August 25, 2025, Planning Board Special Meeting Transcript - WEHI

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 91 we decided that now personally each one of us may have a different view, but we have to go by the ordinance and the law and the MLUL who says you may look at it. Absolutely. And we have. MR. AFRAN: Says you must. CHAIRMAN BAGOFF: And we have through each expert looked at each part and of this and I don't know how this is going to -- I don't know that this is under our purview, that's the issue that I have. I am not saying it's not under somebody's purview, but it doesn't say in the MLUL that this specifically is. MR. AFRAN: Well, not everything is specifically set forth in the statute. What we do in law is we typically is we look at the policy goal on statue and then we have to apply that to different instances whenever evidence is offered. I am not suggesting by the way Mr. Chairman, that the board has not heard ecological evidence, certainly it has. I'm simply suggesting that this evidence is somewhat different and focused and is directly related to the subject matter and because the board has heard evidence in this field doesn't mean it should not hear evidence of this nature. But I am not suggesting the board has not heard such evidence and I hope that doesn't come off sounding.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 92 MR. PLOCKER: And just for the record, thank you Mr. Chairman. And just for the record, if this expert is going to testify about conservation and preservation of the property, I believe Mr. DeVito, who already testified, went there and I believe when he was asked what his solution was, and excuse me if I'm paraphrasing, he said he would preserve and buy the whole thing or something like that. So they made their position clear. We understand that and the board should understand that as well. THE WITNESS: I would like to clarify one thing. After I left the council foundation I was charged with preparing a plan for the future of the State of New Jersey Preservation. It's called, Nature For All and analyzes all lands being preserved over the last, as John talked about in his report, say 30 years or so, what the program is and, etc. And what's remaining, what is the remaining challenge ahead and the other thing I looked at very closely at were ecosystem benefits of lands. So people talk about vacant lands, but if it's not vacant it provides a service, so the report I did goes into details on ecosystem services of land types of context for looking at this property in context of what's left in the State of New Jersey and I think it's important for the Planning Board to

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 93 understand when they're making their decision that it's in that greater contrast and it's not just looking at every little technical aspect, it's looking at what this land provides and what the opportunity is for something beneficial that would be taken away. I wanted to put that out there and I have to show a few slides from the report that give that overview. CHAIRMAN BAGOFF: Can you focus only on this piece of land. You can go ahead, but if you focus on other areas in New Jersey I'm going to have to stop you. We are focused on this piece of land and the use of this piece of land. That's why we're here. THE WITNESS: I can jump through that. CHAIRMAN BAGOFF: Go right ahead. Okay. THE WITNESS: Okay. CHAIRMAN BAGOFF: Only this zone, what's on this piece of land? MR. AFRAN: I do not agree that that's a proper ruling but we understand that's the ruling. CHAIRMAN BAGOFF: That is my ruling. THE WITNESS: I will do my best. Okay. So Nature Sprawl is the title of the report. I don't know, she was a champion in preserving land in Kenya and I think we all need to provide a future for the children that's sustainable.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 94 So New Jersey's the Garden State, I'm not going to go into all this, but the premise of the report is that everyone needs nature. It's a key piece of land. It's a scarce, not a renewable resource. It's not -- vacant land is a complete misnomer. Every piece of land in New Jersey that is not developed is providing services. I am not going to go through all this because I am going to focus on the property. But I do think this is important, five million acres in New Jersey, about 33, 34 percent is preserved, 38 percent is developed. About 1.4 million left. That means 1.4 million acres of which this 120 acres is part of that is providing ecosystems services for New Jersey. The report calls for preserving 50 percent of the remaining lands, about 5,000 acres of which this 120 acres would be part of. MR. AFRAN: Ms. Byers, use the microphone because we're missing some of it. THE WITNESS: Okay. I'm going to go to the slide because we are trying to focus, and I will extrapolate these two features. If one is looking at this property, what would you think this 120 acres is right now? You're right, it's private ownership. But I have to tell you

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 95 that over my career, over 40 years, every single piece of property that we looked at up for preservation was in prior ownership and ultimately, it always depends on the seller, but that's what the game is about. So these -- oh, sorry. Wrong slides for you. I am going to skip right through it. We all know about climate change. Just biodiversity, you heard about that. People and nature, we haven't heard much about that. We're are losing connection to nature and that's a major challenge for humanity. Here you see available lands, all of the lands in pink or purplish color are lands that are remaining available for preservation. All right. Here's the thing, we have talked a little bit about this. But this property provides the essential ecosystem services to the community. It protects the drinking water supplies. Not just to West Orange but to 22,000 people in Essex Fells who depend on that drinking water and further down into the Caldwell's and down to the New Jersey American Water Supply. So that's an incredibly important piece of information that this 120 acres is providing. Improving air quality by sucking up and sequestering them.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 96 We talked about that, I'm not going to go there. We talked about flooding. We talked about soil protection. Carbon sequestration. You guys probably know all this but these are services that have been quantified economically by many agencies all around the country. They're providing financial benefits because you can't put a price on some of these things and if you do it's astronomical. Outdoor recreation. Heat island effect talks about human health, access nature, the economic benefits. Buffers from the impasse of adjacent development. Increase in the zone ordinance for climate change is probably one of the most important ecosystems services that we can provide for resiliency for rain and stormwater development. And the last one I think people don't talk about very much, but the curiosity and sense of connection to nature is part of being human and we're reducing that culture. So every bit of open space left is, especially in built up communities like West Orange, is absolutely critical to the future so kids have a place to go and experience nature. They don't have to, you know, go to the Grand Canyon, they can go right here

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 97 in South Orange. So, again, this is the key point, 1.4 million acres of available lands that aren't preserved land are providing these services. And this piece of 120 acres is part of that. If those lands are lost, if this 120 acres is lost, those services will be degraded. And what we think of now as having, you know, somewhat decent quality, environmental quality will degrade significantly if those lands are not preserved. So when I look at the determination of suitable -- CHAIRMAN BAGOFF: I'm going to interrupt a second. I said this has to be of this site, West Orange. This is -- is this used for every piece of land of open in the State of New Jersey? THE WITNESS: Yes. CHAIRMAN BAGOFF: Stop right there. THE WITNESS: Doesn't mean it doesn't apply to the 120 acres. MR. AFRAN: We understand you're asking her testimony to focus on these factors -- CHAIRMAN BAGOFF: Correct. MR. AFRAN: -- on the relevance of this site. CHAIRMAN BAGOFF: Correct. This is on every piece of open space in the State of New Jersey. These slides are not made specifically for West Orange.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 98 MR. AFRAN: No, no, no. The witness understood that because you're ruling constrained her, which we understand. She's going to limit her testimony -- CHAIRMAN BAGOFF: These slides, not one are of West Orange or this site. MR. AFRAN: She spoke of the value of the site and the ecological service. CHAIRMAN BAGOFF: We understand that. And you had witnesses testify to that already. Many. We listened on both sides. We're not saying no. What I am saying is, this is not focused on West Orange. It is not focused on this property and we need to hear things about this property specifically that we haven't heard before. MR. AFRAN: Well, I am not -- I understand your ruling and I'm suggesting the witness should address those factors as applied to this property. CHAIRMAN BAGOFF: 22 slides we haven't heard that. MR. AFRAN: I think you have. I think you heard specifically how -- well, I will leave it stand as it is. CHAIRMAN BAGOFF: Any open space can fill that requirement. Any open space could be, were any of

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 99 these -- THE WITNESS: Not 120 -- CHAIRMAN BAGOFF: Were any of these slides made specifically for West Orange? THE WITNESS: Yes, I did the whole thing for West Orange. CHAIRMAN BAGOFF: So none of these things are using anything else specifically for West Orange? THE WITNESS: Some of them will run over all programs, but this one I did specifically for West Orange. I should have put the title on top. CHAIRMAN BAGOFF: Go right ahead. This is specifically for West Orange? THE WITNESS: Yes. CHAIRMAN BAGOFF: Go right ahead. THE WITNESS: So looking at this site what I would look at is what are the factors that would determine the suitability for preservation. And John talked a little bit about this in his program. Number one is location. It's proximity and on or connectivity to other preserved lands and then looking at the lack of or deficit of preserved open space and I can show on another slide how this is a big enormous hole in the donut of where there's really very little preserved open space.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 100 It does have potential for linkages, we talked about that. It has potential for connecting large landscapes. It's got significant natural resource features, including it's core forest habitat, you guys know this. The degree of threat from the development is high in this situation. Not simply because of the proposal that is on your plate, but also for all these other things impacting lands around the state. Nature in a neighborhood is an incredibly important community resource and this would make a huge asset for West Orange to have 120 acre forest in the middle of their community. I talked about the ecosystem services are enormous, that's an important part of what factors is for determining suitable for preservation. And then looking at meeting demands for other public purposes. You can not look at a piece of property like this in a vacuum and not look at all the other public demands, including affordable housing and, you know, who knows fire, library, etc. And then looking at what the community goals and plans are for that property. So I looked at all those in respect to the