OPINION: Montclair Walnut Street/Grove Street Plaza Neighborhoods At Risk In Master Plan

Walnut St. village and Grove Pharmacy Plaza Neighbors... Do you know ?

The Montclair master plan is re-zoning Walnut St for “ highest intensity retail, commercial, and mixed-use corridors “ with up to 4 story condominium development throughout that village and around corner onto Grove Street. It includes:

All of Walnut St business district including the RR station park, RR parking lot used for farmers market, Deron school block and the park behind it used for outdoor events, Ball field on corner, 4 Story zoning goes around the corner onto Grove St both ways to include: the whole Grove Pharmacy plaza block and south on Grove St to the RR tracks.

Voting to approve may be Monday December 8 at next planning board meeting unless major objections arise from local residents.

The Mayor Jackson said if residents do not voice objections then, “ They dont care”. Mayor Jackson is a developer and wants widespread high rise development in all Montclair business districts but he and the planning board do listen to the public. This new plan was paid for by NJ Dept of Transportation who chose the agency to write a new master plan for Montclair. It re-zoned all RR station parking lots for high rise condos...to get “ fannies in the seats” as one DOT official explained. It does not consider what residents want for Montclair.

Upper Montclair residents have been most vocal at meetings and got most of what they asked for. Forest St residents organized one very vocal presentation with 25-35 residents and successfully stopped commercial re-zoning in their neighborhood at one meeting.

The most recent version of the master plan is available on Montclairnjusa.org on the rightside of the front page called “Unified Land Use and Circulation Plan”. See Walnut St zoning map on page 90 within that village section of the plan. Dont be intimidated with this cumbersome, confusing plan. It deliberately discourages readers from trying to understand the zoning.

What you can do. ( **Do as much as possible by Thanksgiving before the holiday season)
1.Email or put this information to mailboxes of as many neighbors as possible and implore them to write letters and come the Dec 8 meeting. Add your email to this, if you can help organize a group and spokesmen, add your email to communicate.

Email or mail letters to Mayor Jackson, your Councilman and to Janice Talley ( for distribution to planning board members). Mailing address is town hall.

Those not speaking bring a sign. Suggested Goals; No development in parking lots, parks; only 2-3 story zoning on Walnut St. business district.

Ask the John Wynn, Chairman, Planning Board for public comments to be opened again.

Director, Janice Talley jtalley@montclairnjusa.org
Mayor Jackson at rjackson@montclairnjusa.org
**To get your ward councilor’s name by call (973) 509-4901.
This Walnut St/ Grove area encompasses three wards including:
Emails are:
Ward 2, Robin Schlager at rschlager@montclairnjusa.org
Ward 3, Sean Spiller at sspiller@montclairnjusa.org
Ward 4, Renee Baskerville at rbaskerville@montclairnjusa.org. ***Renee contacted me wanting to meet with residents to hear your concerns.

I love your neighborhood and hope you can move quickly to save it.

Linda Cranston, Member, SaveMontclair.