TOWNSHIP OF WASHINGTON, N.J.—A developer with preliminary approval for a major subdivision across from Immaculate Heart Academy wants the town to fill in—or permit it to fill in—municipal wetlands it expects for the project at 2001 prices.
In a letter dated June 10 to Planning Board Engineer Paul Azzolina, civil engineer Brian P. Murphy for client James A. Viviano urges a fast review and decision before Viviano’s five-year New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection Freshwater Wetlands General Permit 6, for filling non-tributary wetlands, expires July 7.
At the mayor and council meeting of June 17, Ira E. Weiner of Beattie Padovano, representing concerned neighbors, urged the council rebuff the request.
Weiner told the governing body in part that because the sale of the wetlands to Viviano isn’t closed it’s not appropriate to permit soil moving.
“They don’t have approval from the town to do any work, and that’s the problem,” Weiner said at the public comment portion at the top of the meeting.
He said the project “is not anywhere near ready” and that “The town shouldn’t let anything happen here in light of the way the application is statused,” including its lack of permit and site plan approval, and expired variances.
“The developer wants to start construction before he’s got any [local] permits,” Weiner said.
In turn, Council President Michael DeSena asked whether required permits were valid, then told Weiner, “This should go in front of the Planning Board, which is where it is.”
He added, “No one up here [except Mayor Peter Calamari] has seen the letter.”
Poller added that because the project is in pending litigation (stretching to its affordable housing roots) “I don’t think it should be discussed [in open session] at this point, Mike.”
Viviano, 96, died May 10. His children Nancylu Mannuccia, Rosanne Caldarise, Anita Pfefferkorn, and Thomas J. Viviano— along with “James A. Viviano (deceased)”—seek 48 single-family homes, 25 townhomes, and a commons with a private road, two public roads, parking areas, and a detention basin.
American Dream Estates, eyed for 463 Van Emburgh Ave., would develop on 14.32 acres between Van Emburgh Avenue and the Garden State Parkway.
Hearings on the project go back to 2002. The township and Viviano settled litigation related to the Mount Laurel Doctrine for affordable housing in 2001, and then the property was zoned for single-family homes and townhouses. There is no affordable housing planned at the site.
The subdivision won preliminary approval in 2004. Not much else shows up for it in public town minutes until September 2018, when representatives came before the Planning Board seeking to amend the project’s sewer system in advance of taking out permits.
That’s when residents, buoyed by tough questions from some on the Planning Board, mobilized, focusing on density, traffic, and other quality of life issues—and the likelihood of environmental contamination.
The township has not sold its land yet, though on April 1 it restated its consent to Viviano making application to the Planning Board involving Block 1305 Lot 1.03 and Block 1306 Lot 2, which all told amounts to “a sliver, and otherwise undevelopable,” according to one councilman.
The land that Murphy, of Toms River-based FWH Associates, is in a hurry to fill measures 1,548 square feet, or 0.03 acres.
He said, “It clearly is in the best interest of not only the developer but also the township” to fill the wetlands prior to the permit’s expiration, which he said arrives July 7.
NJDEP spokesman Larry Hajna told Pascack Press on June 19 that Viviano’s wetlands permit was granted in 2014 and expires July 2.
He added that a GP6 is required when an isolated freshwater wetland or isolated state open water is proposed to be disturbed, filled, excavated, or drained.
In Murphy’s brief letter, copies of which Pascack Press obtained at the council meeting, the engineer cites unnecessary delay in going back to NJDEP for a new permit.
He helpfully tells Azzolina that the wetland “could be filled relatively easily and stabilized,” and proposes his firm do the work or reimburse the township for doing it.
He says the township has a “duty to cooperate” to see the wetlands filled “pursuant to a state-issued permit and in accordance with the intent and purpose of the settlement agreement among the Township, the Planning Board, and the developer.”
He asks that the request be reviewed and decided as soon as possible.
Weiner later told Pascack Press in the hall outside the ongoing council meeting, “They don’t have final approval. They’re going to re-file; they’re going to go through hearings.”
He said that Viviano and the residents would have the right to appeal an unfavorable ruling and that the matter could play out for a bit or resolve quickly.
He added, “Who waits 18 years and then shows up and says, ‘Oh, by the way, I want to use my 18-year-old approval. And the land that I negotiated for $120,000—it’s probably worth three times that by now.’ And that’s part of the issue too, in general for the public.”
Weiner said of Murphy’s request, “This is just backwards. The developer happened to get the DEP approval a bunch of years ago, did nothing with it, doesn’t have site plan, doesn’t have any of the approvals you need.”
He added, “Normally towns won’t allow you to come in—it’s not even his property: It’s the township’s property. To come on township property and start filling the wetlands as part of a project that’s not even approved yet…”
Asked what complications, if any, are presented by Viviano’s application amended to his assigns’ names—he said they were added without the consent required in the original agreement—Weiner said that would have to be vetted at the Planning Board and Township Council.
He explained he was filling in for his colleague Lamb, who is traveling.
James A. Viviano, of Jackson Township in Ocean County, died at home with family at hand on May 10.
His obituary said he was with the United States Naval Construction Battalions, or Seabees, in World War II, building airstrips in Okinawa and that after the war he threw himself into entrepreneurship.
It says his most notable achievements are a retirement community and an RV park and campground in Jackson.
The Planning Board next meets June 26 at 7:30 p.m.