Residents ask NJ to suspend wealthy family’s permit for mountaintop development

Residents of West Orange, New Jersey and other surrounding towns who have been fighting a wealthy developer are now in a battle over competing environmental reviews.

The real estate company Garden Homes, run by the billionaire Wilf family, has long wanted to build housing on a 120-acre, heavily forested section of the Watchung Mountains. It's one of the largest undeveloped tracts of land in the area and the company’s latest proposal is a 496-unit multibuilding apartment complex there.

But hundreds of residents living below the property have for months sounded the alarm that the construction plan would worsen an already troubling flooding problem in the densely populated area.

A group of locals said the company’s plan for managing rainwater during storms, which the state’s Department of Environmental Protection approved late last year, contains “serious errors” and used an outdated formula to calculate the peak amount of water that could rush down the mountain during heavy rains. The group asked state officials to suspend Garden Homes’ stormwater permit last week.

DEP spokesperson Caryn Shinske said the request is under review, adding “there is no deadline by which a decision is required.” Representatives for the Wilfs’ company declined to comment.

Residents who oppose the plan cited a 39-page report by Princeton Hydro, an environmental consulting firm whose engineers reviewed Garden Homes’ stormwater plan. According to the firm’s analysis, paid for by the grassroots organization We Care NJ — which has opposed to the development — parts of the developer’s plan don’t satisfy the state’s minimum requirement for managing runoff.

Clay Emerson, Princeton Hydro’s senior technical director, said failing to meet these requirements with this project is especially concerning because the property is above an area with known flooding issues, which are expected to worsen due to climate change.

“ It has to meet the rules,” he said. “People's property is at risk.”

The fight comes as New Jersey plans to build more than 140,000 new affordable homes over the next 10 years, either through new construction or repairing old existing units. It’s also emblematic of disputes unfolding across the Garden State as demands for increased development in one of the country’s most expensive areas collide with calls for environmental preservation.

Garden Homes lost a bid to build more than 100 single-family homes on the plot of land nearly 20 years ago. Plans for development were revived when the company pledged to add 100 units affordably priced for low- and medium-income people, which will help West Orange meet state requirements for building affordable housing. The town’s planning board has been reviewing the developer’s construction proposal over the past year.

More than 100 towns challenged the state’s affordable housing mandates earlier this year, citing a lack of available land and arguing that the state inadvertently designated flood-prone areas as acceptable for development.

Storm plan has ‘serious errors’

Garden Homes’ 496-page stormwater plan details a system of catch basins and pipelines designed to capture stormwater and carry it away from the mountaintop development, discharging it in streams and the sewer system further below.

But Princeton Hydro’s engineers pointed to a potential flaw in Garden Homes' environmental analysis of how high groundwater could rise during the wettest months of the year. Princeton Hydro said its own review of soil from adjacent properties showed evidence of groundwater being closer to the surface than was indicated in the Garden Homes report, which Emerson said could limit how much water the company’s underground catch basins can handle.

“You can't build a basin that's in the groundwater table or else it will be full of water all the time and not prevent flooding downstream,” Emerson said.

Garden Homes also used an outdated formula to calculate how much water could come rushing down the mountain during a storm, according to Princeton Hydro’s report. Under state law, developers are required to design a system that reduces this rate. But because the developer miscalculated the existing conditions, Princeton Hydro said the development would increase the rate of water flowing off the mountain.

“Their final design says we’re going to make things worse,” Emerson said.

The firm’s report also warned of a contamination risk from a wastewater line carrying raw sewage that it said Garden Homes’ design has running through one of the floodwater catch basins.

In a May 7 letter to the Department of Environmental Protection, William Potter, an attorney for residents who oppose the development, said the developer’s plan contains “serious errors.” It also cited state regulation that said an applicant’s permit must be suspended if it contains false or inaccurate information.

“The data that were used to support the application were not accurate. So the conclusion drawn by issuing the permit cannot be correct. I think at the end of the day, it's that simple,” said Joe Pannullo, president of We Care NJ.

Sean Walsh, Princeton Hydro's senior project director, testified before West Orange’s planning board in February. He said the town could be financially liable for any flooding damage that results from Garden Homes development.

“It is a lot more expensive to fix these things in the ground, than it is to say, ‘Hey, look, this plan doesn't work. Let's just fix it,'” Walsh told Gothamist. “The second you hire bulldozers and stuff, it gets very difficult.”

‘Millions’ spent on flood prevention

West Orange and surrounding areas have faced their share of flooding as storms become larger and more prevalent due to climate change. Town Council President Joe Krakoviak told Gothamist that the town has already spent "millions of dollars” on flood mitigation in the area around the proposed development and still struggles to handle stormwater runoff from the top of the mountain.

Jennifer Sharret’s home on Howell Drive in West Orange is downhill from the proposed development. She said heavy rainstorms often result in “a river flowing through our backyard,” and flooding during one particular storm in the summer of 2018 had lifted up parts of the street.

“And this wasn't classified as a hurricane, it was just a very bad, sudden rain,” she said.

West Orange’s planning board will hold its 12th hearing over the proposed development next month. Pannullo said he and other members of We Care NJ expect at least three more hearings before the board makes its final decision and his group plans to call for an engineer from Princeton Hydro to testify.