A website snafu that caused a nearly hourlong delay led to rescheduling a Zoning Board of Adjustment public hearing on an 85-unit, 95-bed assisted living facility proposed on Pascack Road to Tuesday, Sept. 15, at 7:30 p.m.
The proposed facility, at 620 Pascack Road, would take the place of the former Washington Township Tennis and Fitness club, less than a quarter-mile from the busy Washington Avenue-Pascack Road intersection.
The facility is called Chelsea at Pascack on engineering drawings available online under Zoning Board Applications for 620 Pascack Road on the board’s website.
The applicant, Capitol Senior Housing, last presented testimony on its application July 21, with its traffic consultant noting the new assisted living facility would generate “much less traffic” than the previous tennis and fitness club.
Due to a link on the Zoning Board’s online agenda not functioning, and residents unable to link to the Zoom meeting, which took about 40 minutes to fix and was functional at about 7:40 p.m., Zoning Board Chair Fred Goetz then opened the meeting for public comment for about 15 minutes.
No public comments were received following the link fix.
The board learned of the bad link thanks to resident Diane Ferrara calling into the public comment period kicking off the board’s Zoom meeting and telling them the link was broken.
Ferrara was able to access the Zoom meeting via a meeting address posted previously that she had copied and saved. A Pascack Press reporter was able to access the meeting via a previous meeting’s webinar link on Zoning Board applications page that still worked, but he could not access the agenda.
Following the delays and after the link was restored, applicant attorney Gail Price asked to have their professionals’ testimony moved to the next scheduled session, Sept. 15.
The assisted living proposal from Capitol Seniors Housing, Pascack LLC, has not generated much public pushback, partially due to applicant executives having met with neighborhood residents to help resolve issues created by the proposed facility.
In the meeting’s sole public comment, Ferrara said the applicant was doing a “phenomenal interfacing job” with residents in listening to feedback and said she was “very pleased with what they’re doing.”
Under applicant documents linked online is a June 26, 2020 walkthrough summation that details conditions agreed to by Joseph McElwee, Capitol Senior’s Housing principal of development.
These included proposing a two-story instead of a three-story development to minimize visual and privacy impact; a two-story building shorter in length than the main tennis building; and that nearby Tulane Court and Amherst Drive residents would get a chance to “weigh in on” final design elevations and building material choices.
Other areas of concern discussed by McElwee and nearby residents in June included overflow parking from highly attended special events, landscaping and screening for residents, and noise mitigation.
Photo courtesy Meyer Architecture