By ROBERTA FUGATE
[email protected]
HARDYSTON -- Lake Gerard home owners have been told to pay up or face eviction.
Summer residents at Lake Gerard were recently given notice that property owner Harriet Gerard intends to increase rents at the lake community, and those who don't pay will face eviction.
"This is getting to be old hat for us; Harriet has decided to try to evict us again," said William Barrett, president of the Lake Gerard Fish and Game Club. There are 78 homes on the lake, eight of which house full-time residents.
Barrett said Gerard mailed new leases two months ago and told residents that the old leases were no longer in effect. The residents were offered new leases that propose to increase their rents between 350 to 400 percent over the next three years.
Barrett said these leases also contained many new conditions and tenants were informed to either sign the leases or they would be evicted. The rent increases would mean residents would pay between $20,000 to $25,000 per year in rent. Gerard has offered to sell lots to the summer residents for prices ranging from $170,000 to more than $200,000, Barrett said.
Gerard wants to turn the summer homes into full-time year-round condominiums, Barrett said. Association members own their homes but pay rent for the land and lake rights.
Barrett and his wife have had a cabin on Lake Gerard for decades. He said the dispute began in 1991 when Gerard attempted to evict the people who bought modest summer cottages on the lake.
According to Barrett, Gerard has let the lake area fall into disrepair, refusing to provide maintenance of the wells, dams, meeting hall and roads at the site.
In 2006, the Lake Gerard Company filed a public offering statement with the state Department of Consumer Affairs for the purpose of converting approximately 605 acres of land surrounding the 95-acre Lake Gerard into a condominium development.
Leslie Hamilton, Hardyston township councilwoman and member of the Planning Board, said there are currently no plans to build on the Lake Gerard property before the board.
"They are very limited to what they can do because of the Highlands," Hamilton said.
The homeowners offered to buy the lake and 600 acres for $6 million. The family sold 1,200 acres for about $4 million to the state about four years ago, which the state is preserving as open space.
Lake Gerard is an 1,800-acre property in the Stockholm section of Hardyston that was a popular vacation area in the 1920s. In the 1950s, about 156 acres of the property were settled and vacation homes were built, with the homeowners paying rent to Gen. James Gerard for the land on which the homes stood.
The property owners and Lake Gerard have been involved in litigation for years. The Lake Gerard Company sued the renters in 1991, noting that if they didn't sign a rental agreement they would be evicted.
"Ms. Gerard is playing with people's lives. This isn't just a vacation spot. This is the place where we raised our children and grandchildren," said Ed Mueller, a long-time, year-round resident of Lake Gerard."
Community members challenged their leases in 1991, saying the rents were unreasonably increased and the short-term manner of the leases was unfair. An agreement was eventually reached in 2000 when residents settled rights to homes they owned on rented lakefront property.
Under the terms of the agreement, the homeowners received a three-year lease on the properties, with one-year rental agreements after that.
Carol Noonan of Clifton said she has memories of Lake Gerard from the 1960s when her parents took her there to visit friends and she caught fish from the deck and swam in the lake. Five years ago she purchased her own cabin on the lake.
"In 2003 we thought we were preparing a new generation to experience the happiness we had at the lake. My cousin would teach his kids to swim and fish there and it would be just like it was before. I can't afford to stay at the lake, not now. Not with these lease figures," she said.
Barrett said the next step for the home owners will be for them to present their case in court.
Gerard's attorney did not return phone calls.
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