The Seton Hall Preparatory School athletes and their supporters are bound to be cheering this week, as a contentious two-year battle over the development of a new sports complex for the West Orange school has been put to rest.
According to NJ.com, the West Orange zoning board unanimously approved a $7 million construction project following a meeting on Monday, November 8, after a total of 26 meetings and the review of 78 hours worth of testimony and evidence. Seton Hall Prep must still agree to more than sixty resolutions before the board officially approves their application, on December 16.
The 17-acre parcel of land is the remainder of what was originally a 46-acre forest, planted by Civil War General George Brinton McClellan (best known for organizing the Army of the Potomac and being the lead general in the Union Army). Critics of the project have focused both safety and environmental concerns, and bemoan the proposed loss of hundreds of trees — some more than 150 years old — and yet another piece of open land.
Proponents have also been vocal, saying that the forest is in fact an “eyesore,” and many in the community have welcomed the idea of development and improvement of what is perceived as a “bunch of overgrown weed trees.”
The case is closed, although pending final approval. Want a taste of the school’s sports pride? Check out this YouTube video.
Above photo from Pirate Nation: The Pride of Seton Hall Prep, produced by Nate Schiller, ’09.
Congrats to Seton Hall Prep and their victory to be allowed to be able to build on their own property.
Thank goodness sanity prevailed on this one over environmental nutsos. Go Piratez!
And General McClellan, Erika, is actually best known for his having been removed from his post by President Lincoln for his constant, unwarranted hesitance at aggressively pursuing Lee’s forces and his outright defiance of Lincoln’s orders. He later rubbed salt into this wound and further blotted his own stained escutcheon by running for the Dems as a Presidential candidate against Lincoln who’d “negotiate” with the South. (This “citizen journalism” stuff sometimes calls for a knowledge of history, no?) McClellan’s planting of trees in Jersey hardly makes up for the lives he probably cost America by the continuation of the Civil War until spring, 1865.
Good. “After 26 meetings and 78 hours of testimony,” what happens when there are actual issues of significance that require debate?
This is an outrage on a planetary scale. The loss of these trees will eliminate the last major source of oxygen for all of northern New Jersey, creating a permanent low-pressure zone that will draw air from all around the New York Metropolitan Region in tremendous updrafts of hot air, billowing into the upper atmosphere, spreading a toxic, radioactive shroud of sulfurous plasma across the entire globe, blotting out the sun for hundreds of years, clearing the way ultimately for a return of the dinosaurs.
“They paved paradise and put up a …” sports complex?
We learn nothing; nothing at all. There is no such thing as new old growth trees.
Enjoy your … sports complex.
Who needs old growth trees when you can buy a nice can of Glade air freshener?
Bravo, Seton Hall !
sad to think a bunch of boys (no women allowed at the school!) who chase balls around in a rectangular playing field, a circle or a diamond with a curve on it, mean more to a town than its history and neighboring taxpayers with real needs and concerns.
SHP pays no taxes, yet seems to do and get whatever they want in this town, while bringing nothing to the table. Trophy’s, titles and boys in ties…
a sad day for WO
Yes this is a Shame West Orange Has Allowed thousands of Town House’s and Condos to Be Built over the past 25 years… Taxes are Higher ther,than in Glen Ridge. More Roads to maintain ect….. Its Over developemnt plays Havoc On The West and East Branch Of the Raway RIver, Flooding Towns Down stream Like Millburn….
Welcome back Mathilda. I thought you had been martyred in the Eagle Rock deer cull. Some truly nitwitted posts here.
@ Sumi: Listen closely. Why shouldn’t a school be able to build sports facilities on it’s own property, at it’s own expense? The concept is called PRIVATE PROPERTY RIGHTS. Look it up. Also, It’s sbsolutely irrelevant from a tax perspective. “Old Growth Trees?” We’re not talking about Sequoia National Park here. Sports are GOOD, they promote fitness and build character. “Trophies, titles, and boys in ties” are GOOD. Go sit under a tree in any one of Essex county’s parks or reservations that are open to the public, and meditate on how to be less of a twit.
@ Steamengine: Dude, you live in the most densely populated part of NEW JERSEY, the most densely populated state in America, not Vermont. How could anyone possibly have a problem with playing fields and open land? The Rahway river flows nowhere near Millburn, and the Passaic, which actually does run between Short Hills(Millburn) and Chatham, occupies an established flood plain. Drive down the JFK Parkway behind the Short Hills Mall and you will notice that the area is basically a swamp, hence no building. It has been flooding since before the first colonist developer built the first condo in New Jersey.
Yes, deadeye, private property rights are important. So are zoning laws, building codes, environmental reviews, and so on, as you well know.
If any property owner in the USA wants more than the minimum allowed “as of right” , they need to go to the mat. SHU obviously made their case, so, in the end, they can build.
As for property rights and other detail’s of the machinery of capitalism, “deadeye,” I shall leave to Caesar what is Caeser’s. It would be a fine thing, in your universe, I suppose, to pave all four corners of the world for young boys to frolic upon in their blazers and ties and football pads, if that is what the “market,” in all its glory and wisdom, “wants.” (This market apparently embraces not only the material but all things spiritual, to the extent the spiritual even exists in your puny vision.) I might buy that theology if it weren’t for my suspicion that this wonderful market of the Gods is run by people as blinkered and foolish in their arrogance as yourself.
@ Mathilda: I knew it was the wrong day to stop sniffing glue… Thats it, back to the ashram for me. I clearly need more enlightenment.