Building project approval criticized
Record Article 1/26/03

By JAN BARRY
Staff Writer

RINGWOOD - The property has wooded slopes plunging from a state forest, with mossy wetlands and tumbling brooks feeding a reservoir system that serves 2 million people.
As such, it could be a poster image for the ongoing state campaign against sprawl in the Highlands.
Instead, craggy West Brook Mountain, overlooking the Wanaque Reservoir, is slated for a 39-home development.
Conservation groups and regional water managers are citing the mountain's position in the watershed as well as Governor McGreevey's pledge to preserve open space in the Highlands as they mount belated opposition to the looming development. They accuse the borough Planning Board of taking a hurried vote to approve subdivision of the 166-acre tract just before the governor's recent declaration.
Water utility managers are particularly upset that Ringwood officials would ignore long-standing efforts to limit development near the reservoirs.
"That area was included on our maps for acquisition for open space," said Phil White, spokesman for the North Jersey District Water Supply Commission. The commission wrote to the Planning Board in November that it opposed the housing plan "unless there are adequate assurances that this development will not degrade water quality to our reservoirs."
White said North Jersey District Water Supply officials are looking into what they can do about the Planning Board action. So is the Sierra Club and other members of the activist Highlands Coalition.
The site is owned by developer Jack Levkovitz of West Milford, who is also building 28 single-family homes on an adjacent parcel. Environmentalists say the property, abutting Norvin Green State Forest on the borough's western edges, is even steeper and more environmentally sensitive than a nearby tract called Tory Estates, which local, state, and Passaic County officials banded together to save.
The question of whether such projects can be sited on such inclines was rendered moot several years ago when borough officials revised regulations to open broad areas of steep slopes to residential development. In the current controversy, borough officials have countered criticism by noting they have followed the usual format of public review of the plan, even if on a quicker-than-usual basis.
But that argument misses the greater point, opponents say.
"This is exactly the type of property that the governor and the people of New Jersey want to see protected," said Jeff Tittel, director of the state chapter of the Sierra Club and a Ringwood resident. "This is one of the most beautiful mountains in the Highlands. This action by Ringwood is reprehensible.
"It's mountain sprawl," he continued. With a play to array homes around 44 acres of wetlands and brooks to be left in a natural state, "they are going to be blasting that mountain," Tittel said, to put in streets, driveways, and houses on slopes that in many cases exceed 50 percent. "It's going to be a moonscape filled with McMansions."
Ella Filippone, director of the Passaic River Coalition, which coordinated the Tory Estates buyout, said state Green Acres funds were earmarked to purchase the Levkovitz tract. But Susam Currie, a spokeswoman for the New Jersey Conservation Foundation, said this week that buyout talks were broken off when Levkovitz said he was not interested in selling.
Levkovitz could not be reached for comment. In November, according to Planning Board minutes, he testified that if he wasn't allowed to build on a 44-acre area of wetlands and brooks, that portion could go to the New Jersey Conservation Foundation.
Environmentalists said the board voted so quickly that conservation groups were not ready to present their own experts. Leaders of Skylands CLEAN, a local ecology group, said they had asked a former Planning Board member, Tom Sergi, to prepare a report. Sergi said he was still working on his report when he learned that the board had voted.
Filippone said she was "shocked that the Ringwood Planning Board would give approval to this plan in two meetings," and that routinely, "similar projects in other towns go on for 10 or 12 hearings. Both sides bring in their experts. This one should have had on the record a thorough examination."
Mayor Jerry Holt, who just joined the Planning Board earlier this month, said he was not aware of the conservation efforts for this property. To prevent such miscommunications in the future, Holt said, the borough's open-space committee is making a map of undeveloped parcels throughout Ringwood to help identify property for consideration of conservation buyouts.
Councilman Allan Van Eck, who also sits on the Planning Board, said the project was not rushed through. He said a conceptual review of the proposed housing was discussed by the board in 2001 and the subdivision public hearing began in November.
A major issue environmentalists want to raise is that the Levkovitz tract is mostly steep slopes with runoff flowing into West Brook to the Wanaque Reservoir. Skylands CLEAN and North Jersey District Water Supply Commission have objected in the past to the 1999 zoning ordinance revisions that allows development on slopes of 25-percent grade, a foot of drop for every four horizontal feet, rather than the 15 percent grade that state agencies define as a steep slope. That ordinance revision allows projects as Levkovitz's West Brook Hills II to proceed without the need for steep-slope zoning relief.
Another unusual aspect of the board action is that the motion for approval did not state that the subdivision is subject to Passaic County Planning Board approval. That provoked a surprised comment by Borough Engineer Edward Haack.
"If we do not make it subject to Passaic County approval, it would be the first time," Haack said, after a brief discussion about whether to comply with a county request for more information on runoff from the project.
Passaic County Planner James Rogers said this week that his agency has not received the data it requested. And that may put a glitch in this project. "All major subdivisions have to be approved by the county Planning Board," Rogers said.
The Planning Board hearing was continued to Jan. 13. The board determined that the application was complete and heard testimony from Levkovitz and his experts that the proposed housing lots would fit within the two-acre residential zone and that each lot could accommodate a house that would fit within the parameters set by the borough's revised steep-slope ordinance.
"Not that anyone wants those kind of major developments in town. But none of these lots needed variances," said Van Eck.
Noting that the board action was to authorize the board attorney to draft a resolution of preliminary subdivision approval, Van Eck said that if any opponents want to be heard, "there is still ample time for them to voice concerns."
But Tittel, a former Ringwood Planning Board member, said the board vote allows Levkovitz to bulldoze roads into the tract and apply for site plan approval of the housing lots. Tittel and others said they are mounting a campaign to preserve the tract, but that subdivision approval will likely make it more expensive to purchase.
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