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54 W. Englewood Development Plan Denied

The Week that Was: Environmental Commission

Update on OPMA

Voter Registration Information

Upcoming Municipal Meetings

Masthead

Attention: Teaneck residents, businesses & faith groups in the SouthWest Part of town (West of the rail tracks to the Hackensack River and from Cedar Lane going South to the Bogota border):

The newly formed SouthWest Teaneck Neighborhood Association (SWTNA) launched May 15th with its first annual Spring Street Fair. Residents living in the SouthWest part of town had a chance to meet some of their neighbors while participating in arts and crafts, Zumba dance, and potted gardening offered by the Teaneck Garden Club.

They learned about some of the many organizations and services offered in Teaneck. There was live music & poetry performed by neighborhood residents, and an opportunity to visit a beautifully hand-crafted wooden boat, “Jersey Girl” constructed by Teaneck resident, Jim Norman. It was a wonderfully fun way to launch SWTNA!

The purpose of SWTNA is to bring neighbors in the SouthWest together to address common concerns, and to promote friendship and understanding among neighbors. Our goals are to organize social events; provide representation at Town Council & Planning Board meetings as needed to address neighborhood concerns; and to provide notification and information about relevant township issues.

Membership forms were received by many SouthWest Teaneck households through an active door-to-door campaign in the Spring to promote the Association and the May 15th launching.

Our hope is to reach many more SouthWest residents to learn about your concerns and to address them to build a stronger neighborhood community through social events, informational forums and advocacy.

Our next social event will be in conjunction with the SouthWest organization “Never Alone Again” to celebrate National Hispanic Heritage Month between September 15th and October 15th. Stay tuned for the date and details which will be in Teaneck Voices, on our SouthWest Teaneck Neighborhood Association Facebook page, and, for members, in an email.

If you live in the SouthWest part of Teaneck and are not already a member of the Association, please contact Lisa Schwartz at southwestteaneck@gmail.com for a membership form, or if you have any questions.

At last week's special meeting, Teaneck’s Board of Adjustment voted to deny the developer/owner of 54 W. Englewood Ave. the right to construct a 20-unit multifamily building!

This was the Board's seventh hearing to evaluate whether the application to construct the 20-unit multifamily building would be allowed in a zone which specifically prohibits anything except single family residential structures.

The vote to deny the application was 5-2.

The hearing was watched closely because:

At this hearing, Joseph Burgis (head of the Hoboken-based Burgis and Associates planning firm) was finally required to defend the testimony he gave more than six months ago, where he testified that this application met the demanding D1 variance test and should therefore be approved. (Click here for an explanation of the D1 variance.)

Teaneck resident Chuck Powers cross-examined planner Burgis at the hearing. Powers was able to show conclusively that Burgis had erroneously included multi-family dwellings in his analysis of the neighborhood, that are actually not part of the 54 W. Englewood zone in question. Powers also produced letters from Teaneck's own Town Planner that described the area quite differently from Burgis' testimony.

In an hour and a half of contentious argument, the two also differed over how to interpret the goals and objectives of the Master Plan and whether the applicant’s proposal made particular contributions to the general welfare of the commuity.

Then attorney Capizzi summed up his applicant’s proposal while residents Sohn and Powers summed up their critique of the proposal (which you can see in the video cited at the end of this article, by moving the cursor to 1:52 for 10 minutes).

After this, the Board of Adjustment members weighed in for the first time.

For members Barta, Mulligan, Rosen and Mermelstein it all came down to the fact that they disagreed with Burgis about relevant densities. They agreed that the applicant’s 20-unit proposal simply did not belong on this property, which is less than half an acre, and that the application should be denied. Alternate Brown agreed.

The two votes for approval came from Green and Prince.

This decision by the Board of Adjustment represents precisely the proper set of steps that a municipality is supposed to follow when guided by the State’s Municipal Land Use Law (MLUL).

Unfortunately, at a previous meeting, Teaneck’s Council already began to take steps to undermine and potentially reverse the decision of the Board of Adjustment, just in case they failed to approve the application.

On May 17, 2022, Council passed a resolution asking the Planning Board to carry out an investigation of whether Block 4905 (Lots 1-22) should be declared Teaneck’s 9th Area in Need of Redevelopment (AINR). It also passed a resolution authorizing Town planners Phillips, Preiss et. al to aid the Planning Board in its investigation for that Block and its lots.

And, yes, 54 W. Englewood Ave sits in that Block 4905!

If Council succeeds in this stratagem, it will be able to ignore the decision of the Board of Adjustment. In designating an area blighted, the Council can seize control of the normal land use process; it gives itself power to select developers without competitive processes, overrule Master Plan requirements and its own prior zoning, and hand out tax benefits. And much of this can legally be done behind closed doors.

Ironically, the Council is now moving to rob these Boards of their authority.

Watch this space. It is very likely that this Board of Adjustment decision will soon be declared moot.

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Additional Resources:

For those interested, the entire video of the two-hour meeting may be found here.

And for another summary of this hearing with a useful discussion by residents of how Teaneck’s land use policies are failing, check out Blue Teaneck (Click Here)

As a follow-up to its 6/27/2022 story on the recent struggles of Teaneck’s Environmental Commission (Click Here), Teaneck Voices took particular interest in this week’s 7/20/2022 Commission meeting. 

The good news is that four of the six Commissioners and an Alternate participated – in contrast to the June meeting which was canceled due to lack of a quorum. The Town Manager has not yet appointed the 7th EC member. The meeting lasted 28 minutes (Click Here for Town video)

The major announcement of the meeting was that the Association of New Jersey Environmental Commissions (ANJEC - the non-profit which supports all NJ environmental commissions) had awarded one of its $1500 Open Space Stewardship Awards to enable the creation of a Reading Garden in the Teaneck Garden Club.

The volunteer work required in implementing these type of awards has already begun with the removal of invasive species where the Reading Garden will be constructed. 

Only two other items of business received significant attention. First, Chair Gillers asked for clarification about how the municipality’s Environmental Resources Inventory (ERI) is produced and who does it. A Commission guest provided some guidance, and mentioned the fact that the Town’s last ERI update was in June 2013 (Click Here).

The Land Conservancy of New Jersey authored the 2013 update for Teaneck. It was agreed it would be good to engage them again and the Chair then committed to seeking support from the Town Manager for a new ERI update.

(That same organization - the Land Conservancy of New Jersey - also developed the 2019 Open Space and Recreation Plan (OSRP) which remains in limbo since the Town’s Planning Board has never acted to approve it.) 

Second, the Environmental Commission's liaison to Council, Keith Kaplan, updated the EC on the Community Choice Aggregation program for sustainable clean energy for Teaneck approved by residents 2-1 in last November’s election. Kaplan stated that the Request for Proposal seeking bidders to implement the program had been issued on July 18. Kaplan then announced that there may be trouble ahead for this renewable energy initiative if Council does not approve any of the bids.

It was unclear why and what basis Council might not approve any of the bids, but subscribers will want to listen to Kaplan’s entire 3 +-minute unedited statement (Click Here)

It is clearly the responsibility of a municipal Environmental Commission to evaluate the environmental impact of development site plans and make recommendations about them. For that reason, it is crucial that there be a member of the Planning Board who sits on the EC. (See our previous June 27 issue on Teaneck and the Environment).

The Planning Board member assigned to the EC (currently Yehudah Kohn) should be aggressive in assuring that the EC gets emerging site plans in time to make its recommendations.

There are many recent site plans for developments in Teaneck. For the EC to provide timely evaluations of them and make recommendations, the Planning Board liaison must show up and present the plans for review.

Unfortunately, there was no discussion at all at the EC meeting of any site plans for developments now being considered by Teaneck's land use boards, or by Council for their designated redevelopment areas (AINRs).

Without any explanation or, apparently, any contact with the EC chair, Mr. Kohn did not make it to the 7/20 meeting. So when the “site plans evaluation” item on the agenda came up, there was nothing to discuss.

Our Environmental Commission is chopping away at invasive species at the Garden Club. But it is entirely missing its review and evaluation of some of the most important environmental matters in Teaneck.

A common concern raised on Teaneck social media: Is the Town justified in delaying its responses to requests under the Open Public Records Act (OPRA)? Or are its delays a way to keep the pubic in the dark about issues it has a right to know?

A case in point concerns the large number of resident questions and speculations about just what was going on during the 15 minute period after Mayor Dunleavy suddenly announced a 5-minute recess just prior to the vote on the Holy Name expansion ordinance.

This recess request came seconds after the Mayor had asked for a motion to approve or disapprove the two ordinances addressing the hospital zone and related surrender by the Town to Holy Name of a portion of Chadwick Road that were up for adoption on the 28th.

Precisely what happened before, during and after the recess? Who was involved? What actually happened during the recess that resulted in the change in Council member Rice’s vote? The answer to these questions are central to knowing whether the vote on the two hospital ordinances was legally valid - a matter that will surely be tested in court in litigation already underway.

But what should citizens think in the meantime?

Teaneck Voices does not yet have the answers. The Town Clerk has not been forthcoming in responding to our very focused request for access to the surveillance tapes that could show who met with whom during the recess.

Currently we have four sources of information that the public can access, depending on how deeply they want to dig into this issue for themselves.

Compare the first two resources with the second two and judge for yourselves. Are the officials' reporting an accurate reflection of what occurred?

If you are not registered to vote, please make it a priority to do so. To complete a registration form or for more information regarding voting in Bergen County, please click onto the this link.

If you are not sure if you are registered to vote in Teaneck, you may search here.

To check the details of your voter record, you may sign up here.

Monday July 7, 2022 at 7:30pm

 Public access and opportunity for input limited by the  Advisory Board

Thursday July 28, 2022 at 8:00pm

No access information or anything about the PB agenda is currently available

*Quote from Ordinance 15-2020 on Advisory Boards adopted by Council on August 11, 2020:

“Council’s advisory Board meetings are closed to the public. The public can submit items for discussion to the Council’s advisory board chair and council liaison for review and potential for inclusion on their meeting agenda. If the item is placed on the agenda, the chair, with approval of their Council’s advisory board, may invite the member of the public to come and speak to them about the specific issue they want to have discussed”.

This Week's Events at the Library click here

One Town One Vote (OTOV) is a grassroots, nonpartisan volunteer organization that worked with other community groups to make it easier and more convenient for Teaneck residents to vote for their local leadership by unifying Teaneck’s stand-alone town council elections, previously held in May, to take place on the same day as the General Elections in November. Tuesday, November 8, 2022 will be the first time Teaneck residents will have the opportunity to vote for town council members at the same time as we vote for other local, state, and national officials.

In anticipation of this historic event, OTOV is conducting a town-wide survey on resident issues and concerns. We need your input! Your responses will help us achieve our ongoing goal of helping to listen, educate, organize, and empower residents on local issues so your voice matters and your vote counts in the November elections. Your information will not be shared with any other organization.

Please click here to take the One Town One Vote resident survey! Your voices will be heard, your voices will count!"

Fire Fighter test and information about the job of being a firefighter.

The projected starting salary next year is $55,687 and $55,781 if the candidate has an EMT (before or after hire) as well. Salary may differ with each jurisdiction.

https://info.csc.state.nj.us/Vats/WebAnno.aspx?FileNumber=30142 (click onto the link to read the "FireFighter Fact Sheet"

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