Dear Editor:

Don’t believe what Mayor James Barberio said about the money for the “open space”; that if certain parties did not protest open space money would have come from the County. 1) It was not appropriate for such funds under the circumstance; remember it was RD’s buffer and did not meet criteria for open space requirements under the County. The County official even remarked it was one of the worse proposals ever put forth. 2) the group that protested also petitioned the County to help us in their power to buy the whole landscape as open space because of the character inherent in the landscape, ground water recharge, and neighborhood and regional enhancement.

If for example the whole landscape of the waterview was intact as an ecosystem with its natural assets undisturbed; not fragmented by the developer if may have stood a chance; under Highlands Conformance which Parsippany has rejected without public consent or transparency the landscape could of been considered “community-environmentally constrained sub-zone” and given legal protections as such, perhaps even considered rezoned off the market ,recognized in the light of so important as to be taken off-market for its long term benefits in the water cycle and community enhancement, especially to the immediate neighborhood Under conformance Belle Meade would of received their fair share market value for the land.

One good citizen also brought light to the fact when the POD zone was established these landscapes were zoned as an area with their buffer landscapes already build into the zone. Waterview was left that way for environmental and ecological reasons being in the Troy Brook Watershed, and giving balance and biodiversity, nature’s stormwater, water cycle quality and quantity cycle back to the aquifer at no costs to anyone. This original arrangement was subverted and forgotten. The Earth a natural resource in itself turned back into real estate.

Morris County does not conform to regional planning itself. So by not being in conformance to the Regional Plan Parsippany became its own worst enemy. Instead of science and law; including legal protections available under conformance, we left ourselves purposely vulnerable to gangster developers like RD.

It is time to ask; why are we being denied regional conformance? Why is the public not encourage to learn more and the administration transparent and truthful about the advances and benefits concerned in Regional Planning? By completing an environmental resource inventory and identifying unique environmentally sensitive areas, as our own master plan contends waterview could have been saved. Instead we paid for a lawsuit for an issue that was moot at the time, RD trying to rezone the land without Parsippany in their equation, knowing that all such lawsuits were inappropriate at the time because the Courts were in the process of settling the affordable housing issue. Now we have the three and one half million dollars of our tax dollars going for what still amounts to a buffer. In that area of the Troy Brook are steep slopes and slopes galore a buffer of the type we are calling open space; would of been necessary no matter. The area is also in a flood prone area, as any land use capability map would show. Its consolidated soils the best kind for water recharge and filtering will now be polluted by runoff and impervious surface.

The terrain feature known as Doremus Ridge the last of the hills of Troy will certainly, slowly but surely implode and erode. The Trees will lose their vitality, the stormwater engineering will not be maintained properly, and will not be capable of the same natural process by waterview’s consolidated soils of glacial till, further injuring our recharge, and water quality.

Replacing science with politics and politicians who think little of public environmental values, but only private economic concerns and tax dollars do not deserve our support. The continuation of their salaries is more important than the long term health of our water and quality of life. Progress in a myth science and good land use is not. Our master plan is a worthless piece of paper; as it changes continuously with every new corporate scheme of the big landowners. It is against a great moral law to be unjustly enriched at the costs of other. That is what just occurred on Tuesday, November 10 at Town Hall.

Loss of a valuable beyond money asset, and robbery of our open space funds; RD cleaned up real good. Who will be left with the real mess? Our well heads are protected in theory, but not really so, as groundwater recharge areas in Parsippany are not protected. Without these recharge areas the well will go dry and the water quality will degrade. Add the UPS new development; called redevelopment, waterview and other already developed places most vacant an idle all in the same extended landscape all Route 46 and we can look forward to more traffic, litter, floods and loss of the sense of home; America the beautiful? No it’s their country right or wrongs certainly not ours.

RD and our officials allowed; turned a civic obligation COAH that Parsippany may not have even had to adhere to. (254 affordable housing units in 2010 into 666 then thousands) The chorus sang higher, higher numbers even while COAH does not exist, but builder’s remedy, into a threat, because our Town is not our own and RD and Belle Mead have their property rights. Parsippany’s answer, scorched earth; develop all the open land so public housing can’t come here. Is not that a deliberate evasion and purpose exclusion for the alleged housing responsibility that if true will have to be built somewhere anyway? Let us save tax-dollars by abolishing our master plan expense and discontinue the environmental and open space committee, they are a waste of money. Under the present NJDEP you can rest assured this site plan will be streamlined and fast tracked, into construction as the present administration in Trenton does not protect the environment, health, safety or welfare of its citizens. Money can’t buy love, but love can be bought for money.

Nicholas Homyak

Dear Editor:

On November 10, the Parsippany-Troy Hills Township Council, with a proverbial gun to their heads, unanimously voted to approve a settlement agreement in which RD Reality would be permitted to raze and develop 16 acres of the Waterview tract. This represents the beginning of the end of a decades-long battle to preserve this land as best as possible.

In the 1980’s, a group of Intervale residents worked with the town council to preserve a 200 foot buffer along the edge of the property and zone the land as planned office development (corporate campus), minimizing the impact on the neighborhood, versus the strip mall and apartments that a developer had planned.

In 2005, Intervale residents stopped a rezoning of the land and prevented a town center. Shortly thereafter, a 55+ development was prevented. In 2013, a large complex of townhouses, Target, Whole Foods, and various other stores (leaving only a 50 foot buffer for the neighborhood) was defeated. And finally, a smaller, high-end strip mall with a 9.2 acre buffer was stopped. And while the latter was clearly the best deal in front of the residents at that time, we felt we could do better – so that’s what we did. We continued to fight.

During the summer of 2015, one of the principals from RD Reality reached out to me and said he wanted to work directly with us to find something that was amenable to everyone. We met numerous times, apparently unbeknownst to the township administration, and C4HS&W did its best to negotiate the best possible deal we could for the neighborhood and the (At that time, we were also continuing concurrently aggressively exploring ways to preserve the entire tract as open space.)

Through discussions, we were able to increase the preserved acreage to 10.6, though we were adamant about wanting more. We ensured that Intervale Road was off-limits, insisted on a treed buffer to help shield the neighborhood from noise and lights, and pushed the project as close to Route 46 as we could. While we didn’t get everything we wanted, we did everything we could. To be fair, the representative from RD was honest, approachable, and treated us far better than any of the other RD representatives who minimally dealt with us in 2012.

Did we get everything we wanted? No. But given that we were staring down the barrel of the builders’ remedy, perceived or real, our options to fight were quickly becoming limited. As the president of C4HS&W, I’m saddened that we weren’t able to preserve more, and certainly not all, of the land. As a resident of the Intervale neighborhood, I think the council’s vote last night, given the totality of the circumstances, was their best option and I thank each one for their vote.

I would like to specifically thank Councilman Brian Stanton, former Councilman Jonathan Nelson, Council President Paul Carifi, Jr., Councilman Lou Valori, and Council Vice President Robert Peluso for listening to the residents who strongly felt that we could do better than any deal that had been in front of them prior to November 10. They had the courage to trust a group of citizens who knew a better deal was out there, and represented their interests. I consistently told them that if the point came when I felt that there was no more fight left, not one more tree to save, then I would prefer a settlement rather than risk losing the entire tract – but that I would fight until the last possible minute. For me, that point came about 1 hour before the council meeting.

Mike dePierro, who curiously publicly chastised me prior to his November 10 vote, clearly believed that the COAH threat was real, and voted to prevent the town from being exposed to high density housing – though for some reason, attempted to make me feel badly for fighting for as much as possible until the very end. No citizen should ever be humiliated for doing what s/he feels is right for the community. In the end, his vote to preserve 9.2 acres was ultimately defeated in lieu of another vote to preserve 10.6 acres, with the additional acres being negotiated by common citizens who felt they could make a difference, several months earlier.

To be clear though, I thank all public officials, who do what they believe is right, for giving their time and making hard decisions. It’s also important to thank the Mountain Lakes council members for working so hard to protect Intervale Road. They were definitely very influential in making that happen.

It has been an unforgettable experience getting to know so many great people through this process over the past several years. Residents joined arms, exchanged ideas, had difficult conversations, held to their convictions, donated time, donated money, attended meetings, and fought for what they believed was best. I would also like to thank the current and former board members of C4HS&W: Len Cipkins, John Garrison, Margaret Gossett, Michele Tuscano, Jackie Bay, Nancy DuTerte, Gretchen Fry, Ron Owens, Dick Young, and John Beehler for their dedication to this cause.

There is no way to calculate the number of hours spent on this enormous task, and their leadership was impressive.

Dave Kaplan
President
Citizens For Health, Safety, & Welfare