DEP Clears Way for Controversial Project

OAKLAND, NJ—Three decades of litigation that has prevented a residential project from being built here on a wooded mountainside has finally been settled. Officials from the neighboring township of Wayne are incensed – and so are environmentalists.

In an administrative court settlement reached earlier this year, but made public only this month, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection agreed to issue several permits needed to build a 204-unit residential development. The project, which includes single-family homes and town houses, is planned for a site atop a steep ridge on an 80-acre tract near the Ramapo River, according to The Record.