A Superior Court judge is set to decide next week whether Montvale's affordable-housing settlement — and the data-center option tucked inside it — can move forward, in a fairness hearing scheduled for 9 a.m. on Nov. 18 at the Bergen County Courthouse in Hackensack. The hearing centers on the former KPMG property on Chestnut Ridge Road, where the borough is weighing a deal that could let a developer build housing, a data center, or some combination of both.
The notice of the hearing, posted by the Borough of Montvale, states that Superior Court Judge Lina P. Corriston will preside over the proceeding. As northjersey.com reports, the case asks whether Montvale can use its affordable-housing settlement to help clear the way for a data center on the Chestnut Ridge Road site, a question that has split officials, a developer, and a statewide housing advocacy group for months.
The dispute traces back to March, when NJ.com reported that Montvale was sued over a plan that could let a developer build about 250 housing units, including 50 affordable homes, on the site, or construct a data center instead. That report described the KPMG campus at 51 Chestnut Ridge Road as a 34-acre redevelopment site, while a later account from the same news organization's northjersey.com platform in May described it as 44 acres. Montvale filed a response in Bergen County Superior Court on March 2 arguing that its housing plan complies with state law, according to the outlet, and the mayor said at the time that no formal plans for a data center had been submitted, noting the property was already zoned for that use.
Competing Accounts of What the Deal Requires
Exactly what the settlement demands of a developer depends on which account you read. The March NJ.com report described an option to build roughly 250 housing units, including 50 affordable homes, or construct a data center — language that did not specify an affordable-housing requirement tied to the data-center choice. A later report from thepressgroup.net described an amendment that would require developer S. Hekemian Group, or SHG Montvale, to provide 50 affordable units whether it develops the site for housing or a data center, with the data-center option avoiding a non-residential development fee.
Fair Share Housing Center has offered yet another characterization, framing the settlement as giving the developer a choice between a small, low-density inclusionary housing project or a large data center with no affordable housing at all.
Northjersey.com reported that a revised settlement agreement submitted by the borough on April 10 would allow SHG Montvale to develop the Chestnut Ridge Road site with a data center under a payment-in-lieu-of-taxes, or PILOT, agreement, alongside multiple housing units. A version of the agreement dated May 6 listed 250 units for the KPMG site, with 50 of them affordable. Fair Share Housing Center challenged that revised agreement on April 17, arguing it did not cure what it called the fundamental defects in the borough's plan, per northjersey.com's reporting.
Public Comment Period and a Separate Planning Board Hearing
Ahead of the fairness hearing, interested parties were given a window to weigh in. According to thepressgroup.net, written comments or objections to the SHG Montvale Settlement Agreement were due to Judge Corriston at the Bergen County Courthouse by Sept. 25. The Planning Board also held a separate hearing Oct. 6 to determine whether the KPMG property — along with 25 Phillips Parkway and 1 Glenview Road — qualifies as a non-condemnation redevelopment area, the same outlet reported.
The data-center alternative has already stirred up plenty of local friction. Thepressgroup.net reported that the option has generated controversy and protests from both residents and non-residents, reflecting broader unease among New Jersey towns balancing housing mandates against the growing appetite for data-center development. Fair Share Housing Center has said that almost 400 municipalities — the vast majority in the state — have developed compliant housing plans under the current law, a backdrop that underscores how unusual Montvale's dispute has become.
New Jersey towns face a steep obligation regardless of how the Montvale case resolves. NJ.com has reported that by 2035, municipalities statewide must add or renovate more than 146,000 affordable housing units, part of a broader reckoning playing out as data-center proposals prompt bans and lawsuits in communities across the state, according to a separate NJ.com report on the statewide trend.
What remains unresolved is how Judge Corriston will rule, what the final controlling settlement language says about affordable-housing requirements, and whether a formal data-center application has since been filed. Montvale residents and advocates on both sides are expected to be watching closely when the fairness hearing convenes next week.
