HALL ON HOLD
Developer withdraws plans for controversial banquet hall, but plans to revise and try again later
ROBBINSVILLE » It’s over, for now.
A developer’s proposal to transform part of the defunct Miry Run Country Club into a 50,000-square-foot banquet estate has been scrapped.
Facing large-scale opposition from residents in the Sharon Mews and Hillside Terrace neighborhoods, Sethi Development Corp. has pulled its application before the Robbinsville Township Zoning Board and will no longer pursue construction of a 900-person banquet hall on the former Miry Run golf course property.
The Robbinsville Township municipal government announced the news on Saturday in a press release. Although the news emerged during a holiday, back-to-school weekend, opponents of the mega banquet hall proposal quickly learned of the application’s death by withdrawal and immediately declared victory.
“This is an outcome of the support you all provided to end this development,” Patrick Bergin, one of the top activists who denounced the proposal, said Saturday in a Change.org online post. “Thank you all for your hard work, voices, contributions and especially for your desire to keep our community safe.”
Robbinsville Mayor David Fried delivered a diplomatic statement on Saturday, saying, “Whether you agreed with the proposed application or not, this was a fair and open process.”
“At the end of the day,” Fried added, “the true winner here is open space and the environment.”
Amar Sethi, principal owner of the New Jersey-based Sethi Development Corp., said the company wants to have good relations with the Robbinsville community.
“At the end of the day, we want a clean ratable for the township,” Sethi said in an interview Saturday evening. “I just want something that everyone is happy with. I don’t want our neighbors to be our enemies. I want this facility to be one of the best in New Jersey.”
While the developer has pulled the plug on its 900-person banquet hall plan, “We will go back to the zoning board,” Sethi said. “We just don’t know what use yet. We want to make sure open space is preserved, but at the same time the commercial component of
this facility should remain commercial.”
Sethi said the township would reap financial and economic benefits by having a commercial operation within a 24-acre space at the 188-acre former golf course. He said that portion of the property previously operated as a restaurant, bar, banquet hall and swim club that could accommodate more than 900 people.
Sethi declined to comment on a timeline for when the company will go back to the zoning board, but he said right now the firm is “exploring our options on what would be most conducive for the town.” He suggested a future proposal could involve the development of a children’s recreational facility or a scaled down banquet hall but reiterated the company has not yet decided what land use
to pursue.
Fighting words
Mayor Fried earlier in the year said some of the opposition to the proposed banquet hall project was tinged with elements of “bigotry” and suggested certain opponents had distributed inaccurate information to gin up opposition.
“It has been disheartening to learn that some residents in our town are using threats, intimidation and bigotry to express their opposition to this application,” Fried said in a YouTube video published on April 25. “There is no religious affiliation attached to this application whatsoever, and I am here to say that this rhetoric will not be tolerated. It is not who we are.”
“I understand some people feel by resorting to those measures they are protecting their properties,” Fried added. “What we cannot do is mistreat others without considering that their
lives and property also are being impacted.”
“There was a lot of bigotry involved in this,” Sethi confirmed on Saturday. He said he is a Sikh but that certain opponents assumed he was Muslim and said social media posts erroneously suggested the former golf club would be turned into a mosque, an Islamic place of worship.
“We were threatened as well,” Sethi said, noting most threats came via social media but saying he also was threatened in person at a Robbinsville zoning board meeting earlier this year.
Miry Run is privately owned by Spring Garden Country Club Inc. and comprises nearly 190 acres along Sharon Road near Route 130, according to property tax records. The Sethi plan would have subdivided approximately 24 acres for the proposed banquet hall. The developer was specifically seeking approval of a use variance to construct a
two-story, 50,000-squarefoot banquet estate at the former Miry Run Country Club but decided to withdraw its application rather than proceed with a continued Sept. 19 public hearing before the zoning board.
Fried in his YouTube video from April said the owners of the former country club have property rights just as neighborhood residents have property rights.
“It is OK to engage in dialogue and debate,” he said. “It is never OK to make threats against anyone.”
The township remains interested in purchasing the former golf course and preserving the land as open space.
“Robbinsville Township will continue to negotiate with the owner in the hopes of acquiring the property, with the tool of condemnation used only as a last resort in its continued efforts to dedicate the entire parcel to open space,” the township said Saturday in its press release.
If the township moved to seize the property through condemnation or eminent domain powers, it would be a costly process and a judge could potentially still deny the land grab.
More than 200 people supported Patrick Bergin’s petition on Change.org opposing the proposed catering and banquet hall that would have supported up to 900 guests.
Residents also created a GoFundMe campaign seeking to raise money to support the legal expenses to fight the proposed banquet hall development.
“Please DONATE as much as you can,” the GoFundMe campaign post said. “Save Robbinsville Open Space [a 501(c)4 civic organization] has retained the law firm of Szaferman-Lakind to help us in this fight.” Opponents of the proposed facility said it would have created traffic safety issues and noise pollution and possibly would have unleashed negative impact to wetlands and nearby residential property values. The Miry Run golf course opened in the 1960s and closed in 2015. In the recent years before it shuttered, the privately owned country club would partner with the Robbinsville Township Department of Recreation to provide golf lessons during the spring and summer months, according to a Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission and Environmental Commission of Robbinsville Township joint report dated March 2012.
‘Dilapidated building’
The former golf course as of Saturday appeared to be an unkempt eyesore of overgrown vegetation. If the developer had received zoning board approval to build the mega banquet hall, the facility would have generated approximately $200,000 a year in tax revenue, including $100,000 for the township’s school district, according to Fried.
Sethi Development principal owner Amar Sethi described the property’s former clubhouse as “a dilapidated building” and said his company had proposed to demolish the old clubhouse buildings and redevelop them into a 50,000-square-foot banquet estate.
That plan has been abandoned, but whatever new plan the company comes up with, Sethi said he wants to make the township and county proud.
“I was born and raised in Mercer County,” he said. “I know the area very well. We want something clean. (We want it to be) proper, something great and a good ratable for the town.”