Camden Judge Rejects Waterfront South Plan (New Jersey)
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Although the article below frames a recent Camden, New Jersey judges decision to block the citys redevelopment plan as a setback, it is a victory for the low-income residents of South Camden. With the assistance of South Jersey Legal Services (SJLS), some of these residents sued the City in 2005, alleging that its redevelopment plan was discriminatory and did not protect them from environmental hazards.
In another major setback for Camden’s redevelopment, a Camden County Superior Court judge yesterday threw out the city’s Waterfront South redevelopment plan based on a technicality, attorneys for both sides said. Judge Irvin J. Snyder ruled that the development plan is fatally flawed because the city planning board failed to state how the redevelopment plan was consistent with the city’s master plan. The ruling comes as another costly mistake in the struggling city’s efforts to rebuild its ruined economy. Its $1.2 billion plan for the Cramer Hill neighborhood also was ruled defective because of technical flaws. Yesterday’s summary judgment ends a South Camden battle that had raged for years - at least for now. It wasn’t immediately clear whether the city would appeal. The plan was one of nearly a dozen that Camden officials have attempted to revitalize the nine-square-mile city under a state-funded recovery. The state recovery act poured $175 million in state tax money into the city during the last five years in exchange for state control of the city’s government. Still, many of the city’s grandest recovery plans have either died because of technical failures or are mired in court challenges. South Camden residents, who sued the city in 2005, contended that the redevelopment plan was discriminatory and failed to do enough to protect the neighborhood’s 800 adults and 600 children from a cement manufacturing plant, a trash-to-steam incinerator, a sewage treatment plant, a power plant, and a metal recycling center-.