HILLSDALE—All Department of Public Works office operations and standard size vehicle parking has been moved to two adjacent properties in Woodcliff Lake due to severe flooding impacts from a recent December storm, notes a resolution approved at Council’s Jan. 9 Zoom meeting.
The Borough Council unanimously approved a more than $34,000, one-year rental contract Jan. 9 with a private property owner for office space at a former bank (160 Broadway) and adjacent parking space (150 Broadway) in Woodcliff Lake, following December flooding that caused an emergency situation at the current DPW facility. The agreement runs Jan. 1–Dec. 31, 2024.
The combined monthly rent for both properties is $2,850.00 and total annual rent is $34,200. Pascack Press filed a public records request for the lease agreement and received it on Jan. 12. The property owner, 150 LLC and 160 LLC are managed by Avak Uzatmaciyan, located at 792 Route 17 North, Paramus.
Neither the mayor nor council made any public comments on the rental agreement. However, Pascack Press asked Mayor Michael Sheinfield for his views on the agreement.
“Having the two locations for our DPW is certainly not ideal. We’re making the best of a bad situation. But I’m thankful our B.A. (Michael Ghassali) was so proactive on the matter. I’m also thankful to everyone involved in Woodcliff Lake in being so understanding and helpful in getting us a lease for 150 and 160 Broadway. The DPW staff have been understanding and supportive. This could have been a disaster. Instead it was a smooth process,” said the mayor.
On a related matter, Pascack Press asked Sheinfield whether a Sept. 2023 Colliers Engineering & Design study on DPW floodproofing (submitted in September to council) might be publicly released. He said he supported the clerk’s prior decision that the document was “deliberative” and not ready for public disclosure.
Both the clerk and mayor promised to release the CED study on alternatives when it is no longer considered deliberative. In April 2023, the council approved the $50,400 Colliers Engineering & Design feasibility study on floodproofing options for the current DPW facility.
Sheinfield said, “Discussions about what we will do long-term (at DPW) are underway internally. Our Borough Administrator has been tasked (and even taken the initiative) with gathering information for the mayor and council. I know I speak for all the elected officials in Hillsdale when I say we’re eager to take the next steps together,” Sheinfield told us.
At the Jan. 9 meeting, Ghassali said that it took six or seven DPW employees half of a day to remove tool boxes from the current facility due to predicted heavy rain that night and likely flooding.
Ghassali said the DPW Committee met the prior week “and came up with several options” which he said would be presented to DPW personnel soon and then come back to council with one or two future options, “and to move on what to do with the DPW building.”
Added Ghassali, “It’s unsustainable, every time it rains we do this,” referring to moving tools and equipment.
The approved resolution, 24055, noted, “Due to flooding at the Department of Public Works during a recent storm event, the DPW is without a space for office operations and light vehicle parking in order to conduct normal day to day activities.”
It adds, “The Borough Administrator declared this incident an emergency and was tasked with finding a temporary space for DPW employees to conduct office operations between the hours of 7:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. for the proposed term of January 1, 2024 to December 31, 2024.”
In late November 2022, we reported that, “By spring 2023, residents can expect to get some options and cost estimates from the borough engineer as to the best ways to protect the Department of Public Works building, at 371 Washington Ave., from floodwaters.”
We reported, “Borough engineer Craig Zimmermann, Colliers Engineering & Design, said that he anticipated recommending improvements to harden the DPW facility from flooding, which previously caused extensive damage to the garage and salt storage buildings.”
He added, then, “I’d say the second quarter [of 2023] would be a goal to see what we could do down there and then take it to the next step,” Zimmermann told the council on Nov. 11, 2022.
In April 2023, we reported the Borough Council had cleared a $50,400 feasibility study to help determine whether the public works facility can be retrofitted to minimize flooding impacts and investigate whether a new DPW facility should be constructed on the site.
Due to severe flooding at the DPW facility in September 2021, especially during remnants of Hurricane Ida in September 2021, officials had been pondering options for improving the site, and possibly sharing services, space and facilities with neighboring communities. During the Ida-influenced flooding, the borough lost hundreds of tons of road salt that washed away.
In late 2022, then-Mayor Ruocco called for floodproofing improvements at the DPW facility to move ahead of possible bonding for Centennial Field synthetic turf and a Stonybrook Community Center.
Recently, due to challenges and increasing costs, the council cancelled both the Centennial and Stonybrook projects.