Friends of Zabriskie Schedler House Challenge DEP Decision, Pushing for Smaller, Natural Turf Field
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood, NJ – The long-running, contentious debate over the proposed field construction near the Historic Zabriskie Schedler House in Ridgewood has escalated once again. Late last Friday, a lawyer representing the Friends of the Historic Zabriskie Schedler House filed a crucial Notice of Appeal, challenging the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (DEP)’s decision.
The appeal targets the DEP’s recent acceptance of the Village of Ridgewood’s application for the construction of a large athletic field—even though that acceptance was granted “with conditions.”
Notice of Appeal, filed on eCourts, 10_3_25 (1)
The Core Conflict: DEP vs. Historic Agencies
The heart of the opposition lies in the conflicting decisions within the state’s own agencies. While the DEP ultimately accepted the application (conditionally), two other critical DEP divisions had previously raised significant objections:
- State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO): Denied the application “with conditions.”
- Historic Sites Council: Also denied the application “with conditions.”
The Notice of Appeal seeks to leverage the concerns raised by these historic preservation bodies, arguing that the large-scale construction poses an unacceptable risk to the historically significant property.
The Preservation Group’s Stance
Ellie Gruber, who leads the Friends of the Historic Zabriskie Schedler House, has been a leading voice against the current plan. Back in June, Gruber asserted that the Village of Ridgewood had “made a misstep” in pursuing such a massive field development.
The Friends group’s proposed solution is clear and community-friendly:
- A smaller athletic field.
- Use of natural grass instead of artificial turf.
Gruber argues that a scaled-down, natural-turf field “would be much happier,” balancing the community’s need for recreational space with the preservation of a historic landmark and the neighborhood’s quality of life.
This appeal means the Village of Ridgewood’s field project faces further legal scrutiny, delaying a definitive resolution and keeping the spotlight firmly fixed on the importance of balancing development with historic preservation in Bergen County.
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Ellie is right. NJDEP’s decision was politically motivated.
How can this be forwarded to Mikie Sherrill’s team and we ask her to provide a statement on this? Does she support democratic values and green initiatives, or will she support her confidant and friend Keith Kazmark to use favors from the state government and provide benefits to friends and family?
James – can this be run as a separate story and we ask this to the governor candidate somehow – here is the clear timeline:
The DEP’s SHPO REFUSED this application – those are the historical and environmental experts – then Keith Kazmark used his friends in the state government to get this approved over the objections of SHPO.
Also the DEP leader who was supposed to approve it – hosted a fund raiser for mikie sherrill WITH Keith Kazmark. They are all buddies.
Also, Keith Kazmark is doing a favor here to Paul Vagianos, who appointed him for this 250K job without any fair open interview process, because Keith worked as a campaign manager for Paul Vagiano’s assembly campaign when he ran for D40.
This is all happening in day light in NJ. Lets ask mikie sherrill where does she stand as she runs for the governor of “Garden State” as a “green / democratic party candidate”.
I think we should reach out to Matt Platkin and ask him if he wants to defend the corruption in NJ.
Does he support democratic values and green initiatives, or will he support corruption to use favors from the state government and provide benefits to friends and family?
Here is the clear timeline:
The DEP’s SHPO REFUSED this application – those are the historical and environmental experts – then Keith Kazmark used his friends in the state government to get this approved over the objections of SHPO.
Also the DEP leader who was supposed to approve it – hosted a fund raiser for mikie sherrill WITH Keith Kazmark. They are all buddies.
Also, Keith Kazmark is doing a favor here to Paul Vagianos, who appointed him for this 250K job without any fair open interview process, because Keith worked as a campaign manager for Paul Vagiano’s assembly campaign when he ran for D40.
This is all happening in day light in NJ. Lets ask mikie sherrill where does she stand as she runs for the governor of “Garden State” as a “green / democratic party candidate”.
There’s some sneaky shit going on, didn’t I tell you there are people behind the curtain that are running things to make decisions. Some of your people were laughing at me but now you see the true colors is coming out. Dirty business, it doesn’t matter what political you voted for very are all in the same bed,
1. Wait out this ridiculous, awful council.
2. Remediate the property.
3. Go back to the 2018 plan everyone agreed upon.
Yeh – Siobhan Winograd and Paul Vagianos ran their election campaigns with a promise to go back to the 2017/18 plan. They did a U turn 1 day after winning the election.
REMEMBER this during next election cycle.
Blame everything on the head of engineering, that guy is a jerk off, one of the biggest assholes I’ve ever met in my life
Peewee won’t quit on this …
Kick the can….
They don’t give a shit about anybody. If they did, they would have a special meeting with employees and residence and volunteers that were at those contaminated locations. They don’t care about anybody’s health or well-being. Allegedly the trying to control the DEP, and channel 12 news that did a story at these locations.
Not a big fan of the Schedler field of dreams and the fake historic house with ZERO community purpose, but the standard for overturning an agency action is very high.
In New Jersey, a final agency action can be overturned through direct judicial review by filing an appeal in the Superior Court, Appellate Division within 45 days of receiving the decision. The court can set aside agency actions that are found to be in excess of statutory authority, short of statutory right, or otherwise not in accordance with the law. Courts will typically review agency actions under a “deferential” standard, such as the “arbitrary, capricious, or an abuse of discretion” test, rather than substituting their own judgment for the agency’s.
the current council made promises to the sports groups….plain and simple….
100%…it’s a game for Peewee, to see how much he can get away with.
can we just sell it to a real estate developer? good location on Rt17 will bring in some good tax revenue
Move the house to the location of the future PAC at the site of the former Warner Theater (High Density Low Income Housing) downtown.
For 30 years, we been hearing about the sport group. We had enough of the bullshit. We don’t even have the employees to maintain all this shit. How about the village telling us? What is the final budget just for parks and recreation? We would love to see that number.
It is clear that Vagianos made promises and Heather wasn’t hoping to move the needle. He brought in Kazmark to see this through all while knowing Kazmark is besties with NJDEP Commissioner LaTourette and could get this slide right thru easily. My guess is La Tourette had his deputy made the approval which waived a good number of the conditions and objections which were impediments to progressing this current plan. Its sad because if the village 1) had not brought in the contaminated soil and 2) had not increased the size of the field and tried to cover the entire property in impervious surfaces, there is a good likelihood that there would have been a park development in the near future. Just goes to show when you get greedy, you do t always get what you intended.
I’m sure Kazmark contacted everyone he knows to get this project approved. The fact that the ethical breaches seem to be numerous, favoritism as blatant as the nose on his face, political leverage with almost every agency in the DEP, countless Ridgewood tax dollars spent on historic consultants, engineering and landscape design firms who developed and redeveloped the drawings, lawyers, hiring people to pretend they conducted independent assessments to bolster their application and the list goes on. Kazmark knew he’d get a yes vote from his pals, that WAS the plan all along. He doesn’t hang by the pool with La Tourette for nothing but now, this is all under the microscope for courts to pick apart.