SHARE:  


FINALLY - Holy Name's Expansion Litigation Is Settled



PUBLISHED BY TEANECK VOICES

7/25/2023

Contents:

Finally - Holy Name's Expansion Litigation Is Settled

Prepare for the Community Meeting on the Am. Legion Drive AINR

Checking in on Margaret Baker's Current View from Her Front Steps

Schools: New to Teaneck Voices

This Week in Teaneck - July 24 to 31

Still Waiting For.....

  • Clarification Needed on Recycle Center Location
  • Status of the Township Website Re-design?
  • User Friendly 2023 Municipal Budget?


Announcements:


Summer Band Concerts at Votee's Band Shell

Board of Education Candidate Deadline - 7/31

American Legion Area Community Meeting - 7/31

National Night Out - 8/1



Contacting Teaneck Voices

FINALLY - Holy Name's Expansion

Litigation Is Settled

FINALLY – Just now - as Teaneck Voices prepares to go to press - it has received what we consider to be definitive notice that the requisite signatures to enable the settlement of the litigation contesting Holy Names’ expansion have been obtained. The case is settled and those needed signatures from the four involved parties are reportedly all being forwarded to the court-appointed mediator who – we surmise – will officially inform the judge that the case is settled and can be dismissed. Two questions: who gets credit for resolving this matter? And what’s next?


Voices has remained a close observer of this entire process and is confident that it took the adroit leadership of the Township’s new attorney, Scott Salmon – working with a resolute majority of the new Council - to bring all four of these parties (Hospital, Neighbors, Town, Planning Board) together. Clearly until the new team took over, Teaneck was on a path to a full – and enormously expensive - trial at the end of which no real resolution would have been achieved.


Teaneck needs an expanded Holy Name Medical Center and its needs effective preservation/protection of residential neighborhoods particularly those that that lie contiguous to powerful institutions. It would appear – from the outside – that this settlement represents an equitable balance of these interests in this case.


However, it is important also to acknowledge that the public has not been given access to what is found in the one-inch thick agreement that now not only harbors the needed signatures but also articulates precisely what has been agreed.


All of which makes tomorrow night’s 7/25 Planning Board meeting at 8:00 pm – in-person only at the Rodda (Room MP-1) and involving both the new PB members and a set of 3 new officers and a new attorney – so unclear.


The public notice for this meeting was announced (with no additional notice to the public) by PB attorney Kelly at the 7/13 PB meeting (see video Click Here). What is now found on the Town website about this PB meeting is a notice (anonymously posted) indicating that the meeting is simply a continuance of the same HNMC site plan applications with which the PB been wrestling since October 2022.


Assumedly, the new settlement has provided a clear and expeditious path to a PB decision on these site plans – and perhaps to other issues as well. To find out, readers can either attend tomorrow night at the Rodda – or wait until the Township publishes the video (which likely will appear on the Town website by Wednesday.)


In any event, it appears likely that public officials can finally put away all the expensive armaments so long on display in this extended land use struggle. One area of serious Township conflict should now disappear from the political landscape.

Prepare for the Community Meeting

on the American Legion Drive AINR

No agenda for the scheduled Monday July 31, 2023 7:00 pm Community Meeting on the American Legion Drive (ALD) Area in Need of Redevelopment (AINR) has been published by the Town as Voices goes to press. It is scheduled for in-person participation at the Library Auditorium and should also be available by zoom (though no zoom address has yet been made public.)


Our readers are undoubtedly well-aware of the criticisms Voices has made of the development model that is embedded in the state’s redevelopment statutes – and the license those laws give to municipal governing and land use boards secretly to proceed to make development decisions about what is blighted and about what should replace it and who should carry-out specific development plans.

 

But the ALD-AINR is in a league of its own. The improper processes which have given rise to the designation of this ALD -AINR and its sister AINR (the Township Beverly Road parking lots on the north side of Cedar Lane) arguably are the least legitimate of all the AINR actions taken by Teaneck officials to-date. 


It is not yet clear what if any role in this community meeting will be played by the Crossroads Companies, the firm to which Teaneck’s prior Council gave a 6-month conditional redeveloper designation which has now long since expired. As Voices has previously reported, “consultant” Robert Veloshin did not reveal his simultaneous role as a senior Crossroad’s official, and whose report in January 2021 played a central role in the original ALD-AINR designation, specifically in designating the current Stop & Shop facility as detrimental to Teaneck’s safety, health, welfare and morals.

Stop & Shop’s May 2021 suit challenging the AINR designation called out Mr. Veloshin for his conflict of interest.


Embedded in the 9/20/2022 Stop & Shop litigation settlement approved by the prior Council (prior to the settlement or its proposed resolution being made publicly available) is a conceptual plan for both these AINR areas that would have the Town not only give Crossroads large swaths of town property but grant Payments in Lieu of Taxes (PILOTs - major long-term tax breaks) to the Company after it constructed and generated revenue from proposed residential and parking facilities. The plans involve a variety of very large and tall facilities.


Voices has recently learned that the plans for these facilities are being actively opposed by all the affected organized grassroots resident organizations of which Voices is aware.


Voices strongly endorses the suggestion now being made by several of these grassroots groups that at the onset of the 7/31 community meeting the actual current status of Crossroads as this “former conditional redeveloper designee” be announced and as well that the conceptual plans for these two AINR’s proposed by Crossroads be described as having not been approved. To be legitimate they necessarily must be separately approved, according to the statutory steps for redevelopment plan approvals under the redevelopment state statute ( N.J.S.A. 40A:12A-1 et seq.) 


If Crossroads is still being given the opportunity to outline its plans at this meeting, we strongly suggest that the meeting Moderator (not yet identified) clarify that its description of this plan take no longer than 10-15 minutes and that extended public input constitute the remainder of the meeting. Resident visions for this important retail area – whether expert or lay – are needed at this point in the process.


What do we recommend to our readers do in preparation for the meeting?


1)   Read the January 29, 2021 Report by “consultant” Robert Veloshin about Stop & Shop – Click Here and go to p. 40 – 60 – particularly p. 60. (It is appalling!) 


Also useful is the video of the Planner presentation Click Here move your cursor from minute 30-40. The planner – based on the Veloshin report – says S&S should be torn down !He specifically says S&S should be demolished!


2)   Read the S&S litigation settlement document itself – introduced as Resolution 252-2022 mid-Council meeting with no prior notice at the September 20, 2022 meeting. This settlement includes the conceptual plan for both AINR’s. It is not, however, the required AINR redevelopment plan which has never been brought to either Council or the Planning Board. That means that this AINR has never advanced to the point of having a redevelopment plan. It is nevertheless problematic: the settlement does stipulate proposed facilities that the public has ever since found to be unacceptable!


The settlement itself is in the Minutes Packet for the Council’s 9/20/2022 meeting, Go to Click Here and scroll to pp. 175 – 235.

But too much to read ? Then the diagrams of the conceptual plan for both AINR’s can be seen on pp. 206-208 of the settlement as it appears in the 9/20 minurtes packet. Readers, do at least check these diagrams out! they are what is infuriating the neighbors!

 

3)   Do read the short resolution designating Crossroads Companies as the 6-month only conditional designated redeveloper – passed the same night – it is at Resolution 249-2022 if you Click Here

4) Finally, take the time to watch the 8 reports given by the conveners of the 8 resident groups who gathered in the Library for the Master Plan Kick-off on June 14. These reports cumulatively provide Town officials with resident views about what are Teaneck assets and what and who needs to be included in the new Master Plan – This video comes as close to providing a consensus resident view as exists. Do click on it below and/or review the recent Voices article that organized a summary of that meeting (Click Here for that Voices edition)

Checking in on Margaret Baker's Current View

from Her Front Steps

The Baker family returned in 1985 to the United States from a tour with the armed forces in Germany– and moved into their Teaneck home on 1086 Decatur – at the south end of that well-kept residential block and directly across the street from a single family residential home at 1085 Decatur and with a superb view beyond of the distant Palisades to the east.

The Baker’s neighborhood remained largely unchanged for the ensuing 22 years – until the Township extensively debated a new Master Plan which it passed in April 2007. That Master Plan was distinguished by its designation of Objectives and Goals – the first of which are these:

For 14 more years, Teaneck’s Master Plan covenant with its residents defined its treatment of the Baker’s neighborhood. But beginning in 2019, Teaneck decided to adopt a new way of making development decisions – and it combined that depicted residential home across Decatur with another lot – and designated it as a blighted Area in Need of Redevelopment (AINR).

Quickly it decided that the Baker’s neighborhood should host a 258-unit 6-story residential facility – and by January 2021 the Planning Board told Council that such a facility would be consistent with the Master Plan.


Council then decided that its developer should get a huge tax break

- a PILOT (Payment in Lieu of Taxes) to implement this monstrous project.


Construction of that huge facility has in July 2023 only proceeded to about half as high as it is to grow – and Voices periodically drops by 1086 Decatur to see how well the Town’s is keeping its promise that it would allow a multi-family facility “ONLY in areas where it would not have detrimental effects on single-family neighborhoods”. 



On July 19, Margaret Baker came back out on her front steps to survey with us her neighborhood’s mid-construction view of what is emerging across the street. .

Teaneck Voices readers owe it to themselves to drive by 1086 Decatur - and down Alfred Avenue as well – to assess what “consistency with the Master Plan” actually means operationally when AINR’s are the Town’s development model.

Schools: New to Teaneck Voices

Beginning with our July 31st issue of Teaneck Voices, we will include news and events of the Board of Education (BOE) and the Teaneck Public Schools (TPS).


There we will include publication of our intriguing new interview with new Superintendent Dr. Andre D. Spencer.


This year’s November Annual School Election will be held Nov. 7, 2023. The deadline for candidates to submit their nominating petition to the county clerk is 4 p.m., July 31, 2023.

There are three 3-year positions open this year for the Teaneck Board of Education -- Sebastian Rodriguez & Denise Sanders are not running again.


School board secretaries and residents interested in board member candidacy can download the NJSBA 2023 November Election Candidate Kit online at NJSBA Candidates Kit on the NJSBA website


For Voices to provide good longer-term schools coverage, we would like to work with one or more students, parents, or interested residents who will keep us current with news and events at the BOE and TPS by providing weekly “tips” on what we should be covering. As well, if any of our readers would like to write articles about the BOE or TPS, we would welcome you participation. You can reach us at teaneckvoices@gmail.com

This Week in Teaneck-7-24 to 31, 2023

y This Week in Teaneck – July 17-24, 2023


Hackensack River Greenway Advisory Board - Monday  July 24, 2023 at 8:00 pm by Zoom Click https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82829786233 and use passcode 050561.


Planning Board Special Meeting. - Tuesday July 25, 2023 at 8:00 pm in-person only in Room MP-1 of the Rodda Center.


  • This is a special meeting of a hearing continuation to address issues related to the Holy Name Medical Center site plan applications and possibly follow-up on litigation settlement issues - see related article in this Voices edition


Youth Advisory Board – Wednesday, July 19, 2023 at 7:30 pm – Rodda Center


Shade Tree Advisory Board (STAB) - Thursday July 26, 2023 at 7:00 pm in-person only in the Rodda Center



Important July Meetings Still to Come


National Night Out - Tuesday August 1, 2023 - Votee Park - 5:00-9:00 pm.

American Legion Drive AINR Community Meeting – Monday July 31, 2023 at 7:00 pm in the Teaneck Library Auditorium. 

Still Waiting For ..

Still Waiting for...

Clarification of where Teaneck is now in its literally 50-year search to decide whether it should itself cleanup the hazardous waste mess our Town government has allowed to be created at the dangerous River Road DPW facility and recycle center or should it/can it find a new location for most of those DPW functions.


Passage on 6/27/23 of Resolution 210-2023 authorizes submission of an application for a state grant to explore a shared services DPW facility with Englewood and thus probably signals the collapse of a similar initiative with Leonia. But month after month goes by without a substantive update since the announcement in the prior Council's October meeting that the Leonia deal was a virtual sure thing.


And what would/will happen at the River Road site if the DPW is moved? Transparency please....


Still Waiting for...

A Township Website Redesign – It has now been MANY months since Voices pointed out that not only did the Town not get a new website design by the promised “end of 2022”, but it has now been months since the Town got 5 seemingly strong website designer bids for the Town website redesign.

At the Advisory Board on Community Relations (ABCR) , meeting of 7/17 there was extensive discussion of ways that the Township's calendar could be improved and be more inclusive. A sub-committee of the ABCR will cosult with the Township Clerk and develop recommendations to be made back to the Bord in the Fall.

For inexplicable reasons, no one has said an official word about the website redesign issue since bids to produce such a redesign were open.

Voices asks: What about at least a “status” report?


Still Waiting for...

A User-Friendly 2023 Budget – The state unambiguously requires that municipalities publish a User-Friendly budget once their annual budget have been approved. Many towns new require their CFO’s to produce much earlier versions - issued while their budgets are still in negotiation. Not Teaneck!


In fact, we continue to wonder where is Teaneck's required adopted budget User-Friendly budget?

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Contacting Teaneck Voices


Co-Editors: Dr. Barbara Ley Toffler and Dr. Chuck Powers

By Email: teaneckvoices@gmail.com

By Phone: 201-214-4937

By USPS Mail: Teaneck Voices, PO Box 873. at 1673 Palisade Ave. 07666

Teaneck Voices' Website is www.teaneckvoices.com


Sign Up Now
Send a Comment
Submit an Article
Editorial Policies
LinkedIn Share This Email