So, what do we residents get from this settlement?

·       We get our Stop & Shop

·       We get two remaining Areas in Need of Development (AINRs)

(also known as Areas of Blight)

·     o  American Legion Drive except for Stop & Shop and the Buddhist Center

·     o  Beverly Road from Garrison Ave. to Windsor Rd.

What will be developed in those blighted areas?

1. ·       Multistory Apartment Buildings
2. ·       A multistory pay-for-parking garage to make up for the lost free parking on American Legion Drive and Beverly Road

Gone will be plentiful free parking, The Farmer’s Market, and the beautiful Azalea bushes lining the sidewalk from Beverly to Cedar Lane.

Teaneck’s new definition of BLIGHT: Fresh fruits and vegetables, delicious baked goods, and gorgeous azaleas. Welcome to Teaneck!

 Discussion

Who is responsible for all these AINR development proposals? Ironically, it is the same firm whose current President wrote the damning supermarket analysis, adopted by the Town, that in the Spring of 2021 described the S&S facility as a threat to the Town’s “safety, health, morals and welfare”. (See Preiss presentation 3/25/21 Click Here) It was this report’s findings that led to – and was cited by — S&S in its May 2021 suit that is now being settled.

What right have Teaneck’s Council and Planning Board to commit to a developer the permission to implement multiple large scale development facilities in a major portion of the Cedar Lane retail district? No document remotely as expansive in defining the Town’s land use future has been proposed, let alone approved, in this century. Let’s take a closer look at the process.

With no discussion, Council on Tuesday 9/20 unanimously passed a “walk in” resolution as part of its Consent Agenda to approve a Settlement Agreement between the Town and Stop & Shop. That 59-page agreement includes conceptual development plans for the two entire AINRs that would together “sandwich” much of the Cedar Lane retail district between high-rise facilities owned by a single developer. It includes conceptual plans, diagrams, and other development specifications.

Two days later, on Thursday the Town’s Planning Board unanimously passed a resolution approving the proposed litigation settlement with language much more limited in scope. The Planning Board had, like the Town, been cited in the S&S suit. The Board unanimously approved its attorney’s resolution of the Settlement that had been first reviewed in a closed session but, then, was not publicly discussed by the Board before being unanimously approved by the Board’s 7 members and an alternate in attendance.

Last Thursday afternoon Voices had drawn reader attention to the fact that neither the Settlement itself nor the Council resolution had been made available to the public prior to Council action. Had that settlement then subsequently been placed on the Town website? A Voices call to the Clerk’s office asking if the Website had posted the settlement led to a search by the Clerk staff which then called back an hour later to say that the settlement was on the website – deeply embedded in Council minutes.

Voices had been able to extract the Settlement and place it on its Voices website. Six residents were able to review the settlement before the Planning Board meeting that same evening and to comment on it during Good & Welfare.

The 13 minutes of resident G&W comments can be seen on video Click Here. Those residents all agreed that the Settlement appears to have been purposely hidden from the public. They all also expressed opposition to key parts of the settlement agreement.

Immediately after Good & Welfare the PB went into closed session for 30 minutes. Thereafter, with no comments from any other Board member, the Board attorney read his resolution. Click Here

What is currently unknowable is the extent to which this settlement agreement and the resolutions just passed by Town Council and the Planning Board have effectively committed this suburban Township to a specific course of action concerning the Town’s primary retail district and its environs before there has been any public discussion of how the area surrounding Cedar Lane should be developed!

Teaneck’s current governing body and land use boards continuously demonstrate that they do not believe the Town’s residents have either a right to know what their Town is doing before the boards act, or before residents have the opportunity to provide resident input and expertise.