Saddle River proposes changes to affordable housing plan after 14 hearings
SADDLE RIVER — The borough, after 14 hearings in the last 10 months, has proposed consolidating its affordable housing sites and eliminating one, without changing the overall number of units.
The changes, which call for the elimination of the Woodcliff Lake Road site, were proposed by Borough Attorney Jonathan Drill before Judge Gregg Padovano on Monday. The proposal will be further discussed at a Dec. 28 public hearing that will be available virtually on the borough's fairness and compliance hearing website. The meeting will start at 10 a.m.
The total number of units remains unchanged at 247, with 147 of them affordable and 100 at market rate. The 16-unit site in a single-family zone on the Woodcliff Lake border was eliminated. The other sites will have the following units:
111 affordable rental units on three adjoining Choctaw Trail sites totaling 7.18 acres just east of Route 17 north, originally proposed for 80 units;
60 units, eight affordable, on 10.25 acres, including the so-called Rosie O'Donnell estate and two adjacent properties, east of Wandell School on East Allendale Road;
60 units, 12 affordable, on 7.18 acres of Algonquin Trail off East Allendale Road;
16 units of special needs rental housing at 20 E. Allendale Road, originally proposed for 23 units.
Planning Board hearings began Nov. 9 on the proposed development of the O'Donnell site.
This is the first the public has heard about the substance of subterranean negotiations only vaguely referred to in month after month of postponements in hearings intended to confirm the borough's affordable housing settlement.
In contrast, neighboring Upper Saddle River took 40 minutes to confirm its affordable housing plan last February.
Attorney flood: Saddle River affordable housing hearing flooded by attorneys, experts on both sides
In Saddle River, one of the nation's richest suburbs, a number of objections were raised to the plan, which took four years to develop with the Fair Share Housing Center.
"There will be one more adjournment to allow time for the new agreement to be noticed, but we will finish this thing once and for all next month," Joshua Bauers, an attorney with the Fair Share Housing Center, said in an email statement.
At least eight attorneys who represent the borough, developers, residents and neighboring Woodcliff Lake routinely sign in at the beginning of each hearing.
Resident Zhanna Torres has dominated the hearings with two attorneys, two engineers and two planners, fighting the location of a 16-unit affordable housing development two lots east of her Scheffler Drive property.
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A settlement with her is contained in a second amendment to the affordable housing agreement and pertains primarily to the 16-unit development proposed for 78 Woodcliff Lake Road:
The property is "eliminated from the borough's compliance plan."
The multi-family residential site will be returned to its prior R-1 single-family residential zoning.
A "restrictive covenant" will be imposed on the site "that prohibits construction of any building and/or structures on the Woodcliff Lake Road site other than a single family detached residential dwelling and permitted accessory structures."
The property will be put out for public bid by the borough at a minimum of $1.16 million.
Torres agreed that "any and all expert reports and testimony proffered by experts retained by Torres shall be stricken from the record."
Woodcliff Lake, which opposed the connection of the property to its water and sewer lines, is a party to the agreement. It's unknown if the owners of two Woodcliff Lake residences adjacent to the proposed site would drop their objections as well.
This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Saddle River NJ proposes changes to affordable housing plan
