Liongate Development

Udate of status at both properties

January 2003
Letter to the editors of Bloomfield newspapers

Here is an update for those who have been following the unfolding story of the Leo Realty and Copeck/DeSimone condo complexes proposed for the Scientific Glass site area. Plans for these two developments were denied by the planning board in late 2001, based on flooding, traffic and contamination concerns. But thanks to the unbending efforts of Mayor McCarthy and the new planning board he seated on inauguration day in January 2002, Brookdale residents may very well see 166 new townhouse units shoehorned into a tightly-packed neighborhood that has been plagued for decades with flooding and sewerage back-ups.

We are repeatedly told that these proposed townhouses are going to help Bloomfield’s bottom line by swelling the tax base. But everybody knows that stand-alone residential development ends up costing tax payers more in services than it brings in. It’s no accident that New Jersey’s most densely-populated municipalities also have the highest taxes.

But something even more alarming is happening here. Mr. Leo, who is itching to build 124 of the condos, hasn’t laid a single brick on his 9.7 acre floodplain, yet his building plans have already cost taxpayers $235,000. Thirty-five thousand dollars was teased out of the pockets of Bloomfield taxpayers last fall to enable the Schoor DePalma engineering firm to study methods of shoring up the seriously eroded stream bed the cuts through Mr. Leo’s property; another $200,000 in federal funding to the township has been earmarked to do the actual work.

Funny thing is, when Ruth Corcoran, a widow who lives across the river from the Leo site, begged the township for more than 20 years to help save her home from the devastating effects of Third River erosion, she was persistently turned away. The most recent instance was in a letter dated May 3, 2000, when township engineer Anthony Marucci curtly informed her that "the stream lies within private property. Also my office does not have any funding sources at this time to address this matter."

What he failed to mention in the letter is that the private property was Leo Realty’s. The $235,000 expenditure in taxpayer dollars to fix this property is even more galling because the Sept. 10, 2002 conditional approval Leo got to build the condos specifically states that Leo Realty is required to absorb the cost of the stream bank restoration for this project.

So how the heck did we taxpayers get stuck with the bill?

Since purchasing the Scientific Glass site in 1987, Leo Realty has floated four failed proposals to build anywhere from 115 to 164 condominiums. The first rejected plan called for senior housing and the second for low income. The third, for luxury housing, was voted down in Nov. 2, 2001. Among the seven reasons it was rejected by a majority of planning board members: it would increase flooding for surrounding homeowners because of a poorly-designed flood control system that would be impossible for the condominium association to keep free of river silt, debris and rodents.

Well, on Sept. 10, at 3:30 a.m., Leo Realty finally found the right combination of planning board members to win approval, despite the fact that the township engineer admitted a half hour earlier that the storm water retention system was unworkable. Before anything happens on this site, though, the DEP has to carefully scrutinize these plans. We can only hope they exercise more concern for the safety and well being of surrounding homeowners then Bloomfield’s current governing body.

Meanwhile, we now have confirmed that in Sept. of 2001, the DEP rejected the Copeck/DeSimone plan to build 42 units on the adjacent lot—nearly two months before the final planning board hearing. Though that information was withheld from the board, it denied the application anyway, based on its own flooding and contamination concerns. Unfortunately, our township attorney apparently failed to legally defend the planning board against a lawsuit brought by the developer. Now we are left with a court decision that compels the board to rubber stamp a site plan that a DEP found unacceptable because it "did not accurately reflect wetlands on the property." Most likely this travesty will occur at the next planning board meeting on Jan. 21.

The Bloomfield Third Riverbank Association will continue to carefully monitor these two developments on the state level and beyond. While Mayor McCarthy has done a stellar job of looking after the developers’ rights, he has left surrounding homeowners unprotected. Can Leo Realty and the Copeck’s developer guarantee that covering the floodplain/wetlands with asphalt and buildings won’t worsen flooding conditions in the neighborhood? Certainly not. Will they compensate homeowners if in fact they do? No way. Therefore it is our responsibility to hold each and every government official accountable for any adverse impact that arises from the imposition of 166 new homes in this environmentally sensitive area.

It’s the least we can do a citizens.