School Ave. Turned Into One-Way Street

In what was described as potentially a short-term solution to parking shortages near Colony Pool, the Chatham Township Committee unanimously approved an ordinance making School Avenue one-way from Spring Street to Floral Street and permitting limited parking on Spring Street during the summers.

The new law allows on-street parking on the west side of Spring Street from Lafayette Avenue to Dale Drive from the Saturday before Memorial Day, when Colony Pool opens, until Labor Day, when the pool closes.

The ordinance will also allow parking along the north side of School Avenue from the intersection with School Avenue to 500 ft. east of that point, and will make School Avenue one-way going north, from Spring Street to Floral Street.

Signs will be put up along the roads to designate allowed parking areas and to direct traffic.

The vote followed nearly an hour of discussion by members of the public and the committee. Several concerns were voiced by residents of Spring Street and Floral Street, including parking on private lawns, speeding, traffic, the volume of parked cars and pedestrians and whether the Chatham Emergency Squad would have enough space for the ambulance to pass.

Administrator Thomas E. Ciccarone said the ordinance could end up being a temporary solution to address parking in the area since he and Engineer John Ruschke had reached a tentative agreement with PSE&G to pave the parking lot near Colony Pool.

PSE&G previously said residents could no longer use the parking lot along School Avenue. They said new concerns arose as the company completed their North Central Reliability Project and revoked their licensing agreement with the township for the lot, and the agreement for the gazebo along Southern Boulevard.

Ciccarone said PSE&G would let the township use the lot, now mostly gravel, if it was paved to the utility company's specifications. The original paving demands PSE&G made were previously called "cost-prohibitive," in Ciccarones words. He said they would have cost about $200,000.

The new agreement, which has yet to be formally submitted to PSE&G for their approval, would cost about $120,000 and require 4 in. of base material, 5 in. of pavement and 1.5 in. of surface material, Ciccarone said.

"This is as of about 7 o'clock tonight, but we think we have an agreement with them," Ciccarone said.

The plan would add about 75 spaces and would not cover the entire lot.

Robert Doherty, a resident of the neighborhood, said he called PSE&G several times to ask about the new risks from the reliability project. He said he was very much relieved after he called, since "talking to them I got a very dfferent feeling than what I was reading in the newspapers."

Mayor Nicole Hagner and Ciccarone said they had been in meetings with PSE&G for a year and a half and had been told several different stories as time went on: First that they have to move the gazebo permanently and not allow parking near Colony Pool during the project, then that they could permit parking near Colony, then that they would have limited parking, then no parking without stringent paving demands, now some parking with amended, lessened paving demands.

PSE&G still has to formally approve the new paving agreement, and the townshp committee will have to approve any new licensing agreement.

Hagner said paving would almost certainly not begin by the time the pool opens, making the traffic changes to School Avenue and Spring Street a necessary plan for this summer. She said the committee could potentially repeal the ordinance as it applies to the neighborhood around Colony Pool if and when paving is complete.