Resident Concerns, with Resident Photos

Specific concerns about site fit, zoning relief, traffic, flooding, and neighborhood character, documented with photographs taken by residents.

Photographs on this page were taken by residents to document existing conditions in the neighborhood surrounding the property. They show conditions as they are today, before any of the proposed development.

A Large Institutional Project on a Smaller-Than-Required Site

The property is approximately 3.98 acres. The proposed development includes a private school building of roughly 28,000 square feet, along with parking, internal vehicle circulation, student drop-off and pick-up areas, recreation space, signage, fencing, and other site improvements.

A central concern has been that the parcel does not meet the minimum lot-area requirement applicable to the proposed conditional school use. Residents believe that this matters because minimum lot size is one of the zoning tools used to control the scale and intensity of institutional uses within residential areas.

Multiple Zoning Departures at the Same Time

The project has required relief from multiple zoning and site standards, including issues involving:

minimum lot area
impervious coverage
required parking
parking within front-yard areas
loading within front-yard areas
signage
fencing and setbacks
other site-design requirements

Residents are concerned about the cumulative effect. A single minor deviation may be one thing. Multiple departures affecting the size of the site, parking capacity, paved coverage, circulation, loading, signage, and other core standards raise a broader question: whether the project fits the site, or whether the site must be substantially reshaped through exceptions to accommodate the project.

Parking and Vehicle-Circulation Concerns

Township requirements called for more parking spaces than the project proposed. Project materials identified 56 required spaces while proposing 44 spaces, including tandem parking arrangements.

Residents have questioned what happens when actual parking demand exceeds the assumptions used in the project’s operational plan, particularly during staff changes, visitors, events, meetings, deliveries, or other periods of higher activity.

The project also involves student transportation, drop-off and pick-up activity, and vehicle movements near existing residential streets and intersections. These concerns are especially significant because schools generate concentrated traffic during relatively short arrival and dismissal periods.

A long line of cars with brake lights lit, backed up behind a school bus, with a 25 mph speed limit sign and a pedestrian on the sidewalk. — A school bus at the head of a line of stopped traffic during a peak period on Sunset Rd.

Concerns About Traffic and Nearby Intersections

The location is close to existing neighborhood streets and intersections. During the application review, engineering materials identified concerns regarding the proximity of proposed entrance and exit drives to nearby intersections.

Residents have therefore raised questions about turning movements, queues, visibility, pedestrian safety, van traffic, and the effect of concentrated school arrival and dismissal activity on the surrounding neighborhood.

Pedestrians walking between stopped cars near a driveway while traffic is backed up through the intersection at dusk. — Pedestrians moving past stopped vehicles while traffic is queued through the intersection.

A pedestrian stepping into the roadway between queued cars, beside a yellow school crossing sign and no-parking signs. — Kids crossing street between queued vehicles.

A Pequannock police vehicle with lights on at the scene of a collision, with a heavily damaged white sedan stopped on a landscaped median. — Pequannock police responded to a collision at the intersection of Sunset Rd, Roome Ave, and Washburn Rd., as photographed by a resident.

More Pavement and Impervious Coverage

The proposed development would substantially increase impervious coverage on the property compared with existing conditions.

Residents are concerned about the amount of land devoted to buildings, pavement, parking, circulation, and other hard surfaces on a parcel already smaller than the lot area required for the proposed use. Stormwater systems may be designed to address regulatory requirements, but residents still believe the scale of the increase is a legitimate land-use concern when evaluating whether the overall development is appropriate for this particular site.

That concern is grounded in what residents already experience during heavy rain. The photographs below show current conditions in the immediate area, before any additional paved surface is added.

Rainwater pooling across a lawn and spilling over a paved driveway apron beneath large trees. — Standing water is spreading across the lawn after heavy rain on 60 Sunset Rd.

A residential street completely covered in water during a downpour, with a trash can tipped over into the flow. — A neighborhood street under water during a heavy rain event, curb to curb (Roome Ave).

Water sheeting across a roadway and over the curb line at a stop sign, next to the Pompton Presbyterian sign. — Runoff sheeting across the roadway and over the curb line at the stop sign during heavy rain (intersection of Sunset Rd and Roome Ave).

Side-by-side photos of the same storm: water pooling at a corner beside the church sign and a stop sign, and runoff spreading across the roadway. — Two views during the same storm: water collecting at the corner near the church sign, and runoff spreading across the roadway.

Residents have presented this issue in more detail in the Water and Flooding Issues at 60 Sunset presentation.

The Scale and Intensity of the Use

Residents are also concerned about the broader change in the character and intensity of activity on the property.

A grades 3–12 private school can involve daily student arrivals and departures, staff vehicles, transportation vans, deliveries, visitors, outdoor activity, maintenance, lighting, signage, and other recurring institutional operations.

The concern is not that these activities are improper in themselves. The question is whether this level of institutional activity is appropriate on this specific parcel, in this location, with this combination of zoning deviations.

Concern About Setting a Precedent

Many residents believe the case has significance beyond one property.

Their concern is that if extensive zoning relief can be granted through a litigation settlement after an application was previously denied, it may weaken confidence in the zoning process and create pressure for similar treatment in future cases.

Residents believe zoning rules should be applied consistently and that major departures from those rules should require the same transparent, fact-based review regardless of who owns the property or whether litigation has been filed.