Mayor Provides More Information On Schooley's Mountain Project

LONG VALLEY, NJ — Mayor Bill Roehrich clarified several points about the proposed Schooley's Mountain redevelopment project following a town committee meeting this week.

Roehrich said the clarifications were in response to public comments and concerns over the possible redevelopment of the former Ballantine Lumber property. The township committee voted in favor of creating an overlay zone last month to allow for residential building; the builder is now required to submit it to the planning board where it will undergo another review and vote process.

The land is a private site, and the township is not evicting anyone or condemning the site, Roehrich said. Applications and proper approvals would still be necessary to build anything; approving an overlay zone just makes that process possible. The overlay zone would require at least 25 percent of the housing units to be affordable housing, which is higher than typical, Roehrich said.

The plans call for the rehabilitation of 20 Schooley's Mountain Road, and the adaptation into residential and retail space. Any new buildings will have to replicate the historic development of the area, the proposal says, and will have to include affordable housing units.

"Creating the overlay and addressing a portion of our affordable housing requirement in a developer funded project would also prevent the Township from having to spend any more than the anticipated $500,000 for the Township sponsored project which will be funded out of an affordable housing trust funding by development fees," Roechrich said.

The Township is required by the courts to provide 29 affordable housing units in addition to the units already planned for the town. Roechrich said this was a far more favorable outcome than being sued by a developer, as some nearby towns have.

"By comparison, Chester Borough’s proposed affordable housing settlement requires 37 units at the Larrison Turkey Farm site though its population is less than a tenth of Washington Township’s. Developers are seeking to build over a thousand units in Montvale which is half the population of Washington Township. These are the kind of things – if we don’t move forward with the terms of the settlement – we may be looking at in a builder’s remedy lawsuit," Roechrich said.

The public will have the chance to comment on the proposal at upcoming meetings.

"As I said earlier - reasonable people can disagree about the best way to address affordable housing requirements and I for one believe it is better to integrate affordable housing into the community as much as possible," Roehrich said, later adding, "What I believe is unreasonable is to disregard our affordable housing requirement and leave the Township open to a builder’s remedy lawsuit under which a development with as little as 15 percent of the units to be built being affordable. That could result in over 190 apartment units at a very high density."

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