Men building a sidewalk along Union Valley Road in front of Veterans Park many years ago are Bob Vreeland, Roger Cox, Tim Vreeland and Anthony Adragna. (
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A copyrighted West Milford Town Center Sidewalk Improvement and Landscape Enhancement Program prepared by Hakim Associates 30 years ago can be viewed on the Internet. Michael Hakim, landscape architect, meeting with town officials in 1996, told of plans to create “a unique identity to West Milford while emphasizing pedestrians.” Hakim worked at the beginning stages of the design that year. Cost was not to exceed $25,000.
He estimated the final design would be before the West Milford Planning Board and Township Council in less than six months. Estimated completion was four to six years. Hakim said pedestrians should be able to walk to local businesses and shops throughout the Town Center area with sidewalks enabling them to walk safely, conveniently and pleasantly. In 1996, Hakim viewed the existing Town Center as having “hostile front yards” with unattractive front parking causing pedestrian problems.
The proposed sidewalk design directed traffic/pedestrian movement through utilization of signs. Pedestrian spaces would be created at a scene framed by Veterans Park. Planning Director William Drew said that money for plans to create a pedestrian-friendly Town Center environment might be available through grant money. The council was considering assessing road-front property owners for the sidewalk costs.
For decades numerous township officials tried to obtain funds to connect sidewalks from the ShopRite’s Union Valley Road exit to Bearfort Plaza (across from Pinecliff Lake Dam). With the Batinelli family planning to open businesses on the old Wiggins Farm property, added shopper attractions are increasing.
In 2016, Mayor Bettina Bieri asked the Passaic County Board of Governors for sidewalk funding to connect the two shopping areas that are about 1,000 feet apart. Local Economic Development Commission correspondence said there might be money available for this type of project.
“We do support the concept of making our commercial center - business district - more pedestrian friendly to support an already restricted economy,” Bieri said. Four years earlier preliminary discussions among local officials about the use of county-procured Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) money and the Passaic County Enhancement Program funding for the same project were held. The township fully supported the proposal in a follow-up letter to the Passaic County Freeholders. Although seen as having great benefits, mentioned in county letters received by the township, it never got off the ground.
Proposed sidewalk projects continued to be praised and welcomed by officials and the public but did not materialize. In 2012, township representatives cancelled proposed construction of a 2,750-foot sidewalk from Lincoln Hill Village senior housing facility on Lincoln Avenue to the ShopRite complex. The township, in three separate awards, collected $383,581 in CDBG money to help execute the project along Marshall Hill Road. However, elected officials scrapped the effort because of the difficulty and resulting cost increases imposed by driveway transitions, right-of-way acquisitions, and the property restorations the project required. It also needed 1,600 square yards of concrete.
These increases would have used up the total expense account well over the grant limits and the municipal match, former West Milford Administrator Nancy Gage said. Available grant funds were used to help pave First, Second and Third Avenues. Later, the township officials cut the Town Center streetscape project funds that included sidewalk work because of funding constraints. In the beginning the project that addressed the pedestrian island in the town center and built the Welcome to West Milford wall at the corner of Marshall Hill and Union Valley Roads was to include strips of new brick-bordered sidewalk on Union Valley Road that ran beyond the West Milford Presbyterian Church.
Because of the cost involved, the sidewalk was restricted to locations in front of the Walgreens store and the ShopRite complex. These locations were negotiated by the Planning Board prior to approval of developmental plans. The board officials turned down a plan requiring property owners along the path to revamp the sidewalks in front of their properties.
