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BY JOHN SNYDER
OF PASCACK PRESS
HILLSDALE, N.J.—Mayor John Ruocco and the Borough Council continue to oppose the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection’s decision to allow Waste Management Inc. to resume operations of its waste transfer station downtown.
Hillsdale has asked the Bergen County Utilities Authority, reporting to County Executive Jim Tedesco III, to remove the facility from the county’s master plan, partially on the grounds that “no one even missed the transfer station for four years” while it was closed, as Ruocco noted in a letter to residents Oct. 4.
He added that the transfer station is not needed in light of Waste Management’s Fairview facility, that it was established here decades ago and no longer fits with a family-friendly Bergen County suburban town center, and that it contravenes guidelines established in 2002 by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
“The industrial area offers Hillsdale a great deal of opportunity that our council wants to explore, but there’s no chance for significant revitalization as long as WM is our neighbor,” Ruocco said.
“Our town’s future depends on what happens in this area, and you can’t make your downtown more attractive when smelly garbage is at the core. The transfer station needs to go if Hillsdale is to realize its potential,” he added.
Meanwhile, Hillsdale is waiting for reports from DMR Architects of Hasbrouck Heights on “the extent to which certain properties qualify as areas in need of redevelopment,” specifically in the 13-acre nonconforming industrial area in the vicinity of Patterson Street, and the downtown West Lot, by the train station.
According to Council President Frank Pizzella, chair of the town’s Economic Growth and Business Affairs Committee, the borough also is working on a proposal to have NJ Transit give it the train station, which is on the Federal Register of Historic Places.
The West Lot could redevelop with a community center, flood mitigation park, and other improvements, Pizzella said in comments he emphasized were his own speculation.
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‘It doesn’t make sense here’
Waste Management ceased local operations when the station’s roof collapsed in February 2014. Four years later, with their hauling permit due to expire, the company effected repairs and resumed some hauling.
Its permit allows it to process up to 900 tons of waste daily.
Because the company’s fleet of trucks can’t use the Garden State Parkway, they take Route 17 and surface streets in the Township of Washington and Westwood to operate in the heart of Hillsdale, critics complain.
“That amount of odorous garbage is allowed to be hauled in and later hauled out every day on streets traversed heavily by children, past a local ice cream parlor, past our Library, through several residential neighborhoods, and through a busy intersection,” Ruocco said.
In February, the borough filed an appeal in the Appellate Division of the state Superior Court to challenge the DEP’s issuance of Waste Management’s permit renewal.
Local officials turned to the Bergen County Utilities Authority for a ruling on the site’s compatibility with the county’s master plan. That ruling has not been issued.
Ruocco told residents he has called on Tedesco and new Environmental Commissioner Catherine R. McCabe “to right the wrong committed by the DEP and prevent Waste Management from calling Hillsdale home.”
Asked for an update Oct. 8, Ruocco told Pascack Press, “The most recent development I can share with you” is that Sen. Gerry Cardinale wrote McCabe on Aug. 15 requesting a meeting of all concerned to discuss the matter.
McCabe’s office had yet to reply, he said.
“In the meantime, our attorneys have prepared our appellant brief with the Superior Court and filed it Aug 10. That is the brief supporting our appeal of the decision made by the NJDEP to renew WM’s permit,” Ruocco added.
Redevelopment potential
An information session with DMR Architects was held in June for residents and business owners over proposed redevelopment of the industrial area. That led to the governing body commissioning redevelopment reports from DMR, and the work is ongoing.
The redevelopment process, which calls for public input, is detailed at hillsdalenj.org/economicdevelopment.
Pizzella told Pascack Press on Oct. 8 that redeveloping the nonconforming 13-acre zone (Waste Management takes up 5 acres of it) would bring in “a tremendous amount of increased tax dollars.”
He said redevelopment where it makes sense would bring in new energy and opportunities “and provide services people have gotten used to” but that the town is struggling to pay for, such as playable fields.
“It’s been very difficult this year to complete a budget that continues to provide the services that everybody wants and trying to address and accommodate what people rightfully desire,” he said.
“We have tremendous sports and rec programs here, and our kids deserve fields just as nice as anywhere else. But the fields are continuously being closed due to drainage issues,” he said.
He added a priority that can’t take a backseat to fields: the Police Department needs a major technology upgrade.
“We don’t have large commercial properties like other towns around us do. We don’t have that commercial tax base that helps us with the revenue. As things get more costly it makes it more difficult to set a budget,” he said.
Pizzella also said the land is needed to help Hillsdale “create an environment where affordable housing can built: Not that it necessarily would be built there, but that would help us with our Fair Share obligation.”
He floated a senior center or assisted living facility as concepts that would do well in the area, given “the train is there, it’s downtown, the park is there, churches… but no one’s going to put one in with garbage trucks going by, the odors, machines going off—a garbage area.”
He said Waste Management would want “a pretty hefty penny” for their land, which has the value of the permit attached. But he said that redevelopment creates incentives such as tax abatements and 30-year payment-in-lieu-of-taxes programs that “could lessen the impact.”
Of the West Lot, Pizzella said, “We have a great train station on the Federal Register [of Historic Places] and we have two grants—one received and one we’re applying for—to renegotiate and fix the train station,” he said.
He said, “We’re talking to NJ Transit about giving us the train station. Right now we have to maintain a piece of real estate we don’t own.”
He envisioned “A community center in the middle of downtown” where kids could play while parents shopped and sipped nearby: “A great center in the middle of downtown.”
He also suggested potential for creating a flood mitigation park downtown.
“These are just my opinions and suggestions. To me it’s all about smart growth and smart development. We have to take care of that,” he said.