The report given by the Town of Montgomery interim building inspector James Farr at a recent town board meeting raised some eyebrows including mine ! He painted a dismal picture of the building department. He asserted the department is understaffed and underfunded resulting in its inability to properly vet, monitor and review the present construction projects sited in our township. The necessary commercial inspections are not being done that include concrete testing, steel inspections, fire code inspections and more. These inspections are not being done on 22 active commercial site plans under review. The building department is faced with 7 or 8 proposed warehouse projects, 2 of which are mega warehouses with both exceeding 1 million square feet in size ! The department’s glaring deficiencies in human and financial resources make it impossible to keep up with the growing commercial development in our community.
To make matters worse, the town has an outdated comprehensive master plan that to a certain extent is obsolete. No substantial changes or updates have been made since 1988. A master plan is a roadmap for intelligent growth; it provides the proper guidelines to follow in dealing with such growth. The current master plan lacks these necessary and relevant guidelines. The town board is lost without them. If this situation does not warrant a building moratorium, I don’t know what does !
John Lown
Maybrook
August 5
