Montclair’s plaza redevelopment downsized in plan
First proposal labeled out of step with historic area
The revised Lackawanna Plaza redevelopment plan was presented Monday night after recommendations from the Montclair Planning Board to scale down the project.
The revised plan, first released Friday afternoon, features several changes from the original plan.
The original included five buildings on 8 acres, with 375 apartments and almost 100,000 square feet of commercial space, including an unnamed grocery store.
A review of that plan found it to be inconsistent with the town’s master plan regulations in terms of size and consistency with surrounding properties. It was also found by the Historic Preservation Commission to be out of scale with the surrounding area, taking away from the historical significance of the Lackawanna Terminal.
The plan now shows three of those five buildings being reduced from six stories tall to five stories.
Additionally, the upper floors of those buildings would be designed to step back from the front face of the building to minimize its size over surrounding residential areas.
This reduced the heights of the buildings along each of the property lines, bringing them more to scale with surrounding properties.
The number of apartment units included in this project would be reduced from 375 to 300. The original plan allocated 15% of the units to be short-term rentals, but that has since been reduced to 10%.
Another assessment of the original plan found that there would be a significant impact on traffic in the area due to increased congestion from the plaza.
An updated traffic assessment has not been done, but it will be done to account for the decrease in rental units.
The revised plan, though, prioritizes pedestrian-dedicated spaces over vehicle-dedicated spaces. Originally, a minimum of 20% of the overall space had to be dedicated to open space. Now, a minimum of 28% of the overall space must be open space.
With that, a fourth plaza has been added to the existing three plazas in the original development plan. This also comes with an increase in pedestrian walking zones, and a decrease in vehicle driving areas throughout the plaza.
There also have been increases in requirements for residential bike parking, raising it from one space per 10 rental units to one per five units. A commercial requirement for bike parking was also added.
In terms of flooding and water runoff, the inclusion of several plazas allows for more ground spaces, which would create detention basins to hold water on site. This diminishes the potential for runoff on nearby properties.
The plan is expected to be reintroduced at the Montclair Township Council meeting on Aug. 15.