Hearing on Tutor Time Site Postponed

Residents on the border of Short Hills and Livingston were relieved on Tuesday night when the Livingston Planning Board postponed a meeting with a development company seeking to build a 62-unit complex that includes affordable housing at the Tutor Time location.

TMB Partners was slated to review the project on the former Don’s Drive-In site at a special meeting, but the review was pushed back to Feb. 21 because of “deficient” public notice, according to Livingston Planning Board Chairman Peter Martin Klein.

The notice had a good description of the project, Klein said, but it described the affordable housing building as two stories instead of three stories.

TMB Partners, based in Livingston, seeks to create two housing buildings — one with 50 market-rate units and one with 12 affordable-housing units — at 650 S. Orange Ave., according to plans filed in the township planning office. The company seeks preliminary and final site plan approval. TMB did not return phone calls to Patch on Tuesday.

Some Livingston and Short Hills residents have protested the housing proposal and have come together as the Livingston Short Hills Coalition . On the coalition’s website, the project is described as a "monstrosity" that is three-times taller than neighboring single-family homes.

The Millburn Township Committee had objected to the project, raising concerns about the environmental impact on Rippling Brook, which separates the property from the homes in the adjacent Short Hills neighborhood. An environmental report concluded there were several environmental concerns including drainage, the fact that it is being built in the and the sighting of an endangered species up stream.

At first, the state Department of Environmental Protection sided with Millburn but approved the plans last summer after TMB made revisions to the density of the project.

Still, residents say, they will be able to see the buildings, which they add will tower over their neighborhood, and they worry too, about traffic and drainage.

Coalition member and Short Hills resident Rosalie Rubin, one of the most outspoken opponents of the development, attended the Millburn Township Committee meeting on Tuesday night and asked the committee to appoint someone to attend Livingston’s meeting in February.

“If this development is allowed it will forever destroy our quality of life, as well as one of the entrances to Short Hills,” said the retiree who has been working against the project for years.

Millburn Mayor Sandra Haimoff said that since the township committee meets on the same day as the Livingston Planning Board, the committee would send township environment engineer.

In the past, both Mayor Haimoff and former mayor Tom McDermott have spoken against the project at the Livingston meetings.

The project was also part of an affordable housing lawsuit against Livingston.

TMB Partners initially sought to on the property. The township the lawsuit in August 2010 and limited the project to 62-units and for the buildings to have a height limit of 55 feet.

Under New Jersey law, townships must have a plan for providing moderate and low income housing, including allowing higher densities than are otherwise allowed under local zoning rules, and if they do not, builders who propose such projects can take the townships to court to force them to grant approval.

New Jersey's Council on Affordable Housing (COAH) defines moderate income as being between 80 and 50 percent of an area's median income, while low income is defined as 50 percent or less of median income.

Opponents say the separate building for the low income residents violates the intent of the act.