Protective zoning gains a voice

Wednesday, January 28, 2004
By JAN BARRY
STAFF WRITER


RINGWOOD - Skyline Lakes resident Ed Bombolevich wants something done to ban housing construction on small, steep lots in his lakeside neighborhood.

Jon Berry, president of the environmental group Skylands CLEAN, wants something done to preserve large wooded tracts on the ridges towering above the Wanaque Reservoir.

After years of raising such concerns at municipal reviews of development applications, Bombolevich and Berry found a forum Monday night at which a newly reconstituted Planning Board took such views as a mandate for change.

A majority of the board was appointed by Democratic Mayor Wenke Taule after her victorious pro-environment Borough Council slate took charge this month. The new board's first order of business was an evening devoted to discussing potential zoning changes to strengthen environmental protection.

After Berry argued that "we don't have good steep-slope protection or ridgeline protection," board member Tom Sergi suggested that one way to preserve large wooded mountain tracts would be to remove a provision in current zoning that allows golf courses.

"There's no water for it. You'd have to quarry to create a site," Sergi said of such locales as Saddle Mountain, where a golf course project is being considered by the landowner, a subsidiary of Braen Stone Industries, which operates a quarry on an adjacent tract.

After a wide ranging discussion, board members reached a consensus to draft several measures it would recommend for adoption by the Borough Council. These included ordinances on wellhead protection, storm water management, and environmental impact statements by developers.

Left for future discussion, were the more contentious issues, such as steep slope restrictions, which have been the focus of lawsuits filed by property owners or developers around the state.

"Wellhead protection, that has to be done," said board member John Speer. "It's relatively easy to do," he said, referring to a model ordinance drafted by the Passaic River Coalition, an environmental advocacy group, under a state Department of Environment Protection grant.

Such laws prohibit new businesses that use or store substances that could pollute groundwater from locating within certain distances of a well. Those distances are based on DEP calculations of how long a pollutant would take to travel to the well.

John Thonet, the board's environmental planning consultant, noted that the DEP has drafted a model ordinance on storm water management. The ordinance incorporates new state regulations that take effect next month. Municipalities have two years to adopt such an ordinance, but Thonet said he saw no reason to delay acting on the issue.

Thonet, who is an environmental consultant in several other municipalities, said an environmental impact ordinance could follow models used in other communities.

The Planning Board discussion also focused on other steps that could be taken, such as the borough not auctioning off to builders small lots it acquires when taxes are not paid. Bombolevich, who told the board that steep slope development is a problem for Ringwood, recalled how he had fought development of a narrow steep lot next to his home because of potential problems from runoff and septic leachates next to his well.

"It's a real problem," Borough Engineer Edward Haack said. "We have a lot of small parcels that are too small and too steep" to include a new house, well, and septic system next to existing homes on wells. "The problem is, somebody says 'Look at all the land the town owns; let's make some money'" by selling the lots.

Haack said one solution, which has been used in the past, is to sell off small lots for a minimal amount to neighboring homeowners with a deed restriction banning building on that small area.

E-mail: barry@northjersey.com
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