Commentary: What Morris Commissioners didn’t say about proposed Rt. 24 ramp

By Cathy Wilson

Having served as Morris Township’s mayor last year, the County Commissioners’ recent statement regarding Morris Township’s refusal to sign a letter of support for the latest iteration of a Park Avenue ramp to Route 24 is concerning.

It is not what I would call complete or unbiased.

Their comment that “no objections were raised in the year since the NJDOT presented a preferred realignment plan in March 2020,” is patently false. In an effort to correct the record and fill some of the more glaring gaps, following are my thoughts on what’s happened and why.

My perspective begins with the observation that the intersection at Columbia/Park/Route 24 is a case study in the need for regional collaboration across towns.

It’s also a case study in why that’s so hard to accomplish: The issues here are complex; the project information has been incomplete and ever-shifting; each town is driven by its own set of high-stakes, emotionally-charged interests; and the solution options are limited.

Another significant ingredient in this conflict-ripe mix is the pressure all towns in New Jersey are facing to build large numbers of affordable housing units to fulfill their own court-mandated obligations.

This requirement is spurring extreme increases in every town’s development activity, a key outcome of which is to make the traffic headaches we all know so well even worse.

With this as background, it’s no wonder that accomplishing even basic agreement on what happened at one meeting (let alone a more accurate and nuanced understanding of each town’s views) has proven to be challenging and elusive.

Perceptions, perspectives, and interpretations differ. Opportunities for misunderstandings abound.

It is true that Morris Township does not support this current “across from Delaware Avenue” location for the ramp – which is why we did not sign the letter of support the County requested.

At the same time, it’s also true that Morris Township did support NJDOT’s original “preferred” location – the vacant site at 190 Park Ave.

Apparently, this site was dropped from consideration as a ramp location because Hanover has chosen instead to use it as a site for 210 residential units (at a height of 70 feet and a density of 60 units per acre).

YES, Hanover really IS in the process of moving this plan forward!

It’s frustrating to me that county officials (and others) have had such extreme difficulty grasping what many of us in Morris Township have been trying, repeatedly (through conversations, public meetings, and emails) to impress on them for months: The notion that Morris Township “approved” this “across from Delaware” plan at last year’s February 2020 meeting is simply inaccurate and untrue.

I could write a lengthy piece on how and why the misunderstandings at that meeting originated and continue to this day. I’ll hold that explanation for another time…

Regardless of the cause, we’ve now reached a point where the County has chosen to escalate its ongoing misrepresentation of our views by publicly blaming Morris Township for this project’s collapse – while also praising Hanover’s “steadfast support” of it.

Does anyone really think that Hanover’s plan to add at this location a 70-foot tall building that will house 210 residential units at a density of 60 units per acre is an exercise in good planning?

Or that it will do anything other than exacerbate existing problems at this already-failed intersection?

The truth is that the 190 Park Ave. site is the one location for the ramp that could have garnered support from all the surrounding towns. Hanover’s choice to develop this site for its own purposes is what toppled its potential as a ramp location.

Hanover could have chosen to allow NJDOT to purchase this site and use it for the ramp. Another possibility is that NJDOT could have forced this site’s use through the exercise of eminent domain.

My own opinion is that the County and NJDOT should have pushed both of these options more vigorously.

Ignoring Hanover’s role in toppling an agreement on this ramp location (along with the opportunity to obtain federal funding for it) is disingenuous on the County’s part.

Usurping what is clearly a better location for the ramp and filling it instead with a high-density housing project is understandable on Hanover’s part, but it’s NOT an action that in my book demonstrates “steadfast support” for this project.

Adding insult to injury is the recent statement by Hanover’s mayor, John Ferramosca: “Hanover supported this since day one. Public safety is the number one job responsibility of government and failure to advance this initiative clearly is a disservice to the traveling public.”

Hanover would be well served to get honest about its own role in thwarting agreement on a ramp location. Instead of singling out Morris Township for blame, the County Commissioners would be well served to acknowledge that reality as well.

Going forward: The need for towns to work together to find solutions to our shared problems is not going away. The one silver lining I see in this unfortunate situation is that it’s loaded with opportunities to learn from what’s happened so we can all make improvements in how we handle similar situations that are sure to come up in the future.

Cathy Wilson serves on the Morris Township Committee.

The opinions above are the author’s, and do not necessarily reflect those of this publication.