Glenn Pascrell went to a planning meeting in September to talk about his new home.
He and his wife had bought 201 Claremont Ave. the year before, an old house converted into offices right next to Montclair’s municipal building. They planned to live upstairs and rent the offices below, and the conversion needed the township’s sign-off. Partway through the meeting, the township’s planning director asked whether he knew about the PSE&G substation.
He didn’t. That is how one of the people with the most at stake learned that the utility had its eye on the lot next door.
PSE&G wants to build a new substation, the fenced complex of transformers that takes high-voltage power from transmission lines and steps it down for the wires that run to homes and businesses. Its preferred site is the land under the municipal building. On Tuesday, Nov. 10, the Township Council holds a public hearing on Ordinance O-26-39, which would rezone that land and open the door to a 205 Claremont substation. The property belongs to the town, and whatever goes there will likely stand for a century. Yet residents, and even the township, say they still haven’t seen the evidence that this is the right place for it.
What a substation next to Montclair’s municipal building would mean for neighbors
Would Pascrell have bought the house if he had known that the substation could be moving next door? When Mike asked, he didn’t hesitate.
“No, no, not at all… I wouldn’t have purchased it knowing this,” he said. “But it’s also my neighborhood, so… I’m not going anywhere.”
His questions are the ones anyone on that block would ask. How big would it be? What would it sound like? What would construction do to the street? The block is dense, with apartment buildings, houses of worship, shops and single-family homes. Two older neighbors recently sat on his front porch to tell him they own the house across the street. “And that’s all they have,” he said. They worry about their property values and the noise.
Even the noise question has two answers. On Oct. 20, PSE&G presented its plans to a packed council meeting, and Pascrell says the utility’s project manager told the room that the hum would be audible from the sidewalk on that side of the street. The township’s FAQ quotes PSE&G saying operational noise would “generally not be very noticeable from across the street.”
The neighbors include more than homeowners. The roughly 1.96-acre site also covers a former bank lot on Park Street and 68 North Fullerton Ave., home of Cornerstone House, a 23-bed emergency shelter run by the Salvation Army.
Underneath all of Pascrell’s questions sits a simpler one, and no one has answered it yet.
Why does PSE&G want a substation at 205 Claremont?
PSE&G’s answer is that the site became available. In written answers to the Pod, the utility said it identified 205 Claremont after public reports that the township was considering replacing or relocating its aging municipal complex.
The station it wants to replace, on Valley Road, was built in 1925. PSE&G says the new one would serve about 10,000 customers in the center of town and take 16 to 18 months to build, and the old one would come down once the new one is running. The utility says it considered roughly nine locations around town, but it has not made the list public. Township Manager Stephen Marks told the Pod the township asked for it and never got it. He knows of five: the properties next to the existing station on Bloomfield Avenue, the police department’s parking lots on Portland Place, the municipal complex, the former DeCamp bus property and Immaculate Conception.
The municipal building wasn’t always the plan. In August 2025, PSE&G told the council it would build on Portland Place, across Valley Road from the existing station, on the police lots and neighboring private land. The utility now says later testing found heavy underground utility congestion along Valley Road. Its own checks around Claremont Avenue, it says, were preliminary and non-invasive, meaning no digging. It has not released cost figures for either site.
Mike put the question residents keep bringing to The Pod straight to Marks: why put a substation there? Marks said the choice isn’t the town’s to make.
“We, the municipality, cannot tell PSE&G where to go,” he said. “Some people think that the town should be saying, you know, ‘PSE&G, look over here, PSE&G, look over there, PSE&G, you should put it here.’ That is not our function, to guide PSE&G to a location.”
Bloomfield Avenue complicates that answer. PSE&G says it walked away from two properties next to the existing station in February 2024 after learning that the council at the time didn’t favor the site, and neither did the Montclair Center Business Improvement District, the downtown business group funded by a special assessment on local commercial properties.
Dave Placek has a stake on more than one side of this. His company, BDP Holdings, owns part of the Portland Place land PSE&G spent years testing, and his family foundation owns the Mills Building, one of the places the township has discussed for new town offices. He sums up the frustration in three questions.
“Why this site? Why so fast? And why aren’t you answering the questions that everybody seems to be asking?”
What evidence has PSE&G shared about the substation site?
According to Marks, the town is looking for more information from PSE&G.
“In terms of information that the township has received, we only have two pieces of paper despite requests for additional information,” he said. “We’ve only gotten two pieces of paper from PSE&G. The letter from June of 2025 and the updated letter from May of 2026.”
Only one of those one-page letters is public. Marks attached the June 2025 letter to a one-page memo he wrote to the council in September. The township withheld the May 2026 letter, in which PSE&G expressed interest in 205 Claremont, at the request of PSE&G’s attorneys, because it touches on a possible real estate deal. “There’s no smoking gun,” Marks said.
The memo described “negotiations” with PSE&G, a word residents seized on as proof the deal was further along than the town admitted. Marks says he chose it badly. “I used the word negotiations,” he said. “I should have said discussion.”
PSE&G has not shared maps of its underground lines, citing homeland security. Marks also noted the utility spent millions designing a station on Bloomfield Avenue before the town said no, and it now “feels that they were burned.” Until the township shows it is serious about a site, he said, PSE&G won’t pay for the studies everyone wants to see.
That leaves residents weighing a rezoning without the one document Pascrell has been chasing since September: the analysis showing why PSE&G passed over the other sites. He has filed about eight requests under the Open Public Records Act, the state law that lets anyone obtain government documents, and says many remain unanswered. The Oct. 20 presentation, he says, was the utility’s chance to provide it.
“Show us the evidence,” he said. “Just show us the engineering study, show us the alternatives analysis. Nothing exists that they showed us. Nothing.”
If PSE&G spent heavily vetting other locations, he argues, the paperwork already exists.
“Look, we researched all the other sites. Here’s the analysis. Here’s the alternatives. I’m sorry, it’s your block, right? But none of that happened in this case,” he said. “So all I’m saying is, okay, produce the document which disqualifies them. It’s pretty easy, right? It’s pretty straightforward. If you spent a lot of money, just show us that document.”
Without it, he says, the council shouldn’t act. “You cannot vote on the ordinance if you have nothing in hand to prove that 205 is its best and highest use.” In real estate, highest and best use means the most valuable legal use of a property.
What the council will weigh instead is a set of rules the town wrote for itself.
Does a substation at 205 Claremont fit Montclair’s master plan?
Three documents decide what can be built on that land.
The master plan sets the town’s long-range vision. Montclair’s version, the Unified Land Use and Circulation Plan, was adopted in 2015 and last revised in 2023. For this site, it calls for a new municipal complex housing the police department, the municipal court and town offices. The plan is also under review: the Planning Board is reexamining the master plan this year, a check state law requires every 10 years, and Marks says the current version never contemplated where future utilities should go.
Zoning turns that vision into law. Today, 205 Claremont is zoned for public use only.
Redevelopment lets a town replace the zoning on a specific property with its own tailored plan. New Jersey law allows it once a town formally designates a property an “area in need of redevelopment,” which Montclair’s council did for the municipal complex in July. O-26-39, the ordinance up for a hearing Nov. 10, is the next step. It would adopt a redevelopment plan that overrides the zoning for 30 years and allows apartments, assisted living, offices, municipal buildings and public utilities. It would not approve a substation, sell the land or authorize construction.
Residents’ strongest argument comes from the plan’s own wording. The draft published with the council’s September agenda permits public utilities but also bars any use that would produce “electromagnetic disturbance, radiation” or “undue noise or vibration,” and calls for development that “reflects the scale and character of the neighborhood.” Pascrell and other residents argue that a substation can’t meet that test.
Marks, a licensed planner, says that reading asks too much of a planning document.
“The master plan is a visionary document. It really doesn’t get into the nitty gritty of, you know, what goes where exactly, right?” he said. “If a master plan is granular, then you literally paint yourself into a corner… it’s a straitjacket.”
He turned the question around. “Does the master plan envision a substation anywhere? And if the master plan does not envision a substation anywhere, what is the town gonna do for electricity for the foreseeable future?”
Marks says rezoning gives the town leverage, because land restricted to municipal use has almost no market value. “It’s not zero, but it’s certainly not fair market value,” he said. Pascrell, who made his case to the council in September, sees the opposite.
“Once you change the zoning designation, you basically, you’re giving the land to PSE&G, because then they have the right to argue in case the township changes their mind or they can’t strike the deal they want or they don’t get the protections they need,” he said. “They can go to the state Board of Public Utilities and say, ‘Hey, the town agreed this was the best site and they were willing to sell it to us, but they changed their mind and they changed the zoning.’”
The Board of Public Utilities is the state agency that regulates PSE&G, and it can grant a utility approval when a town refuses, a point Marks raised too.
What is 205 Claremont worth to Montclair taxpayers?
The money is the other piece no one has put on the table.
The township needs a new home either way. Marks says the municipal building, a 1969 office building, is structurally deficient and functionally obsolete. “It will take several millions of dollars to bring the current municipal complex back to a state of good repair,” he said. Earlier this year, Councilman Eric D’Amato floated $50 million to build a new complex combining town offices, the police department and the court. Marks calls that figure “the worst case scenario” and says the township is looking at buying and retrofitting an existing building for a fraction of the cost.
What the land is worth remains private. The township has commissioned appraisals of 205 Claremont and another property from Newmark, a commercial real estate firm. None have been released, and Marks says it would be unwise to negotiate in public. That leaves residents no way to compare a sale to PSE&G with what the land could bring as housing or offices, in price or in property taxes.
Pascrell points to money already spent. “The township just spent a ton of money putting in a whole new AV system in the current municipal building,” he said. “The township just spent money building a senior center within the municipal building that they’ve been telling us is falling down for 20 years. This is taxpayer money.”
If selling to PSE&G is the smart financial move, Farnoosh said, the township should prove it. “Show us the money.”
Placek questions whether a sale to PSE&G is the best deal at all. “Does getting a few million dollars more by selling them 205 maybe solve a problem today? But are we just creating bigger issues or are we leaving a lot of money on the table down the road?” he said. “We can get a really high price and have a great use on that site. We don’t need to sell it to PSE&G to get a price and a horrible use for that location.”
That is the case residents will bring to the council next week.
What happens at the Nov. 10 Montclair council meeting?
A vote is unlikely. The hearing on O-26-39 was first scheduled for September, and the council has pushed it back since, most recently from Oct. 20 to Nov. 10. Marks doesn’t expect a decision next week, because council members are still waiting on information they asked PSE&G for. “I’d be surprised,” he said.
His message to residents is that nothing is settled. “It’s the beginning of the process, it’s not the end of the process,” he said.
Pascrell plans to be there, and he wants a full room behind him. He is reaching out to every neighborhood association he can.
“I’m hopeful,” he said, “but only if we continue to fight.”
Pascrell isn’t the only one organizing. A newly formed group of residents, Save Our Montclair Center, sent The Montclair Pod a media alert on Nov. 5 urging the council to postpone the vote. The group’s website says it opposes a PSE&G substation at 205 Claremont and asks neighbors to email the council and come to the Nov. 10 meeting. Corinna Sager, a resident involved in the group, wrote that members came together because they feel information about the council’s proposal hasn’t been shared openly. The township says adopting the redevelopment plan would not approve a substation or authorize construction.
How to weigh in on the 205 Claremont substation
Three questions remain open: why PSE&G chose this site over the others, what the land is worth to taxpayers and whether a substation fits the rules the town wrote for it. The beginning of the process is when residents have the most say, and Nov. 10 is the place to ask those questions on the record.
Go in person: Tuesday, Nov. 10, Council Chambers, municipal building, 205 Claremont Ave. Meetings begin at 5:30 p.m.; in September, the public session started around 7 p.m., after a session closed to the public.
Speak during public comment: Check the posted agenda for the hearing’s place on the schedule and the rules for public comment.
Watch from home: The meeting streams live on TV34 and the Montclair TV34 YouTube channel.
Hear from neighbors: Save Our Montclair Center, a new group of residents who oppose the substation, posts meeting details and a sample letter to the council at savemontclaircenter.com.
Catch up first: Our Montclair substation explainer has the full timeline, every site PSE&G is known to have considered and all of our reporting.
Image Credit: Google Maps Streetview
