Heather Spohn used words like “idyllic” and “magical” to describe the hiking trails around Jersey City’s Reservoir 3 in the Heights, an urban oasis hidden behind 20-foot-tall walls.
No more.
Spohn and other officials with the Jersey City Reservoir Preservation Alliance (JCRPA), stewards of the property for the past 21 years, were shocked to see the trails that had snaked through the 14-acre site transformed into rundown paths at least 12 to 15 feet wide and stripped of the trees and vegetation that surrounded them.
The road, which JCRPA President Cynthia Hadjiyannis calls a “paved road,” is part of a $6 million project to renovate the site of a once-working reservoir that was abandoned in the late 1980s when the city began getting water from Boonton Reservoir in Morris County. The project has taken four years to complete and is more than two years behind schedule.
“Our goal was to preserve this very rural feel,” says Sporn, who is also a landscape architect and chair of the group’s design and infrastructure committee. “When you walk along the path, you’re surrounded by trees and green space on both sides. You can’t see the city around you.”
“It’s a very idyllic setting in the middle of a very dense urban area. That was the magic of the place. You feel like you’re in the Adironack Mountains or somewhere else. … This was a way to get away from Central Avenue, and it didn’t offer any great views from there.”
Listed on both the New Jersey and National Registers of Historic Places, the property occupies a full city block and is bounded by Central, Jefferson, Summit and Reservoir Avenues. In a dense neighborhood of two- and three-story clapboard homes with flat roofs, the JCRPA sees the place as a welcome respite from city life.
In an April 2021 press release and personal email to residents, Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop touted the project and collaboration with JCRPA, saying the trail will be widened from 18 inches to 48 inches.
More than three years after that kumbaya moment, the alliance is wondering why plans were changed and whether the damage is irreparable.
“They have completely ruined the experience of the upper trail,” Hadjiyannis said. “It’s beyond heartbreaking to see this place so threatened by poor planning, poor design and poor management.”
The mayor bragged about the project on social media on Wednesday, while a city spokesman defended the project’s progress and refuted the complaints.
“Although the same few members have repeatedly complained, no one directly involved in the project has received any recent complaints,” city spokeswoman Kimberly Wallace Scalcione said, declining an interview request from city Infrastructure Director Barkha Patel.
“A lot of invasive species have been removed to further widen the trail and ensure safe access,” Wallace Scalcione said.
City officials did not say why the proposed sidewalk was extended beyond the agreed upon 4 feet. They could not specify what material was used to construct the sidewalk, but Spohn speculated it was some kind of “cement dirt.”
Spohn and Hadjiyannis responded in emails released to the Jersey Journal, saying the city had ignored the coalition’s requests for a meeting.
The JCRPA also fired back on social media, posting photos of the actual hiking trail and rock formations on the reservoir site: “You removed all the plants and trees and then built a wide paved road. Stop congratulating yourself for ruining our green space.”
The destruction of hiking trails and lack of communication are just two of the many issues the coalition and others have with the project.
The mayor’s “X” Twitter posts give the distinct impression that the renovations are nearly complete, but Hadjiyannis and Sporn, who reviewed photos taken at the site by The Jersey Journal on July 18, said they’re far from done.
Fulop’s post included a seven-second video of the reservoir, panning from a walkway above the lake, but did not show the dilapidated gatehouse and pump house structures, which have collapsed roofs and are covered in graffiti.
“State-funded restoration of historic buildings is overdue and needs to be a priority,” said Hudson County Commissioner and 2025 mayoral candidate Bill O’Dea.
He also called on the city to “re-engage with the community and invest in further restoring the natural and historical landscape of the reservoir that was developed many years ago.”
Jersey City Councilman Yusef Saleh, D-Ward, who represents the Heights neighborhood, said he hopes the park will open within about 30 to 35 days. Repairs to structures on the site are the next phase of the project, and the reservoir will likely have to be closed again, he said.
“This is not an easy project,” Saleh said, “and it will take a significant amount of time. Once the next renovation is complete, it would be beneficial to open it to the public so that everyone can see what we’ve been working on and how much we’ve invested.”
“The goal should be to preserve the traditional character… to focus on the historical significance of this place and capture what it was like in an earlier era,” said Jim McGreevey, a former governor and former mayor who is a candidate for mayor in 2025.
He said restoring the site to its pre-construction condition will be a “major challenge.”
The project was announced in 2021 and was expected to be completed in 2022. Two years later, city officials say they did not expect such delays in getting approvals at the historic site.
Sporn and Hadjiyannis say the pedestrian bridge along Jefferson Street — Fulop’s “vanity project” — wasn’t even in the original plans, delaying the project’s completion by at least nine months.
“It’s great to have a 360-degree walkway, but we weren’t prepared for it and I think a less disruptive plan would have been better,” Spohn said.
Additionally, cleanup work has yet to begin on contaminants found at the bottom of the lake. The lake’s waters and shoreline are expected to be off-limits, meaning kayaking, children’s fishing tournaments and hands-on school tours of Project Reservoir will be banned, the JCRPA said.
City officials did not say whether access to water would be restricted.
In particular, Sporn and Hadjiyannis are concerned about what the mayor calls the “water view corridor,” where they see trampled vegetation and cut trees, exactly what they say makes Reservoir 3 special and different from other city parks.
Sporn and Hadjiyannis said the city cut off contact with the group after Patel and the Department of Infrastructure stepped in. In several meetings, the city “never listened to what we had to say. It was not a productive meeting,” they said.
“(Patel) had no idea what our group had accomplished over the years, the expertise, the time and energy we had volunteered and how we had been true partners and collaborators,” Hadjiyannis said.
Still, the JCRPA is willing to work with the city as the project moves forward and potentially even reverse some of the work.
“We would love to work with the city if they were really going to listen to us,” Spohn said. “We would love to work with the city … if they were going to listen to our concerns and adjust the design accordingly. But they haven’t done that.”
“We want to work with them to make this a better place, but we don’t want to be blindsided and lied to or told they’re going to do something without even talking to us.”
