The majority of the 100-year-old club’s 180-acre property is in Haworth, N.J., but it also extends into nearby Oradell, where it wants to sell off a 1.5-acre piece of land. The Oradell Planning Board has tabled action on the club’s application to look into a question raised by a resident about the borough’s affordable-housing settlement agreement. White Beeches would need to build a new maintenance facility elsewhere on its property if the subdivision is approved.
White Beeches Golf & Country Club in Haworth, N.J. is looking to subdivide and sell off a 1.5-acre piece of land, raising objections from neighbors worried about development, NorthJersey.com reported.
The application was heard before the Oradell (N.J.) Planning Board this month, but it was tabled until the Board’s October 2nd meeting, to give time for Planning Board Attorney Scott King to look into a question raised by a resident related to the borough’s affordable-housing settlement agreement, NorthJersey.com reported.
White Beeches, which is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year, has a 180-acre property that is mostly in Haworth, but extends into Oradell and also Dumont, N.J., NorthJersey.com explained. The club plans to sell off a 1.5-acre lot in Oradell that now has a single-family house, an “old, dilapidated” maintenance facility and some parking, according to Alfred Maurice, an attorney and member of the club’s Board of Governors.
After the subdivision, the club plans to sell the land, NorthJersey.com reported. The application doesn’t require any variances and is “basically putting a line on a tax map,” King said.
If the subdivision is approved, the club’s directors would need to build a new maintenance facility somewhere else on their property, NorthJersey.com reported. A location in the Haworth portion of the course, between the second and third holes, is being considered, said Michael J. Hubschman, an engineer who worked on the application.
No other subdivisions of the golf course are being discussed at this time, and the rest of the land would continue to operate as a golf course, Maurice said.
The future of the smaller site has neighboring residents concerned, however, NorthJersey.com reported. Benjamin Isik urged the applicant to consider a deed restriction to limit development to a single-family home.
But Maurice said the club would not consider that request, as its Board “[doesn ‘t] know who is going to buy it and what they are going to do with it.”
Another resident, Nicholas Ostuni, asked the Planning Board to table the application to better understand its relation to affordable-housing requirements.
For years, Oradell’s section of the White Beeches golf course was zoned for affordable housing, a zone that was maintained after the borough entered into an affordable-housing agreement with the Fair Share Housing Center, NorthJersey.com reported.
Because the affordable-housing plan has White Beeches shown as a single parcel, Ostuni questioned whether the new parcel would need to be rezoned and said the Planning Board should put the application on hold until the borough’s master plan review, now under way, is completed, NorthJersey.com reported.
“It’s not about who lives there for me, it’s about the amount of people who live there,” Ostuni said. “The affordable housing [agreement] is being used as a mechanism to increase density, because ultimately, and unfortunately, we have to use these spaces because people need places to live. Everyone has a right to live somewhere. It’s not about who, it’s about how many.”
Although the subdivision would turn the affordable-housing zone into two parcels instead of one, King said, the new subdivision would still be part of the affordable-housing zone, NorthJersey.com reported.
But King did not respond to several phone calls asking for confirmation of the maximum unit density allowed in the affordable-housing zone, NorthJersey.com reported.
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