BY JOHN SNYDER
OF PASCACK PRESS
HILLSDALE, N.J.—The mayor and council on Jan. 15 authorized the payment of $78,000 to Waste Management of New Jersey Inc. for Hillsdale waste transferred to and disposed of in the Fairview Transfer Station and the settlement of a related lawsuit.
The resolution notes that Waste Management sued the borough in Superior Court to get money it said it was owed.
The parties agreed to a settlement in a lump sum payment, resolving a disagreement on fees stemming from a per-ton hauling rate in 2014 after the 131 Patterson St. transfer station’s roof collapsed that February and Waste Management had to truck the borough’s waste to its Fairview site.
The company said a plan under which it then billed Hillsdale became null and void. It sought approximately $122,000 in fees.
“I think after consulting with our attorney the council thought this was a the best settlement,” Mayor John Ruocco told Pascack Press on Jan. 16.
He said he recalled the funds would be paid out of a budgeted amount set aside for contingencies and litigation.
Progress on redevelopment?
Meanwhile, Hillsdale is trying a softer approach in partnering with property owners, including Waste Management, on its goal of redeveloping the industrial zone and bringing in ratables.
The governing body passed a resolution Jan. 15 “authorizing and directing the Planning Board to undertake a preliminary investigation to determine whether block 1207, lots 8–11; block 1208, lots 1–5; block 1209, lots 2–6; block 1210, lots 6–11; block 1211, lots 1 and 2; and block 1212, lot 13 qualify for designation as an area in need of redevelopment” and to authorize DMR Architects of Hasbrouck Heights to prepare necessary studies for use by the Planning Board.
The resolution stipulates that the redevelopment area determination “shall authorize the municipality to use all those powers provided by the New Jersey Legislature for use in a redevelopment area except for the power of eminent domain, and the study area shall in no way be considered to be a condemnation redevelopment area.” [Pascack Press emphasis.]
Ruocco, saying talks with some stakeholders were ongoing, said the governing body believes that this approach “will incentivise parties there to look at things in a different way and … diffuse potential opposition over the concept of redevelopment.”
Hillsdale for some number of years has opposed the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection’s decision to allow Waste Management to resume operations of its waste transfer station downtown after its hiatus following its roof collapse.
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, 2018.
He added that the 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 at the time.