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Resident criticizes borough leaders over new DPW storage building; planning board seeks review
Summary
At a planning-board meeting, resident John Kramer said the mayor and council erected an industrial-style Department of Public Works storage building on borough-owned wooded land without notice or a courtesy review; the board urged the mayor/DPW to present plans and agreed to seek the final landscaping plan.
John Kramer, a longtime Old Tappan resident, told the planning board it had been excluded from a decision to place "a grotesque industrial-style storage building erected on 8 acres of our last parcel of borough-owned wooded property," and said he was "angry and disappointed" by what he described as a secretive process by the mayor and council.
"It is shameful that this planning board was not given the opportunity of a courtesy review nor was the environmental commission consulted," Kramer said during public comment, urging the board to press the governing body for more transparency and to consider protecting the site for community uses such as recreation or records storage.
A Department of Public Works official who answered questions at the meeting said the building "was built by a contractor" and that DPW performed in-house site work such as grading. The official said the structure is intended for equipment storage so that town equipment can be kept under cover and have a longer service life: "That was the ultimate goal of this building, is to get our equipment under cover." He added that drainage and Bergen County Soil Conservation District approvals were part of the process.
Board members and staff discussed legal and procedural limits. A staff member noted that "under section 31 of the MLUL," municipalities are expected to submit capital projects for planning-board review to determine consistency with the municipal master plan; the staff member also said the planning board lacks enforcement authority over the governing body but can request a courtesy review and recommend changes.
Members asked the DPW official and staff to bring final site drawings and the landscaping plan to a future meeting so the board could "judge the finished product" rather than a partially completed site. The board’s chair said she would convey the planning-board concerns to the mayor and council and request that a DPW liaison or other representative present the project’s procurement and design history at a forthcoming meeting.
No formal enforcement action was taken by the planning board at the meeting. The board directed that a presentation and the final landscape plans be requested from the mayor’s office and DPW for consideration at a future meeting.
