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bets
Citizen
Username: Bets
Post Number: 393
Registered: 6-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, October 16, 2003 - 6:46 pm: | 
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I saw some of the trucks hauling away the trees on Wyoming this evening. How utterly sad. |
mayhewdrive
Citizen
Username: Mayhewdrive
Post Number: 442
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, October 16, 2003 - 9:32 pm: |
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Funny how a former Village Trustee once said "if it's done right, nobody will even know it's there."
I guess this proves it ain't being done right!
 |
mayhewdrive
Citizen
Username: Mayhewdrive
Post Number: 443
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, October 16, 2003 - 9:35 pm: |
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Why is there no fence around this safety hazard?
For a sense of perspective...this picture was taken from Harding Drive, where it intersects with Tillou Rd. This part of the property used to be densely forested. |
mayhewdrive
Citizen
Username: Mayhewdrive
Post Number: 444
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, October 16, 2003 - 9:44 pm: |
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One last picture...this was was taken on the road to the recycling center, where they are building the new animal shelter.
 |
mayhewdrive
Citizen
Username: Mayhewdrive
Post Number: 445
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, October 16, 2003 - 9:48 pm: |
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Guesswho will never get it. Maybe he's a frustrated Midwesterner who longs for the "Plains" back home.
In any case, the quarry is about more than "just trees". Re-read my post of 2:26pm today. Fundamentally, it's about a lack of vision for what "could have been". |
aneighbor
Citizen
Username: Aneighbor
Post Number: 32
Registered: 8-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, October 16, 2003 - 10:05 pm: |
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As my 21 month old daughter voluntarily says as we drive up Tillou Road towards the quarry, "dertee, dertee".
It's unfortunate she'll never know how beautiful it used to be. |
stefano
Citizen
Username: Stefano
Post Number: 373
Registered: 2-2002
| | Posted on Thursday, October 16, 2003 - 10:11 pm: |
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Your daughter speaks in misspellings?
Please visit Sbenois Speech Ptherapy & Linqvistic Fonetician Shoppe ASAP. |
mary032
Citizen
Username: Mary032
Post Number: 15
Registered: 8-2001
| | Posted on Friday, October 17, 2003 - 11:04 am: |
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Guesswho, Get out of your medieval notions into the 21st century.Those trees of yours that grow, fall down and regrow, would they regrow on rooftops or on paved asphalt? Because that's all we would have left for them if we follow your philosophy. Yes, trees are a very valuable renewable resource, but only if we let them space to grow.
Mary |
joso
Citizen
Username: Joso
Post Number: 117
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Friday, October 17, 2003 - 2:14 pm: |
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I say better 69 townhomes here than in an unspoiled meadow in Washington Township. Even better in Newark. Sprawl is bad. This is not sprawl |
NCJanow
Citizen
Username: Librarylady
Post Number: 1032
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Friday, October 17, 2003 - 2:36 pm: |
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We choose to live in suburbia, surrounded by some trees and many people (and homes). We are so lucky to have a 2000+ acre reservation at our borders, so that, when the mood strikes, we can almost instantly be transported into a pseudo-wilderness (if only for the sound of traffic permeating the trees.) If this wasn't the type or environment I wanted to live in, close to NYC, but still not urban, I have the choice of rural New Jersey, Lower taxes, more trees, less people and homes, etc.
But I choose to be here, where the intensity of a diverse community allows me to feel alive. It's only me, but I rather breathe a little carbon monoxide and cigarette fumes and live in "Greenwich Village West" than have more acres than necessary to wander and listen to the crickets. Others may choose differently and I respect that. But 10-15 miles outside of the greatest city in the world is not necessarily where I expect to find that type of atmosphere.
We are lucky, so lucky, to have South mountain Reservation so close. But if the all of Essex County was like the Reservation, how many of us would chose to live here?
Soory for the ramble, but those who move in South Orange/Maplewood should NOT confuse it with western NJ.
NCJ aka LibraryLady
On a coffee break..or something like it.
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Marc
Citizen
Username: Bautisma
Post Number: 34
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Friday, October 17, 2003 - 2:58 pm: |
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I think everyone should knock down their houses and plant trees |
bobk
Supporter
Username: Bobk
Post Number: 3623
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Friday, October 17, 2003 - 3:16 pm: |
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I tend not to be overly sympathetic to people who move in next to a piece of developable land and then protest when it is developed. However, I drove up Tillou a couple of weeks ago and the quarry site looks like a VC base camp after an Arc Light raid by a couple of squadrons of B-52s. |
mayhewdrive
Citizen
Username: Mayhewdrive
Post Number: 446
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Friday, October 17, 2003 - 3:27 pm: |
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Bob,
You are right. Although, there were many people who did not even know the quarry was there before and that it was threatened by development. (funny how before...nobody knew it was there. Now "if it's done right nobody will know it's there"...everyone knows it is there, which means it wasn't done right!) 
Just like I can bet the majority of the people who live near Orange Lawn Tennis Club have no idea what they will eventually be faced with. |
bobk
Supporter
Username: Bobk
Post Number: 3632
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Monday, October 20, 2003 - 6:15 am: |
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Mayhewdrive, to go back to my normal curmudgeony personality, two words:
Due Diligence.
 |
mayhewdrive
Citizen
Username: Mayhewdrive
Post Number: 449
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Monday, October 20, 2003 - 8:10 am: |
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Bob,
Not always so easy in a town where the Village consistently shares misinformation (or lack of information):
* [198 units in the quarry] is a "done deal" - Dec 1998
* "if it's done right, nobody will know it's there" - Dec 1998
* The Gaslight printing that the quarry will contain "69 single family homes" (also neglecting to mention it will cost the Village at least $1.2 million) - April 2003
* "I spoke with Mr. Beifus two weeks ago. He expects to start building in March," village President Bill Calabrese said. - Feb 2003
and my all time favorite:
* "New Gourmet Market - Coming Soon" - May 2001 |
CageyD
Citizen
Username: Cageyd
Post Number: 21
Registered: 6-2003
| | Posted on Monday, October 20, 2003 - 10:47 am: |
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Mr. Devaris, "...there was nothing that would prevent you from driving up the hill, park your car along the entrance of the quarry, get out, easily jump the fence, trespass but nobody cared, enjoy a walk in the woods..." and then I explain to my children who accompany me that it is ok to climb fences and trespass? The point is that the area was not accessible to nor did it benefit the majority of SO residents. Also, it is worth noting that 40 years or so ago hundreds of acres of open space, woods streams, animal habitat and 100 year old trees were removed to make way for the Newstead development which added so many children to the district that an entire school had to be built to accomodate them (the annex). It just strikes me as a little hypocritical that the people complaining the loudest over new development are the people who live in SO's newest development. |
Eric DeVaris
Citizen
Username: Eric_devaris
Post Number: 40
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, October 20, 2003 - 4:23 pm: |
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CageyD,
Times are achanging, you know? When Newstead was built 50 to 70 years ago, South Orange, Essex County, New Jersey, the US, the world, were not at the same population density crisis that we are in today, nor at the same global environmental crisis that we are faced with today. 50 to 70 years ago, South Orange's physical environment could afford to spare trees to build a residential development; can we today afford to spare more trees for more residential development? No. 50 to 70 years ago, when more children were added in the school system, South Orange could afford to build a new school; the numerous developments going on today in town will add more children to our school system; can we afford to build more schools to meet their needs? No. Did we ask the developers to build us a new school? No.
It just strikes me as a little hypocritical that the people complaining the loudest over new development are the people who live in SO's newest development. I hope you don't call Newstead "SO's newest development". There are several other developments in town built after Newstead: the Mews, Jessica Way, Wyoming Avenue, Gaslight Commons, Village Green, to name a few.
One of the reasons we are in the urban sprawl crisis we are in, is that in the last 50 to 70 years, the management of open space was left in the hands of people like you and “Guesswho” apparently, who had little respect for the nature that surrounds us, and of developers who devoured open space for profit. Happily today there are those, whom you call hypocritical, who stand up and act for the protection of our environment, so that your children will be able to breath in their old age. Happily there are also those who do not live isolated in their parochial ways, and who see the big picture of which South Orange is a part of, and for which we all have a responsibility to carry.
If, in you eyes, I am a hypocrite for raising my voice for protecting the trees, so be it. If you think of me as a hypocrite because I want to see my own town, South Orange, be and act as a member of the larger community we live in, so be it.
Sorry for the tirade.
Eric
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CageyD
Citizen
Username: Cageyd
Post Number: 22
Registered: 6-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, October 21, 2003 - 11:06 am: |
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Your argument re: development in the past is some how more justifiable than development today - sounds an awful lot like those who make the argument that 70 years ago it was alright to allow immigrants into the US because it was a different time but now - more immigrants would ruin the US. I feel it is better that there be development where there is already human settlement/development than to encourage sprawl in the less settled western part of the state. This development is going to impact a relatively small amount of open space in the general m/so/wo/liv area. The reservation is a huge vast open space that will never be developed because concerned and balanced citizens and politicians realized the need to set aside open space. This whole issue is about balance and with the reservation on our door step I don't think allowing the quarry to be developed is so out of line. RE:developments newer than Newstead in SO, though I don't know for sure,I doubt that if you combined all the other more recent developments that they together would equal the environmental or services impact of building Newstead |
mayhewdrive
Citizen
Username: Mayhewdrive
Post Number: 450
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Tuesday, October 21, 2003 - 5:13 pm: |
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Cagey,
You are missing the point that this development is about more than just trees & open space.
This was a HUGE missed opportunity for the entire community. 30 acres (20 which are "usable") could have been a variety of things that could have benefited the entire town.
Instead, we are getting more townhouses, which will bring additional schoolchildren, cost the Village at least $1.2 million up front, and ultimately provide no net tax benefit to the town (at best it will be a wash). The only one benefiting from this are the developers (& the landowner who sold the property). |
vermontgolfer
Citizen
Username: Vermontgolfer
Post Number: 130
Registered: 12-2002
| | Posted on Tuesday, October 21, 2003 - 5:35 pm: |
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mayhew,
Please excuse my ignorance, but I've seen this $1.2M figure now several times. Can you explain to me what it is for.
Thanks.
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mayhewdrive
Citizen
Username: Mayhewdrive
Post Number: 451
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Wednesday, October 22, 2003 - 12:03 am: |
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VG,
Certainly...I'll try to explain as simply as possible: as part of the "Memorandum of Agreement" from 2002 between the developer and the Village, the VILLAGE agreed to pay $1.2 million.
Originally, the "consent agreement" which was reached in the early 1990's, the DEVELOPER was supposed to pay $480,000 (30 units at $16,000 each) for the Village's "Regional Contribution Agreement" to the City of Orange. In addition, the DEVELOPER was supposed to pay $100,000 towards rehabilitation of 10 units within South Orange. This was to settle South Orange's COAH (Coalition on Affordable Housing) obligation. Essentially, these funds were to "export" South Orange's low/moderate income housing obligation from the Quarry site to another town (so there was never going to be low/moderate income housing within the Quarry). When the original developer sued the Village, this agreement was reached.
http://www.preserveso.com/consent.htm
The "Memorandum of Agreement" reached in 2002 transferred that financial obligation to the VILLAGE. In addition, there was an additional provision for the VILLAGE to pay for the estimated $600,000 for improvements to the water system which were required to support this development.
http://www.preserveso.com/moa.htm
So, $480,000+$100,000+$600,000= $1.2 million of financial obligation that the VILLAGE is responsible for. My understanding is that the $580,000 has already been paid. I do not know the current status of the $600,000.
I hope this explains as clearly as possible the situation.
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vermontgolfer
Citizen
Username: Vermontgolfer
Post Number: 132
Registered: 12-2002
| | Posted on Wednesday, October 22, 2003 - 7:34 am: |
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mayhewdrive,
Thanks, I think that pretty much explains it. Do you know if the DEVELOPER you refer to ever paid the $480,000 and the $100,000?
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mayhewdrive
Citizen
Username: Mayhewdrive
Post Number: 452
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Wednesday, October 22, 2003 - 7:48 am: |
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VG,
Per the "Memorandum of Agreement", those 2 figures are now to be paid by the VILLAGE.
To my knowledge the $480,000 WAS paid to the City of Orange. I am not certain of the current status of the $100,000 and which "units" will be rehabilitated with that money. |
vermontgolfer
Citizen
Username: Vermontgolfer
Post Number: 133
Registered: 12-2002
| | Posted on Wednesday, October 22, 2003 - 8:20 am: |
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mh,
thanks.
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