After announcing last week that North Bergen would seek an impartial engineering firm to perform an environmental impact statement for a controversial commercial development along the Palisades Cliffs, Oweis Engineering Inc., of East Hanover, was hired at their commissioner’s meeting on March 26.
Hudson County Planning Department documents stated that the land should not be built upon because the land in question was 71 percent steep slope.
But the township believes the land can and should be built on.
North Bergen Town Administrator Chris Pianese said that the township choose this particular firm because of their expertise in geotechnical engineering and because they had no previous history of working with the township’s engineer, Boswell Engineering Inc., or local developers.
Staff engineers, senior engineers, project managers, principal engineers, and principals will cost $78, $96, $120, $200, and $200 per hour respectively.
The developer, AVAK LLC, plans to remove 700,000 cubic feet of soil and rock from the location to make way for a Walgreens, Bank of America, and Starbucks.
“I want to get right down to the truth here,” said Mayor Nicholas Sacco at the meeting. “I believe I know what the truth is, but I’m not going to do anything until I see it in writing, that this project will be safe to go or not safe to go on.” TT
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