SHU Development Plans for Marylawn - Why We Should Challenge It!

Residents of the Village of South Orange,

It is critical we all attend the Zoning Board of Adjustment meeting this Thursday, May 8 at SOPAC at 7pm.  The board will be ruling on Seton Hall’s plans to transfer 536 students and 72 faculty and staff from its Medical Studies program to the current Marylawn High School site at the corner of Scotland Road and Montrose Avenue.  While we had truly hoped to negotiate a resolution with Seton Hall, Seton Hall only engaged with us in the last few weeks (after months of us asking Seton Hall asking for a meeting). We cannot support Seton Hall’s plan for the property as proposed right now.  So we are going to be asking the Zoning Board to reject Seton Hall’s application outright. We encourage you to do the same. 

Here’s why:

1. The property is currently zoned for single family residential home use. Under current zoning, at most six single family homes can be built there.  Seton Hall is seeking a use variance to turn this area into a de facto University Zone.
2. Seton Hall's plan turns this former modest school into a highly intensive University use which forever and fundamentally changes the character of our neighborhood. Specifically, the site will host 560 students and 72 faculty and staff on a weekly basis including truck deliveries, a cafeteria, and associated traffic.
3. Even if this area were currently zoned as a University Zone, which it is not, the Seton Hall application exceeds the lot coverage and parking ratio currently in force under South Orange’s zoning code.
4. The Seton Hall application will pave over this tree-filled and grassy location with 202 parking spaces, many times the current number of spaces at the site, and well over the 155 spaces the current zoning code requires. Naturally, all of this impervious surface will result in the need for a rather large walled storm water retention basin.
5. Traffic safety has become a very important issue to everyone in town, from the Chief of Police to every preschooler and parent who has to cross Scotland Road to get to Marshall School from West Montrose or the Middle School from Montrose, and to those attending temple nearby and accessing Mountain RR Station on foot. The Seton Hall application as proposed will add many cars to the flow of traffic on Montrose, Scotland, Stewart and Vose, which are already congested residential streets, where speeding is a big problem, and getting in and out of one’s driveway and crossing the street is problematic, to say the least. 
6. The Seton Hall application does not put forward any legal justification for turning this from a residentially zoned property into a de facto University zone that would justify a use variance.
7. Seton Hall had over 8 months to work with the community after receiving our detailed list of very reasonable requests from the neighbors in October.  Yet the latest application before the Zoning Board Thursday night intensifies the proposed non-conforming use by adding yet another floor to the present High School building and by adding even more parking spaces. Expansion of a non-conforming use is illegal.
8. We have health and safety questions about the proposed storm water drainage plan proposed by Seton Hall.

We, the taxpayers and residents of South Orange, are opposed to the Seton Hall application for a variance of the current zoning at the current Marylawn High School site. It’s time to fight to keep the residential and historic character of our town. If Seton Hall gets the approval to build this site up as part of its University, it sets a dangerous precedent for all other large lots in South Orange. Let’s ensure we keep South Orange a place strong residential neighborhoods for years and years to come.