An application to build two high-rise buildings on the Hoboken waterfront is entitled to automatic approval after the city planning board refused to hold hearings on the plan, a New Jersey appeals court has ruled.

The panel said a trial judge properly ruled in favor of the developer in three separate suits that were filed in the wake of the automatic approval. The planning board was aware that statutes required it to hear the application, and automatic approval would be granted if it did not, the appeals court said. The board received multiple letters from the applicant's attorney placing it on notice of its obligations, the appeals court said. And a transcript of a board hearing reveals the Hoboken officials intended to circumvent the automatic approval statute by denying the application without prejudice, but its expressed legal reasons for doing so were “palpably meritless,” the appeals court said in Shipyard Associates v. Hoboken Planning Board.

Hoboken has said it will appeal the ruling to the state Supreme Court.