When Public Storage came to West Orange two years ago wanting to build a three-story facility on the banks of Crystal Lake, a panic ensued. No one wanted to see this place of natural beauty spoiled with a window-less warehouse, including Philip Neuer, the Zoning Board chair, who is not known for harsh indictments of developers. In this case, however, Neuer saw this plot of land as part of an important network of historic and recreational sites.
One of his objections was to the developer’s refusal to provide access to the lake. It spoke volumes to Neuer about how the applicant saw itself – an island surrounded by a moat of asphalt. The Zoning Board unanimously denied the application.
“If we are to approve this application, we are for many years into the future denying access to the lake,” Neuer said.
This week, the township had a chance to get it right. A new plan – this time to renovate the old Eagle Rock Lanes building for a still-unknown commercial use (although the applicant’s paperwork reference a storage facility) – was unanimously approved last night. But there is a tragic flaw: no sidewalks.
“There’s no room,” said Greg Gianetti, a partner for Day Pitney, the law firm representing the applicant, about putting in a sidewalk. “It’s quite common for shopping centers not having an access or sidewalk leading entirely to the building.”
But this isn’t like most shopping centers. It sits on what architects call a flag lot. In this case there is a 400-foot access road, which is about the size of Kling Street for reference.
Gianetti said the applicant — Crystal Eagle, LLC, owned by Cary Heller — would have to remove parking for a sidewalk, which would trigger the need for a variance and a return to Neuer’s board. In what scenario would the Zoning Board deny an application that gave them what they wanted all along – better, safer access to the lake?
There are many places in our township — including our new public library — that make life utterly miserable for people who walk, ride the bus, or simply rely on graded sidewalks to be self-sufficient, such as the elderly and the disabled. Look at the sidewalk-less patches along Eagle Rock Avenue, where residents have to trudge through head-high weeds to get to shops and restaurants. Or the Stonehill apartments where Roz Moskowitz Bielski, a member of the Pedestrian Safety Advisory Board, tried her darndest to get sidewalks installed.
“We fought long and hard and got nothing,” Moskowitz Bielski said. “If I lived in one of those units, I wouldn’t be able to walk to L.A. Fitness, for example – which is kind of ridiculous.”
The most disappointing thing about Wednesday’s vote is that four members of the Planning Board who voted for a project without sidewalks sit on the Pedestrian Safety Advisory Board.
But the problem is even deeper than accessibility and pedestrian safety. Our township has a planning problem. Neighboring towns are fighting for bike lanes, greenways, and pedestrian plazas. Advocates like Moskowitz Bielski are screaming to deaf ears for the most basic public infrastructure – a three-foot-wide strip of cement. This, despite living in a town where a Redwood School student, Joseph Macaluso, was fatally struck by a car while crossing the street.
Land-use boards like the Planning Board can place certain conditions on a developer in exchange for an approval. In fact, the reason Crystal Lake has come so far is because it was a condition put on the developer who built homes on Boland Drive.
“There’s no way we shouldn’t have sidewalks on Rooney Circle. Now, people are dodging cars or walking across a parking lot,” Moskowitz Bielski said. “Other towns wouldn’t let them get away with it.”
The Town Council debated for months and months about the need for a full-time town planner only to settle on the next best thing – hiring a consultant, the Nishuane Group. The recent Planning Board meeting was a perfect opportunity for Gerard Haizel, principal at Nishuane Group, to present his vision for our township and promote the sort of things his firm writes about in master plans, such as the one for Orange, namely “making more places where residents from eight years old through 80 can feel comfortable walking, riding bicycles, or skateboarding.”
Or how about adhering to West Orange’s own master plan, which includes an action plan to “develop a design for Crystal Lake facilities” and to “negotiate for access and parking with neighboring commercial landowners?”
Instead, Haizel made no objections about the lack of sidewalks. In fact, he asked only one question about the lot size during the entire three-hour meeting. This lack of engagement was the same criticism the Town Council had of Paul Grygiel, the former part-time planner.
If Haizel could not speak up for basic pedestrian infrastructure at this three-acre lot next to Crystal Lake, can we rely on him to advocate for smart development along two miles of our downtown corridor, when multimillion dollar deals are on the line?
Planners are some of the most idealistic people in the world. No student of urban planning, after reading about Robert Moses and his car-centric infrastructure that separated the haves from the have-nots, wants to construct a society without sidewalks. But something, maybe, happens to good people when they begin working for local government. Perhaps there is a fog of indifference that pumps through the HVAC system at Town Hall.
It’s funny how much a sidewalk can tell you about a community. It’s a simple, three-foot-wide strip of cement and yet it gives dignity to people, especially the elderly, who are the most likely pedestrians to be fatally struck by cars, and the disabled.
In Shel Silverstein’s book of poems Where the Sidewalk Ends, the end of the sidewalk was not the start of an asphalt parking lot or a busy road, it was supposed to be where the city gave way to nature, beauty, and imagination. It should be required reading for the officials at Town Hall.
WATCH THE PLANNING BOARD MEETING ON MAY 1, 2024
