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Board of Ed., developer, trading [open] spaces
(by Karen F. Mrnarevic - June 11, 2008)
The River Vale Board of Education is nearing the final phase of land swap negotiations with Pascack Hills Properties, LLC, a Woodcliff Lake-based developer. The land that is currently owned by the Board of Education is a 1.2-acre parcel of land that abuts Colonial Drive. If the land swap goes through, that parcel would be traded to Pascack Hills Properties for 1.7 acres of land contiguous to the
Woodside
Elementary School property.
According to Russell Huntington, the attorney for the developer, “two conforming houses would be built on the property” that the developer is seeking to acquire in the land-swap. “They are going to build a couple of houses on land they already own around the corner,” he said in a phone interview. “It’s proposed that they would build two houses on land that they are acquiring.” In addition, said Township Attorney Holly Schepisi, “The builders will provide an easement from the school property down to the cul-de-sac, so that the kids can continue to use it as a path,” by which to access the road from the school.
Huntington asserted, “The Board [of Education] was extremely thorough in its inquiries and deliberations,” and that the land-swap should benefit both the developer and the school district. “It gives the school increased frontage and a better geometry for its property.” Meanwhile, “the only thing that would be new to anybody [in the community] would be two brand new homes, and they are all conforming.”
Schools Superintendent David Verducci asserted that the land-swap should only serve to benefit the district in the long term. The land that the board will gain in the swap is “a significantly larger piece of land than what we are giving up,” he said. “In this day and age,” he said, when “homes are worth less than the land they are built on… to pick up a half acre of land contiguous to the school” is a very positive outcome for the district.
He praised the members of the Board of Education, who he said are “a very conservative group” when it comes to matters of spending as well as the general safety and welfare of the district’s students. “A board should never give up land without the most serious consideration and the most careful thought, and only after every other option has been eliminated,” he said. “In this particular case they are looking at the usability and the proximity of the land” to the existing school property. “The board has been extremely cautious and extremely prudent,” Verducci said.
Verducci hoped to allay any public concerns over what the land-swap could mean in terms of future development of the
Woodside
School . “I want to be very clear we don’t have any intentions at this point of doing anything with our land,” he said in a phone interview. “We haven’t even discussed anything vis-a-vis building in any shape or form.”
Huntington said that while the Board of Education and the developer are very close to finalizing the swap, there are still administrative matters to attend to. “The Board of Ed. is waiting for approval from state agencies to which it reports,” he said. “When that’s done, in order to make it happen, we [Pascack Hills Properties] need to go to the Planning Board because we will be changing lot lines” in order to subdivide the acquired properties, prior to constructing homes on the site.
Karen F. Mrnarevic's e-mail address is Mrnarevic@northjersey.com.
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