Sounds Familiar : More development pressures in Bergen
News and commentary from Bergen County’s many municipalities besieged by heavy-handed development proposals underscores boiling dissatisfaction with plans for gross changes in heretofore cherished communities.
Ordinary residents can’t accept claims that big development won’t bring negative impacts, and they can’t understand why their elected and appointed officials and “experts” paid with local property taxes buy into those claims.
Montvale’s Hoboken-based “master planner,” who touts experience developed in Johannesburg and elsewhere in Africa, has told locals that state planners encourage denser development than has prevailed in Bergen traditionally.
That requires zoning changes blessed by planners and local officials alike. The blessings can lead to snags. Montvale’s mayor has told residents he testified in court for four days in a lawsuit brought by The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co.
In a case that has received virtually no public attention, A&P makes the thunderous charge that Montvale is guilty of “spot zoning” in favor of one family of local farmers and their development partners.
Whether or not the court agrees, proposals in Montvale and elsewhere in Bergen are pitting the few against the many.
Kurt F. Kron
Montvale, Nov. 21
Nothing wrong with one family homes and farms not everything needs to be asphalted over for developers and large corporations.