South Orange and Newark residents at planning board meeting oppose Seton Hall Univ. proposal for rec center

SOUTH ORANGE, NJ — Residents from South Orange, Newark and Maplewood spoke out at the South Orange Planning Board meeting on Dec. 5 in an attempt to sway board members from approving an application from Seton Hall University to expand the Richie Regan Recreation and Athletic Center, saying that the addition will exacerbate flooding in SHU’s South Orange neighborhood and the adjacent Newark neighborhood of Ivy Hill. The university applied to the planning board this summer and hearings began in October; the board has still not voted on the application, and board members said at the meeting that the board will continue to hear public comments on this matter at its January meeting.

SHU proposed building a 12,862-square-foot addition to the southeastern portion of the recreation center and a 176-square-foot vestibule on the north side of the building. Also presented in the application were modifications to the surrounding roads, parking lots and pedestrian walkways on the southern and eastern sides of the facility. The addition is meant for a basketball practice facility.

Neighbors are primarily concerned about potential stormwater flooding, which paved surfaces exacerbate. The area saw significant flooding resulting from the remnants of Hurricane Ida in September 2021, which dumped nearly 8.5 inches of rain on the region. SHU said in a fact sheet about the proposed addition, posted to its website on Nov. 22, that the addition will be built largely in the existing building’s footprint, but many residents in both South Orange and the Ivy Hill section of Newark consider the application to be an act of environmental racism.

“I moved to this community for its progressive values, and when I see a large member of our community committing an environmental injustice, I am compelled to speak,” South Orange resident Jessica Miller said during the public comment portion of the meeting. “A private institution built in a wealthy, majority white community dumping stormwater directly into the neighborhood of a predominantly black neighbor is environmental racism.”

Several speakers brought up that the planning board waived the requirement of an environmental impact report; engineer Jamie Giurintano said at the meeting that the information that would be included in an environmental impact report was included in the application’s testimony.

“The site is already developed,” he said at the meeting. “It’s basically redeveloping an area that has already been paved and modified. A waiver for the environmental assessment was appropriate.”

A stormwater study was required by the board and was performed, which was confirmed at the planning board meeting and in the SHU statement on Nov. 22. Regardless, Newark is conducting a study to identify the sources of flooding in Ivy Hill and potential fixes. An attorney for SHU, Elnardo Webster, told the planning board at its Nov. 7 meeting that the university would not pause its application while the study was ongoing.

Miller was not alone in the nature of her comments. Jayde Dieu, a junior at SHU and president of the Student Government Association, agreed with Miller’s comments.

“As a student at Seton Hall, the university teaches us to be servant leaders,” Dieu said in her comments. “Is it being a servant leader to just merely follow the law, even if the law is inequitable and unjust? Doesn’t servant leadership demand doing more than what the law requires for the common good and for our neighbors, even if it costs extra money and hurts the bottom line?”

She asked for the application to be halted until the stormwater study is completed.

“In our classes on diversity, we are specifically taught how structures and systems of the law were unjust and inequitable in terms of race, class and environmental justice,” Dieu said. “We are here to concretely practice what these courses teach us. The university may be following the law and all environmental and stormwater regulations, but the law and the regulations are environmentally unjust and environmentally racist. It is troubling to see that these issues are not being considered and listened to.”

SHU student Shamika Augustin, who grew up in Ivy Hill, said in her comments at the meeting that she is not surprised that the university is potentially negatively affecting the surrounding neighborhoods.

“The school on its own floods so easily; if you’ve ever walked on campus during heavy rain, there are huge pools of water everywhere,” Augustin said. “The school’s drainage system is already not the best, so I’m not surprised that neighbors are concerned about the flooding that carries on next door. Data and studies should be completed first. There is no way to prove that Seton Hall is not contributing to the issue without a study having taken place.”

Augustin also pointed out that the problem does not affect SHU as much as it affects the surrounding residents in South Orange and Ivy Hill.

“Seton Hall is only a small portion of what the greater South Orange community is — a community that I have been going in and out of my entire life,” she said. “The students at Seton Hall occupy more space than just 400 South Orange Ave. They live up and down South Orange, Maplewood, the rest of the Oranges and in Newark. With that in mind, I think the university should be more considerate of the effects that it has on the surrounding areas and the students that call this place home while they are here, in addition to the people who called it home even before they attended the university, like I did.”

  FEATURED, Seton Hall University, South Orange Planning Board