AvalonBay Application Denied In Wayne

WAYNE, NJ - The Board of Adjustment on Monday denied AvalonBay’s application to construct a 422-unit rental complex on Totowa Road.

The application dragged on for months and was met with significant resistance from not only residents but also the New Jersey Sierra Club.

The board unanimously voted down the application with two votes: One having to do with the height, the other with the use variance part of the application.

“I don’t think the property is particularly suited for AvalonBay’s purpose,” said Commissioner John Capo.

Chairman Mark Kirk agreed.

“Just sitting here and saying what would be good for the town,” Kirk said. “This application may have been good for some town close by. I don’t see it as a good thing for our town.”

Residents applauded following the votes and yelled “thank you” to the board once the votes were taken.

AvalonBay applied to construct the rental complex at 150 Totowa Road, near the Wayne-Totowa border. Of the 422 units, 336 would be built in a four-story building and 86 townhouses would be spread out in 13 buildings.

Approving the application would have meant granting a use variance for the zoning, known as zoning by variance, something that several residents and other individuals, including Assemblyman Scott Rumana, a former Wayne mayor, spoke out against. The property is not zoned for high-density housing, Part of is zoned for residential use and the other is zoned for industrial use. Only three percent of Wayne is zoned for commercial use. That commercial land is responsible for 30 percent of the township’s tax ratable base, Rumana said.

“We are desperately in need of commercial redevelopment for jobs not just here in Wayne but in this area,” Rumana said before the vote was taken. “If we allow this property to become residential, we take away from the citizens [and] we shift the burdens to the residents and away from the commercial base.”

Another variance was needed for having the buildings be four-stories tall, about 18 feet higher than is permitted, and another variance would have been necessary for its proposed floor-area ratio.

“I don’t see a reason for the four stories,” said Commissioner Armand Marini.

Residents argued that the facility would have only generated enough taxes to pay for about 70 students, significantly less, some people projected, than the actual number who could potentially live there.

“As a taxpayer is, you’re going to kill us with taxes because you’re going to have to built another school,” Gabriel Nazziola told the board.

The 32-acre parcel of land is located next to the Pioneer Academy, a private school with hundreds of enrolled students.

“We feel that is too much for Totowa Road. A four-story is totally out of proportion for this part of the township and to our neighbors in Totowa borough,” said Michael Rueben, a lawyer who represented the school.

The project had the potential to increase the township’s population by about 2,000 residents, or about 4.4 percent. That amounts to an increase of about 900 vehicles, residents said.

John Desch, a traffic engineer, previously testified that traffic at intersections near the proposed AvalonBay development would not be “significantly” impacted if the rental development were to be built.

One resident said that the vehicles would not just choke traffic near the development, but that those vehicles would clog up roads throughout the township as the people travel to other places in and around town.

The township would have been able to count 20 percent of the units, about 86 of them, towards its state-mandated affordable-housing quota.

Testimony was first taken on the application in June.

Stuart Lieberman, the attorney representing the New Jersey Sierra Club, an environmental watchdog non-profit, often clashed with Robert Kasuba, the attorney representing AvalonBay during meetings, regarding testimony that was given at meetings and with motions each one made during meetings.