Consultant pushes deer fencing to revive West Orange forest; board and residents press for data on tree credits and runoff

Wayne DeFeo, the environmental consultant retained by the planning board, told West Orange officials on Oct. 30 that a combination of overbrows by deer and invasive plants has left the wooded portion of the proposed West Essex Highlands site with few young saplings and a depleted understory. DeFeo said the condition hobbles natural regeneration and recommended fencing roughly 33 acres to exclude deer and give native seedlings a chance to grow.

DeFeo said his 2019 quadrat survey – updated with a 2024 walkthrough – used a conservative, high‑density assumption of 212 trees per acre to estimate potential impacts in the developed footprint. “On a worst‑case basis, we estimate about 5,830 trees could be removed in the disturbed area,” DeFeo said, adding that the applicant had reduced the disturbed acreage since earlier settlement negotiations and would preserve roughly 77 percent of the property.

The consultant described deer fencing, built to New Jersey Department of Agriculture specifications, as the most effective means to restore the understory and cited photographic examples and published studies (including work at Duke Farms) showing substantial understory regrowth within years of installation. “If you want to regenerate the forest, you must do something,” DeFeo said. He estimated an order‑of‑magnitude fencing cost (roughly $20 per linear foot) and said the ordinance’s negotiated crediting system was intended to offset that expense.

Board members and residents repeatedly questioned the methods and policy tradeoffs. Council President Rutherford and board counsel clarified that the planning board must apply the IH1 zoning ordinance — which incorporates elements of a prior settlement agreement — and that the ordinance’s tree‑replacement and crediting formulas determine how credits are calculated. Rutherford said the board expects the applicant and consultants to tie the credit math explicitly to the ordinance’s formula.

Mayor McCartney and others pressed DeFeo for supporting calculations, including how the slide labeled “net required replacement: 1,498” was derived. DeFeo said the replacement numbers are rooted in the town’s tree ordinance and negotiation terms and pledged to provide the ordinance baseline and the Department of Agriculture fence specifications to the board and on the township website.

Residents raised additional concerns during an extended public‑comment period. Barbara White asked whether extensive deer fencing could impede firefighting or emergency access; DeFeo said fenced areas include gated access and that the fire department’s operational needs were not part of his analysis. Several commenters asked whether winter photos or the timing of surveys could have obscured small saplings; DeFeo said the study used randomized sample plots and that winter imagery would not hide statistically significant seedling counts in those plots. Multiple speakers also asked whether removing invasive plants rather than installing heavy fencing would be a viable alternative; DeFeo said invasive removal alone would not stop overbrows and, where invasives occur in wetlands, would trigger additional permitting.

The applicant signaled willingness to accept several of DeFeo’s recommended conditions and to work with board representatives in the field on tree protections. The board directed the applicant and consultant to provide supplementary materials — DeFeo’s cited studies (including Duke Farms materials), the foresters’ field notes and the fence specifications — before the hearing resumes. The planning board continued the application to a special hearing on Nov. 13 to allow exchange of those materials and planned testimony from additional witnesses (planner, stormwater expert and the applicant’s consultants).

What’s next: the board will post the consultant materials and the ordinance baseline for the tree‑credit calculation; the Nov. 13 meeting has been set as a continuation of the West Essex Highlands review. If the board receives the requested studies and the applicant’s additional plans, members said they will evaluate whether the proposed deer fencing, planting and stormwater measures meet the ordinance standards for the IH1 zone.

Quote: “We’re giving it the best chance that we can to become a healthy forest by keeping out overbrows,” DeFeo said, urging the board to weigh long‑term regeneration benefits alongside upfront costs.