Bridge Point Developers Withdraw Appeal to the Supreme Court

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On Dec 27, 2024 the Appellate Division of the Superior Court published their decision to vacate the Flood Hazard Area Verification and Flood Hazard Area Individual Permit issued to Bridge Point 8 (BP) on Dec 1, 2022. (DOCKET NO. A-1639-22). That means, the permit is no longer valid and has been remanded back to the DEP for further consideration.

The Court gave the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) the option to require a new application from BP or require BP to amplify or clarify (“amplified or clarified”) their existing submission to address the deficiency in the existing application. The impact of this is a setback for Bridge Point in their quest to get the permits needed to move the project forward.

Bridge Point 8 is the name of the project approved by the West Windsor Planning board on June 29, 2022 to build 7 warehouses consisting of 5.5 million square feet of warehouse space along with over 2000 parking spaces and an access road across from the Quakerbridge Mall on 650 acres at Quakerbridge Road on both sides of Clarksville Road.

This Flood Hazard Area permit and waiver along with the Freshwater Wetlands General Permit and Transition Area Waiver are required from the DEP before Bridge Point can begin construction. Bridge Point also needs permits from Mercer County and the Department of Transportation. The West Windsor Planning Board added 82 conditions of approval that need to be met before construction can begin. Bridge Point has 7 ½ years to obtain all the required permits. Ten years from when they approved the project on June 29, 2022.

The suit challenging the permit was brought by The Watershed Institute (TWI) represented by attorneys Daniel A. Greenhouse and Kaitlin Morrison of the Eastern Environmental Law Center. A three judge panel consisting of judges Sabatino, Gummer and Berdote Byrne, heard the oral arguments from The Watershed Institute (TWI), the DEP and Bridge Point 8 on Dec 9, 2024. After the ruling, the Court gave the parties 20 days to petition the Supreme Court to review the decision. On January 16, Bridge Point petitioned the Court to appeal the decision, and we just learned that Bridge has since withdrawn the petition for appeal.

Kaitlin Morrison, said of Bridge Point’s decision to withdraw the petition “The effort to file the notice (petition) is relatively minimal, whereas filing an actual brief on the merits, which would have been the next step, would have been much more work. Given the clear failure to make a feasibility determination, the lengthy appellate division reasoning on this issue, and the DEP's decision not to appeal, I am not particularly surprised they withdrew the petition.”

(The author is currently circulating a petition asking the DEP to require Bridge Point to submit a new application).

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Updated at 12:54pm on Jan 28, 2025 to include quote from Katlin Morrison.