Dear Editor:
There is something seriously wrong taking place in the Township of Parsippany, and our current local “leaders” are allowing it to happen. Parsippany is seeing a flood of development that will adversely impact the qualities of our community for which many of its residents were attracted to move here, and why many others have grown up and chosen to remain in the town they have loved for many decades.
The Township’s residents have chosen to make Parsippany their home because of its core values of family, community, and taking care of one another, as well as the beauty and serenity of the area. It’s those values and the peacefulness of Parsippany that once made it one of the best places to live in the United States.
During pre-COVID, traffic was already bad, and post-COVID, it could get even worse. Do you think Route 202 already resembled a slow-moving parade or that Route 10 has virtually become a parking lot during the morning and afternoon rush hours? How about just getting to your local stores? And if you think the supermarkets are already crowded enough unless you’re shopping sometime around 11:00 p.m., get ready for a lot more late-night shopping.
For no good reason, our local government officials, along with the Planning and Zoning boards, are allowing developers to exploit Parsippany and its residents. Thanks to those officials, the overall congestion will exponentially worsen due to the overdevelopment that is already in place, and both our home values and our quality of life are going to suffer. Proposed projects, including those on Cherry Hill Road, Route 10, and behind Saint Christopher’s Church, will markedly alter Parsippany from the community its residents have loved for many years.
In addition, the town has welcomed outside developers who, in various locations, want to knock down a single-family home and build five or six multi-family units within existing single-family neighborhoods.
I have attended zoning board hearings in which a majority of the board dismiss environmental impact claims, ignore issues like traffic impact and water runoff, and instead ask questions about the bedroom size of a rental unit and the storage capacity of a utility closet, seemingly more interested in looking out for some unknown, future renter than the existing township residents they supposedly represent.
What can we do? We need to attend these hearings, make our voices heard, and make clear to our leaders and board members that this overdevelopment is unacceptable. Neither our local government nor the Planning and Zoning boards are looking out for our interests, the residents of this township, so we need to take action and put a halt to the proposed developments that will clog up our roads, overwhelm our schools, increase overall congestion, and transform the Parsippany we all love into an urban district while also decreasing our home values.
This is our town and our government leaders need to be held accountable for their decisions. They need to start making decisions that are aligned with residents’ values and best interests. If we don’t start making our voices heard, demanding that they take us seriously, and start addressing our needs, we might as well start looking for someplace else to live, because the Parsippany as we know it will never be the same.
Name Withheld By Request
Parsippany
