After years in legal limbo, a Chichester development received a final okay from the planning board Thursday that will allow it to move forward.
Developer Joe Austin said the multimillion-dollar condominium project he planned off Dover Road stalled when it became wrapped up in an $80 million Ponzi scheme that dashed the hopes of other builders.
Scott Farah, the head of the Financial Resources Mortgage company, was found to have duped investors – including those backing Austin’s plan – and was sentenced to 15 years in prison in 2011.
Austin, meanwhile, went on living in an unfinished house with no way to finish what he started, as the money that he had held in escrow had disappeared.
Over the years, a bankruptcy trustee has been able to sort out the mess left for investors, and Austin is now – with the approval from the planning board Thursday – able to record the condominium documents that were supposed to have been handled years ago.
John Boender, a land planner involved with the project, said Austin’s is “probably one of the few projects that was involved with the Financial Resources $80 million fraud that are actually going to get built by the original developer.”
“Many of the projects had ownership that was tainted because they had trusts and things that had been created by the attorneys that were actually owned – unbeknownst to lenders and everyone else – actually owned by Scott Farah . . . who’s in federal prison right now,” he said.
Austin said once the condominium documents are recorded, the property will be able to be developed as originally intended.
“We’ve hung on by a thread is what we’ve done,” he said.
The planning board asked that Austin put $3,000 in escrow to pay for the town’s engineer to do a final inspection of the property to make sure everything is up to specifications.
Boender argued that initial inspections had already happened in 2010 before the project stalled and he didn’t want to have to pay for a duplication of efforts.
But planning board members said they’re working with an entirely new site plan by now and they want to ensure their engineer doesn’t find any problems.
“It’s a large project. It’s been ongoing. We think it is prudent to have educated eyes on it representing the town,” he said.
Boender eventually agreed to put the money in escrow, “and then we can revisit how the inspection takes place.”
In the end, Boender estimated, the project should add between $3.5 million and $6 million in assessable value to the town.
(Nick Reid can be reached at 369-3325, nreid@cmonitor.com or on Twitter at @NickBReid.)