1/27/11

Bergen Record: Teaneck Approves Boathouse on the Hackensack

It is a given that some people will try their hardest to stop this project - a boathouse on the Hackensack river a block from our house. We don't play tennis and do like water sports of all kinds. So we hope this does go through to reality...
Teaneck OKs boathouse, dock at Andreas Park
BY JOSEPH AX, The Record STAFF WRITER

TEANECK – The town will have its first boathouse and floating dock, after the Township Council approved a proposal to construct them at Andreas Park on the banks of the Hackensack River.

The Teaneck Rowing Club, a nonprofit group that provides equipment for the high school crew team, will build the 2,275-square-foot boathouse as a storage facility for its rowing shells, replacing the park’s current tennis court, and install the dock.

The club still has to gain permits from the state Department of Environmental Protection for the dock and from the town’s own planning board for the boathouse. But Al Medioli, the club’s vice president, said he hopes the dock can be in place within a few months, with the boathouse finished within a year or two, all at the club’s expense.

“We’ve been working on this probably for about eight years,” he said.

The dock will be available to all town residents, and council members said boating enthusiasts would have greater access to the river.

The council’s unanimous vote came despite concerns from some neighbors of the park, who objected to losing the tennis court and, perhaps, an unobstructed view of the river once the boathouse is built.

“To have a structure that will obstruct views of river and the trees is a concern to me and to other neighbors I’ve spoken to,” Sharon Silow-Carroll, a neighbor, said at a council meeting Tuesday.

But Medioli said the boathouse would occupy only a quarter of the space currently used by the tennis court and would be similar in size to a carriage house at the park’s north end.

The Hackensack River Greenway Advisory Board supports the project, saying the removal of the tennis court will reduce the park’s paved surface and increase access to the river.

The town’s Environmental Commission, however, argued against the construction of the boathouse on public parkland.

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