The Ringwood Planning Board and it's professionals got a real education at the June 30th meeting thanks to Skylands CLEAN. As part of CLEAN's opposition testimony to the proposed West Brook Hills II development project, CLEAN brought in expert witness John Thonet, a highly respected professional engineer and planner who specializes in environmentally sound planning. Two key borough officials were absent -- Ed Haack, borough engineer, and Council member Allan Van Eck.

Mr. Thonet's testimony centered on the constraints of the building lots -- mainly the 50+ acres of wetlands in the center of the property and the steeply sloping terrain. He also demonstrated that if the lot were built in a manner that was based on the constraints, the 164-acre parcel would yield approximately 24 building lots. To ensure that water quality is adequately protected, based on the carrying capacity of that land, which contains Category I Trout Production streams, the homes would ideally be sited on lots no smaller than 6 acre parcels (currently the lot sizes average half of that size).

This same Planning Board voted unanimously to approve this subdivision application in January of this year, after only a couple of hours of testimony which included only the most cursory review of the building lots. Had it not been for a technical mistake on the applicant's notice that allowed CLEAN to challenge the approval, the development would have been approved without this rigorous review.

Mr. Thonet made the point that it is here at the preliminary approval level that the individual sites need to be given heavy scrutiny. "The mere fact that a project's lots meet the minimum lot size requirements of the ordinance does not necessarily mean that those lots merit approval," said Thonet. "The Board," he stated, “should closely examine the suitability of each of the lots proposed by the applicant. Approval," he went on to say, "should be withheld for any lot not meeting the letter of the Borough's ordinances and/or otherwise demonstrated to be unsuitable for its intended use." In other words, the Planning Board would be shirking their responsibility if they left the site review process to the engineer and the applicant, outside the public review process.

Thonet pointed to many of Ringwood's existing ordinances as the standard for measuring lot suitability.

Much of the discussion of the evening revolved around slope calculations. The borough's ordinance has no standard procedure for computing slopes. Board members pointed out that the borough engineer had signed off on the applicant’s calculations, but the engineer was not there to defend his approval. Mr. Thonet argued that at least 4 of the proposed lots exceed the 20 percent average slope limit required under our ordinances, as was clearly shown on a color coded map identifying slopes, wetlands and transition areas. The Board asked that Thonet submit computations for the entire subdivision, which will be done at CLEAN's expense. Still other lots appear to violate the allowable percentage of maximum disturbed land area. The applicant, Mr. Thonet suggested, should be required to demonstrate in such instances how he would propose to put a house, well, septic system, rooftop infiltration system, and driveway without exceeding the limit defined by the ordinance. Several lots were irregularly shaped, violating one ordinance requirement, clearly adding additional acreage to help meet the 20% slope requirement. "Is it appropriate to violate one ordinance to meet another ordinance? I don't think so," stated Thonet.

Stormwater was of particular concern, as the applicant has provided no stormwater detention system to ensure that post-construction runoff will not exceed the current runoff rate as required by our ordinance. Thonet also spotted many discrepancies and errors in the applicants stormwater drainage calculations. Also of concern is an agreement made between North Jersey District Water Supply Commission and the developer with regard to water quality. Mr. Thonet will be reviewing this agreement and providing comments and testimony at the next hearing.

Council Member Scott Heck, who claimed to Jan Barry of the Record that our pictures were fake, challenged our flyer showing the illegal road construction. His allegations are totally baseless. Mr. Heck should be directing his outrage at the fact that Mr. Levkovitz has built his road under the nose of Borough construction officials, and has clearly been at it since sometime last year, since the January picture in the flyer was taken on January 2, 2003 and construction was well under way.

The next meeting will be held on July 14th, at which time Mr. Thonet will continue his testimony and will be cross-examined by the developer's attorney and environmental expert. Please make every effort to be there!