In Your Backyard: 'Junkyard' at a Stalled Housing Development

Barely 400 feet from one of the most traveled roads in Scotch Plains, a stalled construction project has led to the creation of an illicit dumping ground, mere feet from the backyards of 14 homeowners.

Amid waist-high grass and weeds, concrete drainage pipes and debris sit in a roughly two-and-a-half acre field. In one corner, green stalks poke through a 10-foot-high mound of dirt, a tarp-covered dune miles from any shore.

The plot is owned by Messercola Brothers development company. Encircled by a chain-link fence, it sits at the end of Norwegian Woods, an unmarked, mostly unpaved cul-de-sac off Martine Avenue in Scotch Plains.

More than four years ago, Messercola Brothers promised to build two single-family homes on the property, according to members of the Scotch Plains Planning Board. The development firm also promised to repave the road and install sewer drains. Those promises, however, have gone unfulfilled.

"I've got a junkyard, not a field, behind me," said Alex Smith at the Scotch Plains Planning Board's biweekly meeting Monday night.

Instead of families, the field has become home to trash, animals, stagnant water, and mosquitoes, residents said. Norwegian Woods still lacks an effective drainage system. And since the construction of a basin in the center of the field about two years ago, residents said their houses now flood during rainstorms.

"We are being held hostage," said resident Menachem Langer, one of Smith's neighbors. Both their houses border the vacant lots.

Extending an Extension

Planning Board members expressed sympathy for Smith and Langer. Zoning officer Robert LaCosta offered to remediate some of the surface issues, namely by dispatching Public Works employees to cut the grass and remove some debris.

But board members said they otherwise had few options for addressing the larger issues: forcing Messercola Brothers' to maintain  its properties, and prodding the firm to begin work on the site.

"Legally, our hands are tied," said board chairwoman Paulette Coronato. "I'm sorry to see you have to live through this." 

They attributed the stalled construction to a Jan. 2010 amendment to the New Jersey Permit Extension Act.

The original Permit Extension Act was signed into law by Gov. Jon Corzine on Sept. 18, 2008, three days after the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the bursting of the housing bubble. It was intended to help the state's construction and real estate firms cut costs by allowing them to extend their open development permits–and therefore slow their construction projects–until July 1, 2010. 

In Jan. 2010, however, Corzine extended the Extension Act: he signed an amendment that pushed the expiration dates of most open contracts to Dec. 31, 2012, followed by a six-month phase-out process.  

The amendment, in other words, allowed Messercola Brothers and other developers to delay their projects until 2012. But as members of the Scotch Plains Planning Board pointed out, the Act does not free Messercola Brothers of its responsibility to maintain its properties.

What Now?

In fact, Messercola Brothers likely violated township ordinances precisely by neglecting the upkeep of its Norwegian Woods lots. 

"Property maintenance is a paramount issue," said LaCosta, the zoning officer.

On Tuesday, he sent Public Works employees, as promised, to clean and remediate the vacant lots. For at least the second time this year, he said, they performed the jobs that Messercola Brothers had neglected to perform itself: cut the grass and haul debris from the lots. 

LaCosta said that he informed Messercola Brothers of these issues by mail as early as May last year, but that the firm rarely responded or even acknowledged it had received his letters. LaCosta cannot call the firm, he said, because he does not know the phone number–Messercola Brothers did not include it with its tax records, he said.

Calls placed by this reporter to three New Jersey companies with the name Messercola–Messercola Excavating in Plainfield, Messercola Brothers Builders in Westfield, and Messercola Realty in Watchung–either were not returned, or the phone number listed was not in service.

Messercola Brothers is hardly new to the township. "They have been building in Scotch Plains for 20-plus years," LaCosta said. He added, however, that this is the first time he has had trouble with the development firm.

Board members argued that because Messercola Brothers so thoroughly ignored the upkeep of its lots, it essentially changed how it used those properties.

"Putting up a chain-link fence and dumping garbage and rubble–that's not using it for single-family homes," said board member Joseph Doyle.

The flooding that has since occurred, he added, could also be considered a health-code violation. "Because the ultimate goal [was] not to increase runoff… you may have a very legitimate legal issue."

He suggested homeowners Smith and Langer hire private attorneys. "I think legal counsel for yourself may, in fact, result in a favorable outcome," Doyle said. "I can't say a quick outcome. But at least you'll have some recourse."

The suggestion, however, did little to mollify the two residents or their families. "They dared to tell me to get my own attorney? Give me a break," said Smith's wife, Geri, after the conclusion of the public hearing.

Smith and Geri estimated that the value of their house has dropped by hundreds of thousands of dollars, due to the Norwegian Woods development. 

"At the time the plan was approved, my house was estimated to be valued at about one million dollars," he said. "Since then, we did nearly $200,000 of remodeling to the home…. The last estimate of the value of my house when we refinanced this year was $700,000."