The following was submitted by Fred Profeta. The opinions expressed are the author’s alone, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of The Village Green or its editors. The Village Green does not represent or endorse the accuracy of statements made by the author.
Dirk Olin’s excellent Op-Ed piece in this space showed us all how the Township Committee is running roughshod over public opinion in its rush to erect the enormous structure that will wreck the charm of Maplewood Village. It is essential for elected officials to heed public opinion in a democracy – but it is no less important for them to heed controlling legal standards, especially the ones that they themselves enacted.
How many of you know the extent to which these legal standards are being ignored? Not many I wager.
The Maplewood Village Alliance is a Special Improvement District, created in 1996 by the Township Committee pursuant to State law, with the mission of enhancing “the function and appearance” of the Village “to benefit the businesses, employees, residents and consumers” in the Village. That includes all of us! Then, in 1999, in another ordinance, the Township Committee decreed that the Alliance “is hereby authorized to review and grant or deny requests for the construction or alteration of facades within” the Village.
The Township Committee ignored these legal standards in 2012 when it froze the Maplewood Village Alliance Board out of the review process, which led to the construction of The Station House on Dunnell, now overwhelmingly felt to be an architectural disaster – designed by the same architect who wants to bring us another marvel in the middle of the Village. As a consequence, this time around Mayor Vic DeLuca consented to include the Alliance in the process, but only to the extent of reviewing whatever the architect created.
The Town’s Redevelopment Plan for the Post Office site states that “there is no reason to retain any of the existing structures or vegetation”, and proposes “that the site be completely cleared of existing buildings”, even though this requirement is an insult to sustainability and financial responsibility – the need to tear everything down, truck everything away, manufacture new components, truck them all in, and use large machines to erect this too-big building – all of this is a waste of resources and money. You don’t have to love the look of the current structure to recognize that repurposing as much of it as possible could save money and result in a smaller and more appropriate design that is still consistent with developer profit.
But put sustainability and financial responsibility to the side – how about the law? As part of the 1999 ordinance, the Township Committee enacted this provision: “no building within [the Village] shall be demolished without its owner demonstrating significant financial hardship.” This demonstration has to be made to the Alliance. The provision was enacted to assure that the charm of the Village could not be recklessly compromised unless the stewards of this asset were satisfied that economic reasons required it.
The Town is now the owner of the Post Office building. At the February 3 meeting of the Township Committee, I asked that the required demonstration of hardship be made, or that the Committee explain why it did not have to comply with this provision. Silence from the Committee! This is a Maplewood law, passed by the Maplewood governing body, and now that same body chooses to pretend that the law does not exist!
But that was only the beginning. The Township Committee’s own Redevelopment Plan again assigns a major role to the Alliance, stating that “Any site plan shall be provided to the [Alliance] for its review and approval prior to submission to the Maplewood Planning Board.” The Alliance’s design review committee worked hard to make the design a better fit for the Village, but they never saw a site plan. How could they? No site plan yet exists! If such a detailed plan had been prepared, it would have revealed that the present design for the Post Office site prevents the delivery trucks for Kings from entering its driveway. And the developer never consulted Kings about this possible interference with its operation.
In spite of this major omission by the developer, Mayor DeLuca, as liaison to the Township Committee, urged that the full Board of the Alliance approve the proposed design at its May 6 meeting. At this meeting (and only because a Kings representative was present to reveal the fact) the public learned, for the first time, that the proposal as presently designed would prevent Kings from continuing its operation in Maplewood Village.
Under the law, the Alliance should have denied the application until the developer produced a site plan that accommodated the business needs of Kings. But Mayor DeLuca sternly lectured the representatives from Kings, blaming them for not bringing the delivery problem to the attention of the developer. After this show of force, the Alliance Board went along with the Mayor’s suggestion, passing the problem on to the Planning Board and failing in its own legal duty.
Planning Board approval of a site plan is necessary before anything of any size can be built anywhere in Maplewood. The Redevelopment Plan said that the Planning Board could not begin its work until the Alliance had approved the site plan. And this is the way it should be – who better to assess traffic flow, the needs of the various businesses in the Village, parking needs, and consumer desires, than the body charged with the obligation to enhance “the function and appearance” of the Village – the Alliance? But in its rush to move the Post Office proposal down the road quickly before it can be stopped, the Township Committee has brushed aside all these legal standards as incidental verbiage.
How can the Planning Board properly proceed? There is no site plan to review, and it may all be for naught in any event. The Township Committee never made the legal showing, required of it by the 1999 ordinance, that it is necessary to completely demolish the existing structure. The Alliance never made the unconditional approval of a complete site plan, required of it by the Redevelopment Plan. And the Alliance never assessed the effect of the developer’s proposal on the operation of Kings, the traffic flow and parking in the entire business district, and all the other factors relevant to its legal duty of enhancing “the function and appearance” of the Village.
This is what happens when legal standards are ignored. They are enacted for a purpose. When they are regarded as a nuisance, as has been done with public opinion, the result is not pretty. At least that is consistent with the look of the latest design for the Post Office site.
