Planning Board Approval Next Step in Redevelopment 5 Process

The borough announced Wednesday two special meetings of the planning board in February on Fort Lee Redevelopment Associates (FLRA)’s preliminary and final major site plan and subdivision for Redevelopment Area 5.

The meetings will take place on the first two Mondays of February—the 6th and the 13th—and will be held at the because, as Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich has said, “we [want to] attract as many residents as possible; to make sure that everybody comes and participates in the process.”

“It’s been two years of every issue that gets resolved, there are 10 that get uncovered,” Sokolich said at the regular meeting of the Mayor and Council on Jan. 19. “And then, once those 10 are resolved, there are 10 on top of those that are uncovered—from width of sidewalks, to types of stores, to square footages, but we’ve gotten through it. It’s not all done, and that’s why we need those folks out there at the hearings so we get that input like we did at the town hall meetings.”

At the Jan. 19 meeting, the Borough Council passed resolutions authorizing a seventh amendment to the settlement agreement and extending the conditional designation of FLRA as redeveloper of the roughly eight-acre east parcel and Tucker Development Corporation as redeveloper of the west parcel. The council also approved the redevelopment agreement with FLRA for the east parcel of the 16-acrea Redevelopment Area 5.

“We’ve approved the redevelopment agreement for the east parcel this evening,” Sokolich said. “We’re on the verge of finalizing the redevelopment agreement for the west parcel. I can assure you, east is about to start, and west will follow soon thereafter. Once they get through that planning board process then those conditional re-designations and so forth and so on would be fait accompli.”

Sokolich also said that because of the complexity of the project he didn’t expect the process to take as long as it has—“longer than we wanted it to.”

“I never thought we were going to get to a sixth, seventh and eighth on this either, “ he said.

“We’ve gone through some of the minutia that we needed to get to statutorily,” Sokolich said. “They’re now in the process of finalizing their plans and filed so we can conduct public hearings so that an ultimate determination as to what they [plan to build] can be built.”

He added that the public has “tremendous say” in the process.

“We want to encourage people to come,” Sokolich said.

The special meetings of the Fort Lee Planning Board are Monday, Feb. 6, and Monday, Feb. 13, both at 7:30 p.m. at the Fort Lee Community Center (1355 Inwood Terrace).

Agenda

• PB 3-12 - Fort Lee Redevelopment Associates, LLC
  Redevelopment - The Towers at Fort Lee aka The Center at Fort Lee
  Area 5/Eastern Parcel
  100 & 800 Park Avenue (Martha Washington Way)
  Block 4851, Lots 1.02, 2, 3 & Parcels 4, 5a
  Preliminary and Final Major Site Plan
  Preliminary and Final Major Subdivision

“Any interested party may appear at said hearings and participate therein in accordance with the Rules of the Planning Board,” officials said.