Wow, sometimes the environment really does win.

DEP kills abbey's housing proposal
Sewer service denied, but monks will weigh options

BY ROB SEMAN
DAILY RECORD

MORRIS TWP. -- The plan by the monks of St. Mary's Abbey to build a retirement community effectively died on Wednesday on its final hurdle in a four-year fight to win state and local approval.

The state Department of Environmental Protection on Wednesday denied the monks' application to extend township sewer service from the Butterworth Treatment Plant to the site of the proposed retirement community, preventing the project from being built.

The plan to build a continuing-care retirement community, which mixes age-restricted housing with the attributes of a nursing home, included 214 apartments and cottages on land near the school owned by the Delbarton monks of St. Mary's Abbey.

The development, dubbed Abbey Woods at Delbarton, was intended to be a cash source to deal with the rising cost of health care for aging monks.

Monks' reaction

In a statement on Wednesday, the Rev. Elias R. Lorenzo, president of Abbey Woods, expressed disappointment with the DEP's decision. He said the monks, the development firm hired for the project, RLS, and investors now will have to review their options.

"Abbey Woods will carefully examine the rationale of the NJDEP in the denial and analyze all available options in the regulatory and legal process," Lorenzo said.

"Upon completion of that review, we will then make a decision as to how we will move forward in the future."

Tony Cicatiello, a spokesman for the monks, said the project was not finished. But he also said that there is no way that the project can be built without sewers. The monks could appeal the DEP's decision in court, he said.

In the meantime, the monks will return deposits of $1,000 to the more than 350 senior citizens who signed onto a waiting list for the project. The monks also would close the marketing office for Abbey Woods.

"We cannot have a cloud of uncertainty continue to hang over this group of senior citizens who are actively pursuing viable living options at this time in their lives," Lorenzo said.

One of those seniors who was on the waiting list was Dan Valerio, 74, of Morris Township, who expressed disappointment when told of the DEP's decision by the Daily Record on Wednesday.

"It's a much needed facility,"Valerio said.

"We need a facility like this in Morris County. It's almost like eminent domain. The state is saying, 'We don't want this here.'"

The fact that the monks would be refunding his money didn't give Valerio much joy.

"It's the right thing to do, but it doesn't sound positive," Valerio said. He added that if the project should somehow find approval in the future, he still would be interested.

A final victory

Meanwhile, environmentalists who opposed the project heralded the denial as a final victory against the monks and the developers.

"It (the denial) was a long time coming, but I didn't see how it was possible for the DEP to approve this," said Julia Somers, executive director of the New Jersey Highlands Coalition and former executive director of the Great Swamp Watershed Association.

"If they had done so, it would have flown in the face of some of the state's most important environmental policies."

"So I thank the governor because there was tremendous pressure to approve this project, and I thank the DEP because this was not easy,"Somers said. "They did the right thing."

The reasons for the denial cited by Lawrence Baier, director of the DEP's Division of Watershed Management, included:

• The presence of wetlands and tributaries to the Whippany River on the site that the DEP felt would be encroached upon by the project's main access road and stormwater management design structures.

• The removal of 71 acres of mature forest would eliminate the habitat of endangered and threatened animal species such as the red-shouldered hawk, barred owl and wood turtle.

• The DEP last year also discovered a summer breeding colony of Indiana bats, which are listed as endangered at both the state and federal level, in the Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge, about five miles away. Somers said the discovery might have been the "straw that broke the camel's back" for the DEP.

• The DEP took issue with the designs of several detention basins in the monks' stormwater management plan.

• The site is located within a national historic district and is adjacent from the Morristown National Historical Park. Baier said topographical data indicated that the project would adversely affect the view from points in the park, and that the applicant offered no further information to prove otherwise.

Mayor Bob Nace said he had not seen the DEP's letter of denial on Wednesday night, but said he still believes that the project had merit.

"I'm sure it will end up in court, and that's what we expected all along," Nace said.

"I'm pretty certain, based on previous court cases, the court will overturn the DEP's decision and find their reasons were arbitrary and not based in sound environmental standards," Nace said.

Naturalists' concerns

Baier's reasons echoed concerns previously outlined by environmental groups such as the Great Swamp Watershed Association, the Sierra Club and the New Jersey Audubon Society, whose members traveled to Trenton in March to appeal to state officials to deny the application.

Jeff Tittel, president of the Sierra Club in New Jersey, said on Wednesday that the message apparently got through to state officials.

"So many times in the past DEP has knuckled under, and it shows this administration is clear about protecting clean water," Tittel said.

Somers said that opponents of the plan faced a formidable foe in the form of an "influential applicant"-- the monks --as well as the plan's supporters.

The monks had endured three court cases and 15 hearings before the Morris Township Planning Board and emerged victorious each time since the proposal was made four years ago.

Cicatiello said it is unclear what alternatives the monks have to replacing the prospective financial source that would have been generated by the development.

"We're looking at options, but this was the one that would have given long-term steady cash flows for any uncertainties in the future. They would have been able to handle it with this project," Cicatiello said.