio, Perucci, Steinhardt, Cappelli & Tipton as the county’s attorneys .
Kenneth Collins
Newton
