Riverview Development, LLC has been in front of the North Bergen Planning Board since 2005, asking for variances that would allow them to build a 120-foot tall building along one of North Bergen’s last riverfront parcels of land.
Nearby residents have claimed that construction of the proposed three towers, which would hold 233 residential units and 561 valet spaces and 23 townhouses with their own parking units, would cause a dramatic increase in traffic along River Road and lower their property values because they would block their view of the Hudson River.
Since June 2005, Riverview has submitted three applications to the North Bergen Planning Board, most recently in March 2011. The Bergen Ridge Homeowner’s Association, which is governed by a board of trustees, has fought the project the entire way.
“As a small community of 34 homes, we’ll just be losers [if this is built],” said Board President Barane Zivkovic of the community located off Bulls Ferry Road.
In the most recent application the developer is asking for subdivision/consolidation of lots, preliminary and final site plan approval, along with the variances and waivers for valet and tandem parking, parking configuration and stall size, building layout, height of building appurtenances (roof area limitations), maximum building coverage, maximum curb cut width, maximum lighting level at property line, minimum planting strip width, and waiver of a fiscal impact study.
While the maximum building parcel coverage allowed is 35 percent, this project calls for around 46.6 percent.
Parking concerns
The New Jersey Residential Site Improvement Standards call for two parking spaces per unit in mid-rise buildings, which under state regulations applies to this project. They also call for parking space size to be 9 by 18 feet. Under Riverview’s plan, cars would be stacked four to five cars deep in 8 by 17 foot spaces, along with 7-and-a-half and 16 foot spaces on two floors for parking, with nine floors of residential units above it.
Bergen Ridge attorney John Lamb said that the township engineering department has called the plan ineffective, since it could only work if the valet operation is run perfectly. Otherwise traffic build up could spill onto River Road if cars could not get into the three entrances into the parking lot.
There are also supposed to be 50 spots within the lot available for the public to purchase according to RSIS, as well as five spots outside, connected to the same driveway used by townhouse owners, to allow access to the waterfront and a small park.
At the April 14 planning board meeting, Ronald J. Reinertsen of Pennoni Associates, Inc., an engineering firm from Edison, said that although the building was considered a mid-rise, its parking requirements should instead be under the stipulations for high-rise buildings by considering the building and the townhouses as one, which would lower its required spaces to around 350.
While under North Bergen’s zoning ordinance a building of this height would be considered a high-rise, the state’s RSIS requirements can only be surpassed by the planning board through approving “de minimis,” or a small exception waiver. The board could also develop and recommend “Special Area Standards” through an ordinance it would have to recommend to the state, explaining why the standard should be augmented for that specific area.
During the public session, North Bergen resident Peggy Wong said, “this is the most bizarre evening. I can’t make that leap and make that connection, suddenly pulling in the townhouses and drawing it as a part of the high rise, aren’t you getting a little cute here with your calculations?”
Wong said that traffic would only be allowed to exit and enter through the north bound lane, which when combined with plans for a shopping center in Edgewater on North Bergen’s border, could add up to a nightmare.
Land, case held up for years
Most recently the application was frozen for about a year because Riverview’s former attorney Dennis Oury pleaded guilty to federal corruption charges, said Jeffrey Zen, the project’s current attorney.
There was also a debate as to whether or not Riverview owned lot 1, a parcel of land that borders River Road. Zen said that they received a summary judgment in their favor after a document from the 1930s foreclosure proved their ownership.
However, Lamb said there was never a subdivision of the lot that runs from Edgewater to Guttenberg, and that it is still unclear how much of the lot Riverview owns.
Previous to that, former Englewood Cliffs Mayor Joseph Parisi, Sr., who is now deceased, and North Bergen owned 50 percent each of the parcel.
A letter to Township Attorney Herbert Klitzner on Feb. 21, 1986 from the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection says that the state would be willing to include the .42 acres of water area, which it owns through riparian water rights, for a park and enclosed a sketch for one on the site. However, both the township and Parisi would have had to agree to create a park, and they didn’t.
The letter also states that due to the “valuable shallow water habitat” any “non-recreational development” would likely not receive either a waterfront development permit from the DEP’s Division of Coastal Resources or a Riparian Conveyance from the Tidelands Resource Council.
“We didn’t have control over it,” said Klitzner, citing the dual ownership.
He continued, “There were some other reasons, riparian rights reasons. The state was claiming certain riparian rights; there was dispute and litigation for many years over the extent of the riparian rights between Parisi and the state.”
Klitzner said that back then, if he had to make a bet, he thought that piece of land would never be developed. Then Parisi and North Bergen sold their land to Riverview several years ago, and since then the project has again been in litigation, Klitzner said.
Getting DEP approval
While last year a DEP appellate panel ruled that Bergen Ridge homeowners had no right to the view the building would take away from them, Lamb said that DEP is now considering the project’s waterfront development permit.
He said that the DEP appellant division remanded the decision to the DEP so that they can further consider whether or not the permit should have been issued. Lamb also said that under DEP regulations the longest part of the building has to go perpendicular to the Hudson, while this project’s longest section runs parallel.
He said the DEP was supposed to decide by a court order by the end of March, but have postponed their decision until the end of April.
Coming to a close
Zen estimated that it would be less than six months before the case is voted on.
“I think we are ready to have the board vote on the application,” said Lamb. “We pointed out as much information as possible for the board to make a decision as to whether this is a good applicant or not.”
The next two planning board meetings on Riverview are slated for May 12 and 26 at 7 p.m.
Tricia Tirella may be reached at TriciaT@hudsonreporter.com.