HILLSDALE—Before approving an engineering consultant to conduct a $9,500 environmental feasibility study on a community center at Stonybrook Swim Club, the mayor and council learned that it could cost $2 million to $3 million, versus the project’s original $2 million price tag.
Council on Dec. 6 voted 5-1 to approve the study. Zoltán Horváth said his no vote was based on the second community center’s cost and “the burden it puts on the town.”
Another community center is being built at a new 255-unit luxury apartment complex in the Patterson Street Redevelopment Area. That center will be provided to the town free by the redeveloper.
Upon questioning by Mayor John Ruocco, business administrator David Troast said DMR Architects told him that cost estimates for the Stonybrook community center range based on the facility’s final size.
Pascack Press asked Ruocco following the meeting what he thought of the range of cost estimates proposed for the Stonybrook community center.
He said he recently asked that Troast have a document prepared for council discussion and public consumption that justifies the Stonybrook location and which would detail the various programs and beneficiaries that would be served.
“The council has failed to do this and it was made more glaring in the face of being offered a community center for free by the Patterson Street developers and then the council reneging on promises to justify spending additionally to build a second community center after the public showed up at two council meetings and questioned us about this,” he said.
Ruocco said the document should state what programs will be at a Stonybrook center, noting “It would be a consensus-building tool.”
He said the document should include projected revenue that may be raised at Stonybrook versus the Patterson Street center, and identify operating costs for both centers.
“This would be considered basic in the private sector, but unfortunately has not been done here,” Ruocco said.
Horváth later said he was “not for a second community center for a multitude of reasons.”
He noted the initial discussion was for a 2,000-square-foot facility “and now we’re up to 5,000 square foot, with monies that are way beyond what we initially talked about.”
No final size/cost decisions were made, pending results from Colliers Engineering & Design feasibility study. The study is due by January or February 2023, said Colliers.
Noting that Resolution 22240 approving Colliers Engineering & Design says the borough desires an approximately 5,000 square foot community center, Ruocco said that the prior DMR Architect’s study on a possible community center there was on a center of 3,500 to 4,000 square feet.
He asked if a size had been determined.
Councilman Anthony DeRosa said he has not decided what size the building should be, and that the environmental study Colliers had proposed on the property will “allow us to know what we can and cannot do and what size” building to put there.
The $9,500 study shows a three-phase study:
- A preliminary regulatory constraints evaluation of wetlands;
- A flood hazard area and riparian zone preliminary assessment; and
- Minor “concept revisions” to a prior DMR community center plan will be made.
“Accordingly, this agreement includes the necessary due diligence to review available mapping, collect data, identify site constraints, make minor revisions to the previously prepared concept based on findings, as warranted, and determine potential permitting required,” reads the Colliers’ proposal.
It says, “The Hillsdale Brook traverses the site along the northern edge of the swim club in an east–west direction. The previously prepared concept titled Hillsdale Community Center, dated Sept. 26, 2022, prepared by DMR (Architects) has been utilized as a reference for the preparation of this agreement.”
The borough will receive a 5,000 square foot community center to be built at the new 255-unit Patterson Street luxury apartment complex as a “community benefit” in exchange for granting a housing “density bonus” at the apartment complex. That center will also include approximately 2,000 square feet of outdoor community space.
The redevelopment is the first major housing to be proposed in Hillsdale’s Patterson Street Redevelopment Zone, whose special zoning is based on the Patterson Street Redevelopment Plan, which includes a controversial density bonus provision.
Troast said the community center committee was also trying to determine community center size based on “project or program needs, (and) what can the site accommodate” before proceeding with any final center designs.
Troast said the committee knows the area where the Stonybrook center will likely be built. He said if someone is standing on Cedar Lane, the site would be left of the pool’s pump-house and storage buildings, further west and likely built into the slope.