Garret Pointe Entrance Nixed

by Jordan Schwartz

After nearly two years of hearings, the Clifton Zoning Board of Adjustment unanimously voted to deny Garret Pointe Associates’ variance application. Their plan was to convert Paxton St. off of Mountain Park Rd. in Clifton into an entranceway to service a proposed group of 128 residential units on a nine-acre quarry parcel (above) in Woodland Park, formerly West Paterson.

“The conditions up there, both inside and outside the grounds were really unsafe,” said board alternate Gerard Scorziello, who voted in place of regular member Steven Abill, who had missed a few meetings on the matter. “It was a poorly put together plan and it wasn’t consistent with the Clifton master plan.”

A use variance was needed because Garret Pointe wanted to use a piece of property in a residential zone as a driveway.

Board members had asked the applicant if it was possible to build an entranceway elsewhere, like through the Bank of New York property that sits behind the quarry in which the development would be located, but Garret Pointe’s attorney, Frank Carlet, said that would be impossible.

“If you have a parachute you could do it, but how do you get back up?” he quipped. “We have no right to go by the bank. You couldn’t build a ramp safely [because of the 50-foot quarry wall], and even if you could, you’d be building it through other people’s property.”

But Carlet said he wasn’t surprised by the Clifton board’s rejection. “When we filed this application, we had no real hope that the city would approve it,” he said. “We prepared our legal case with the anticipation that it would go to court.”

Carlet plans to appeal the ruling to the Passaic County Superior Court in Paterson.

This case, which started way back in 2001, has already made its way through the legal system in West Paterson, but until this latest decision is possibly overturned, one local resident will continue to enjoy what he believes to be a major victory.

“This application would’ve destroyed the mountain,” said Joe Holzli of Mountainside Terrace. “The steep slope ordinance was approved by the City Council back in the ’70s to protect the mountain. They would’ve taken down the cliff face and changed the ridge line.

“All the buildings are in West Paterson, so Clifton gets nothing out of this except trouble.”