Water tower application down, not out

By Nancy Kern

of Suburban News 2/22/06

Wyckoff - Several notification deficiencies forced the township Zoning Board of Adjustment last week to dismiss without prejudice an application by the Ridgewood Water Co. to build a 179-foot water tower between Christian Health Care Center and Merrywood Drive.

"What happened here is that Ridgewood Water made an application and there were defects in notice," said board member Harold P. Cook III.  "Also, they had intended to submit a site plan approval in conjunction with the variance application and they failed to notice for that.  Secondly, there was an easement area and they failed to include in the plans and in the notice it was defective."

The board's action means that the Ridgewood Water Co. may file a new application, which a letter to the board from William Mowell, an engineer with Ridgewood Water, said will likely be filed in several months.

In a phone interview, Mowell explained the cause for the dismissal.

"We were preparing to go back out and renotice. I believe there were also issues of steep slopes, so we needed to go back and look at that.  There were also one or two issues on our side that we needed to look at.  So while that was occuring, the village's longtime attourney, Sid Stoldt, retired, and we're just looking to regroup."

"We plan to come back to the board with a full application in the near future."

Residents have already organized in opposition to the plan.  The group, Save Our Skyline, has distributed flyers, and developed a Web page, saveourskyline.net.  At the first board meeting when the tower proposal was discussed, Sept. 26, the public turned out in full force, crowding the meeting chambers.

The opponents charge that the tower, which would approximate the height of a 15 story building, would be visible throughout the township and the neighboring communities of Hawthorne and North Haledon.  Among their other concerns are its possible effect on property values and the loss of what they estimate to be 160 trees.

Water company officials say the tower would remedy difficulties it has experienced in the past with regard to volume at peak times and maintaining pressure.

Save Our Skyline member Neil Vitale, an engineer and Merrywood Drive resident who was present at last week's Zoning Board meeting, explained in an interview that the alternative to the tower is to rebuild the two existing pump stations - the Vance and Sicomac stations - which currently service the area in question.

"it's not that the pumps are more effective than a water tower," he said.  "But the stations that are there are somewhere between 30 and 40 years old.  The current technology for motor controls would allow Ridgewood Water to build modern pump stations that would do everything - 99.8 percent of what they can do with a water tower, and you wouldn't have a huge steel tank 179 feet up in the air.  Plus it's cheaper.  The cost of upgrading each of the pumps would be between $750,000 and $1 million, while the water tower would be about $2.3 million."

As for other obstacles the plan faces before the Zoning Board, Andy DelVechio of Beattie, Padovan in Montvale, the attorney for Save Our Skyline said, "The applicant needs to prove either hardship or special reasons to show entitlement to a use variance.  In addition to one of those theories, the applicant must also show that the use variance can be granted without substantial detriment to the neighborhood, to the public good and not be inconsistent with the master plan and land use ordnances of the community."