The Verona Town Council has become the first neighboring municipality to pass an official resolution denouncing the project, requesting that the West Orange Planning Board deny the application.
Throughout these hearings – and even in the months before – township officials have expressed the position that the development is inevitable due to a 2020 settlement.
A Short Hills-based developer wants to clear thousands of trees in a vast forest on the western border of West Orange to build a 496-unit apartment complex. However, the developer withdrew its application for a flood hazard permit before the November deadline, leaving the future of this project up in the air.
West Essex Highlands is a proposal to build a 496-unit apartment complex that will hack down thousands of trees and build as close as legally possible to the wetlands within the woods. But one neighborhood group is providing one thing that has been in short supply of late — hope.
Increased traffic, crowded public schools, and sewage lines crossing a wetlands were among the concerns raised at a community meeting this week where West Orange residents voiced fear and frustration about the development of a 120-acre forest near the Essex…
In March, residents along Howell Drive got a letter in the mail that caused them to fear that the forest visible from their front door could be in danger of development. The fight to preserve this 120-acre plot of undeveloped land goes back to 1987.
