Letter to the editor: Parsippany’s Redevelopment Plan is Morris Corporate Economic Development’s Plan

Dear Editor:

Home Rule without Chutzpah is a farce and with Chutzpah is very expensive. That is just one simple reason why in 2015 regional Planning is superior wiser and beneficial to all. Elected officials have a responsibility to ensure and advocate when necessary for the best interest of their communities in all matters concerning land use be the property private or not.  This “best interest” which is a public trust issue seems to be lacking in Parsippany, where we are surrounded by many corporate owned tracts of land brought cheaply and sold for high profits on the commercial market. We have seemed to have lost ourselves in property rights rather than community values. Parsippany has had more than its share of market driven speculation land development, the need for more is questionable.  There also is a definite lack of transparency in our Planning Board, in its master plans constantly undermined and not advanced through knowledge available in examining various landscapes  for possible other uses and natural resource value, which would make them possible candidates for protections and condemning in the best interest of Parsippany. Waterview the best example and perhaps others as the property known as Block 136 Lot 43 is being proposed for a new office complex by UPS with the support of MCEDC; Morris County Economic Development Corporation. This little known landscape gem off Hill Road contains quite an extensive wetlands complex. The immediate area contains an already empty office complex, as Morris County has more vacant office inventory than anywhere in the State and ranks high in the Nation along with NJ as having such wasted space of office; how can this new complex be justified and in such an environmentally valuable area of wetlands, wellhead protections, no present sewer or water systems for the allotted development, This property could be considered a community environmentally constrained sub-zone under higher standards.

It must be asked what is going to happen to the present UPS facility on Jefferson Road?  In the immediate area of the proposed new UPS complex a large corporate office complex remains vacant on Interpace Parkway as do several other vacant offices on Interpace alone..

Parsippany’s Planning Board has called this “redevelopment”, even though it did not follow any real redevelopment principles. Let us use the American Planning Board’s own criteria to access this unnecessary land destruction.

1. Conserve land resources by attracting new development to infill and brownfield sites rather than converting raw agricultural or undeveloped acreage;
2. Take advantage of existing infrastructure rather than requiring the construction of expensive new infrastructure
3. Reuse existing resources;
4. Recycle materials and structures;
5. Conserve energy and other non-renewable resources;
6. Adapt historic or culturally significant existing buildings to new uses;
7. Improve or restore natural systems such as streambeds, drainage courses, wetlands, rivers, ports, ambient air quality, and other ecological features;
8. Embrace the principles of sustainable community planning enunciated in the APAPolicy Guide on Planning for Sustainability;
9. Are designed to promote long-term economic sustainability.
10. Address potential oversupply of land for development.

Parsippany having itself surrounded by corporate property owners and being under home-rule leaves itself vulnerable to have its best interest undermined and exchanged for poor land use promoted as economic stimulus and jobs. Parsippany’s first and foremost responsibility is to its residence in their quality of life here through proper land use and natural resource protections. Parsippany lacks many of the elements needed for this for example: we do not have a natural resource inventory of properties, nor do we have an accurate detailed report showing Prime Ground Water Recharge Areas. This is also lacking in our Stormwater Management Plan.

We start to see that our Planning Board is not somehow working in our best interest, for the outside corporate developers to undermine our natural assets keeping them off the screen. This is breach of the public trust, in that with public trust, the State cites the doctrine to support State action that protects trust resources from private actions; the resources here our landscapes, water, air and bio-diversity, trees being the best example. In a nutshell tax payers are not being served but used to aid developer’s first community second. In a relationship of power, status and responsibility it is understood that power is not equal, however the responsibility of trust must remain within any such structure. The problem is the relationship has become one of power alone, the private over the public. Home rule fearing lawsuits from corporate power throws in the towel and tells the tax-payers they are saving them money, while their community’s quality of life runs out slowly but surely. When State and Local sources do not limit, but relinquishes or overly compromises trust resources we have no longer a local community, but an open market not concerned with local traditions, history, and ecology, only their investments in a pool of wealth that benefits few and takes away from many.

The only remedy available is regional planning.  Only the realization that a strong state can overcome this lack of public trust and will benefit and advance the commonwealth can see us through. Are we a United States on any level or has the private interest destroyed our democracy? Let us unite ourselves unto the regional master plan, which will bring more, trust, transparency and public participation.  Pride in Parsippany cannot presently exist under home-rule. Wake Up People. Political centralization strengthens rather than weakens local government and the health of local communities. Just ask the depression generation. FDR we need you, and George Washington too.

Nick Homyak
Lake Hiawatha, NJ 07034

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