West Orange Nursing Home Expansion Plans Denied By Zoning Board

WEST ORANGE, NJ — The West Orange Zoning Board voted against a local nursing home's expansion plans at their meeting last week.

A long-running application from Daughters of Israel failed to garner enough votes from board members at their May 11 meeting. The nonprofit sought multiple variances to redevelop their campus at 1155 Pleasant Valley Way into a “continuum of care community offering independent living, assisted living and skilled nursing components.” Read More: Debate Continues Over West Orange Nursing Home's Expansion Plan

Daughters of Israel had requested preliminary and final site plan approval from the board. View the meeting agenda and supporting documents here.

Proposed upgrades included removing the existing structure and constructing a new building with up to five stories containing:

• 163 independent age-restricted market rate dwelling units
• 84 skilled nursing beds
• 64 beds for assisted living with 40 of those beds dedicated to memory care.
• 11,352 square feet of administrative support for the 158 beds (administrative staff, human resources, kitchens, laundry, etc.)
• 31,648 square feet consisting of a community center, fitness center (with pool), auditorium, library reading lounge, game room, art studio, salon, medication center, formal dining room, café, pub (20 seats), and a small retail operation for residents

The proposal included additional areas for physical and occupational therapy, physician offices and resident support services, as well as 376 off-street parking spaces (419 with EV credit), infrastructure for EV charging stations, an off-street loading space and multiple signs.

A spokesperson told Patch that Daughters of Israel is "disappointed" by last week's hearing and vote. They offered a statement about the situation on Tuesday:

"Daughters has been serving the needs of seniors in the West Orange community since 1962, and its proposed plan would have modernized its existing campus through the construction of a state-of-the-art facility to provide the current and future residents of Daughters with skilled nursing, assisted living, independent living, and other essential services, along with best-in-class amenities, which would allow Daughters to continue its mission of providing care to seniors in need for decades to come."

The spokesperson continued:

"The plan had the support of a majority of the members of the zoning board, including the chair and vice chair, and the plan was reviewed and found to be satisfactory by the township planner and the township forester. Throughout this process, which included 11 hearings before the zoning board, Daughters worked with the township in good faith to address any requested changes or improvements to the project, which included reducing the height of the proposed new building, reducing the number of independent living units, reducing the length of construction, reducing the number of trees that would need to be removed, and increasing the number of new trees to be planted. It is therefore unfortunate that a minority of three zoning board members chose to vote against the project."

"Daughters continues to believe that this project is necessary for its future viability, and would be a major asset to the West Orange community," the spokesperson concluded. "Daughters is therefore exploring all of its options as it considers next steps to bring this project to fruition."

However, according to nonprofit advocacy group Our Green West Orange, which opposed the project, the expansion plan is a “detriment to the public good.”

The group recently cited the following reasons for opposing the application:

• “Massive tree destruction”
• “Six years of noisy construction impacting residential neighborhood and forcing their most vulnerable elderly, ill, infirm or dementia patients to live on-site throughout construction”
• “Construction of 163 one-and-two-bedroom apartments (plus 24 assisted-living units) at market rate, while paying no taxes, as DOI is a nonprofit (DOI pays only $47,653.38 taxes on an 18-acre property for renting out space for a cell tower).”
• “High-rise construction out of sync with residential neighborhood character”
• “Increased traffic and congestion and a flawed traffic report”
• “Limited sustainability in design”
• “Decrease in accommodations for nursing and memory care in favor of luxury units”
• “Continuation of outdated model of care for skilled nursing”
• “This property is zoned for residential use and is already out of compliance with our town’s master plan”

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