Category Archives: Master Plan

Protect Chatham’s Central Park!

Master Plan, , ,

We all love our Memorial Park, the green stretch behind our library, with its playground, pool, benches, lawn, and ball field, lined with big trees.

But now our Park is threatened by a Borough Council plan to sacrifice the green, vacant lot right next door – which the Borough bought for recreation – to build four apartments and a parking lot. 

Here’s how that Borough-owned lot next to the ball field looks now:

Here’s what the Borough Council aims to build there asap:

Screenshot

Will that project pay property taxes to the Borough? No. It’s tax exempt.

That plan will also allow construction of 223 new apartments on the east end of Main Street, backing up traffic and  jeopardizing the water supply in a wellhead protection zone that also includes Summit and Millburn.

What’s worse, despite having had at least fifteen months to come up with alternatives, our Mayor & Council never considered any. They left it to the last n minute and dropped it on the Planning Board, hallf of which knows this is wrong, but may be steamrolled vor lack of a handy alternative.

Now the proponents of this nightmare simply insist that that Plan was the only way to meet a June 30 deadline set by state law. 

That’s pure nonsense. NJ law does not require the Borough to make any such sacrifices.

And yet, that’s exactly what the Planning Board will do on June 18th unless you act now:

  • Drop everything right now and tell your elected officials NOT to sacrifices scarce Borough-owned recreation space but to meet the June 30 deadline while preserving the chance to vet a menu of alternatives at public meetings, before the Borough is locked into final choices: 

cdempsey@chathamborough.org            jmathiasen@chathamborough.org

kkoronkiewicz@chathamborough.org    itreloar@chathamborough.org

jstrickland@chathamborough.org   bhargrove@chathamborough.org

khay@chathamborough.org   mayorcouncil@chathamborough.org

  • Bring family, friends & neighbors to the Planning Board meeting, Wednesday, June 18th, 7:30 pm, Borough Hall, 54 Fairmount Ave. Bring everyone, regardless of residence or age. (Use the north entrance. Take the elevator to the upper level.)
  • Write the Planning Board via Facebook or c/o Clerk, Borough Hall, 54 Fairmount Avenue:

Thomas Belding         Sophia Calcaterra-Hull         Susan Favate                William Heap  

Susie Robertson          Matthew Wagner                   Jonathan Wilcox          Gregory Xikes

For background, sources, hot links, and news, please visit ChathamChoice.org

Would you pave paradise and put up a parking lot?

Master Plan, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

(Let’s hope our Planning Board won’t!)

NJ law requires every town to provide for affordable housing. Chatham Borough does that.

NJ law does NOT require the Borough to pave over the green, wooded, Borough-owned, .3-acre, vacant lot at 58 North Passaic, right next to our Memorial Park, for a parking lot and four apartments, nor to impose an overlay zone allowing 220 more apartments on the east end of Main Street without having considered any alternatives.

Screenshot

But that’s what the Planning Board is going to do on June 18th unless you act now:  

  • Tell your elected representatives mayorcouncil@chathamborough.org and Planning Board that we want to meet the June 30th deadline while preserving the chance to vet a broad menu of alternative, at  public meetings, before the Borough is locked into final choices. Write:

Thomas Belding    Sophia Calcaterra-Hull   Susan Favate       William Heap  Susie Robertson    Matthew Wagner      Jonathan Wilcox       Gregory Xikes

Facebook or c/o Clerk, Borough Hall, 54 Fairmount Avenue, Chatham, NJ, 07928 

  • Attend the Environmental Commission meeting to ask them to call for an chance to consider alternatives that would preserve the vacant, Borough-owned land: Wednesday, June 11th, 7:30 pm, Borough Hall, 54 Fairmount Ave. (Take the elevator to upper level, Room 301.) 
  • Ask the Shade Tree Commission to call for alternatives that would preserve precious, mature, Borough-owned trees: shadetree@chathamborough.org
  • Ask the Recreation Advisory Committee to call for preserving the vacant lot for recreation as originally intended when the Borough bought it in the 1980s: Suzanne Jenks c/o Clerk, Borough Hall, 54 Fairmount Ave., Chatham, NJ.

For background, sources, and news please visit ChathamChoice.org

Who did this?

Master Plan, Uncategorized, , , , , , , , , , , ,

Who is responsible for the Master Plan amendment our Planning Board won’t see until June 6, but is under pressure to adopt on June 18, setting Borough housing policy for the next ten years?

Why did our Borough Council let someone concoct such a plan 100% behind closed doors, without any public input?

Why does that plan include developing a vacant, green, woodsy, Borough-owned lot right next to Memorial Park?

58 N. Passaic Avenue

Was it ok for our Borough Council to skip presenting that plan in public, skip voting on it, skip running it by the Shade Tree Commission or Environmental Commission, and instead simply pay a hired planner to present a summary to our Planning Board?

Did the Council have an obligation to explain, release, or disclose the actual plan BEFORE turning it over to the Planning Board?

Did having the planner tell the Planning Board about the plan really muzzle the Borough Council as claimed?

Is the Planning Board required to approve the plan, which it won’t even see until at least June 6?

If the Planning Board is required to rubber stamp the never-before-seen plan, which the Council has never voted on or even discussed in public, then who is responsible for the policy decisions that will guide local decision making for the next ten years?

Why does the Council President say answering questions like that would expose her to “legal risk”?

Ask her: Jmathiasen@chathamborough.org

Ok with you if the Planning Board votes to develop that green, vacant, Borough-owned lot right next to the park without having justified or explained that choice?

Share your views:

mayorcouncil@chathamborough.org

shadetree@chathamborough.org

https://www.tapinto.net/towns/chatham/sections/government/articles/chatham-residents-question-green-space-borough-land-being-used-on-north-passaic-for-affordable-housing-without-public-input

Who is your master?

Master Plan, Redevelopment, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Ever notice that each NJ town has its own unique character?

One reason is that each town is protected by a local Master Plan, created by residents to guide local officials in big decisions.

When asked to adopt a new regulation or grant a special exemption from zoning laws, our leaders must consider if what’s proposed is consistent with the Master Plan. If not, they must vote it down.

Changing the Master Plan can be done only by the local Planning Board, which is made up only of residents and must follow a transparent process. They review the Master Plan, discuss and air proposed changes at public meetings, take questions and comments from residents, and make decisions in public.

Unfortunately, that isn’t what’s happening now in Chatham Borough.https://chathamchoice.org/2025/05/the-secret-plan/

Essentially, our Planning Board is getting railroaded. https://chathamborough.org/boards/planning

At the Wednesday, May 7 meeting – the Board’s first since January – members learned about a major change in the Master Plan’s Fair Share & Housing Element, which was crafted behind closed doors by a special 8-member advisory committee that includes four non-residents and does not answer to the public. https://www.chathamborough.org/boards/advisory/235-affordable-housing

At that May 7 meeting, Planning Board members were told that they need to approve that major change in the Master Plan at the Planning Board meeting, on June 18. (You can see that at approx. 1:07:00 in this video: https://chathamborough.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=1&clip_id=368)

The only hearing scheduled to give residents chance to ask questions or tell the Planning Board what they think of the changes is at the same June 18 meeting where the Planning Board must vote to approve those changes.

That puts our Planning Board in a tight spot. Or rather, it’s a tight spot for the rank and file members, who who aren’t also Mayor, or married to the boss of the dominant party, or members of the elite committee that drafted the changes behind closed doors.

But what options do the rank and file Planning Board members really have?

Should they stand up for the right of residents to participate in the process, and risk not being reappointed to the Board by the Mayor?

Or should they go along to get along, and hope for other opportunities to protect Chatham Borough?

That’s the easy way out, but if they take it, they will have lost control of one of the most important parts of our Master Plan.

It’s time for the Planning Board to do right by residents and stand up for itself. Refuse to be bullied into approving a Housing Element they had no role in crafting. Demand a chance to do their job, and weigh alternatives.

Your opportunity to ask or weigh in about any of that at a public meeting – before it’s too late to make any difference – will be at the Council meeting this Monday, May 12, 7:30 pm, Borough Hall, 54 Fairmount Avenue, upper level.

Please keep in mind that you need not say a word. You can make a difference simply by attending that meeting.

In response to the uproar over this situation, today the Mayor posted the PowerPoint presentation shown at the May 7 Planning Board meeting and put the Housing Element issue on the Council’s agenda for Monday night. https://d3n9y02raazwpg.cloudfront.net/chathamborough/ebc8857c-bc91-11ef-ab4b-005056a89546-21f92362-28af-4727-9270-fd5a12163dfa-1746813852.pdf