New Civic Group ‘Concerned Millburn Residents’ Launches Website

Immediate Release
Contact: concernedmillburnresidents@gmail.com
July 6, 2022

A new civic group “Concerned Millburn Residents” has been founded to create a unified voice in response to negotiations by the Township Committee to bring ultra-high density housing developments to Millburn-Short Hills. On June 15th, the Planning Board rejected the fair share housing element that would permanently alter Millburn’s 2018 Master Plan. Nevertheless, the Township Committee plowed forward anyway and introduced several ordinances implementing the tenets of the rejected plan. One resident lambasted three of the committee members for their “dishonorable intention to forever destroy the character of our town and the preeminence of our schools.”

Concerned Millburn Residents now has a website for residents with links to accurate data and information detailing how the Township Committee and its appointed Land Use Planning Board have voted regarding the ultra-high-density development to Millburn Short Hills. It provides links that guide residents on how to take action to stop these efforts in the belief that the group can advocate more effectively than each individual resident trying to do the work themselves.
https://concernedmillburnresidents.org

Concerned Millburn Residents launched the petition that now has more than 1,500 signatures of Millburn Short Hills residents, former residents and neighbors. The petition calls for the Township Committee to reverse their decision to build a 100% income-segregated, high-density apartment complex at 9 Main Street in the public works yard known as the ‘Dump’.

The proposed building calls for 75 apartments catering predominantly to very-low and low-income residents with a few moderate-income units to be built on approximately 1.8 acres in the public works yard which has environmental issues and will segregate those residents from the rest of the Millburn community based on income. Preliminary testing has already indicated excessive concentrations of antimony, arsenic, beryllium, lead, mercury, and benzo(a)pyrene.

No feasibility studies have been done regarding this project’s cost to Millburn taxpayers, its impact on infrastructure, schools, flooding, traffic, and safety.

Pursuant to the presence of toxic materials discovered on the site in a Phase 1 DEP study, the Township authorized a Phase 2 DEP remediation investigation. Clean-up costs, projected to be in the millions of dollars, will be underwritten by Millburn taxpayers.

The proposed buyer, developer, and manager of the property selected by the Township Committee, RPM, has offered to purchase this prime property in the heart of the Downtown of Millburn, for one dollar.

Petitioners asked the Township Committee to pause, reconsider and advise the Fair Share Housing Center that they want to meet our affordable housing obligations with an alternative plan in keeping with Millburn’s Master Plan that complies with the shared vision of our exceptional suburban town and that also maintains the integration of mixed-income market rate with affordable housing as we have with every other project.

Rather than including community residents in the development of the project at 9 Main Street in the public works yard, the Township Committee rushed the approval process during the Covid pandemic when residents were unusually distracted and unaware. Circulation of this petition has raised awareness and community disapproval of this project.

Residents have called for the Mayor to recuse herself based on a conflict of interest as a local realtor. Two of the five Township Committee members recently have called for a revote to reconsider approval of this project.