Under the township building code, the property is too narrow to build on and would require a variance.

At the October 17 meeting, Mayor Peter Bower, who joined with a majority of his colleagues in voting against the project, said he was seeking to develop vest pocket parks in the township and wanted to include the Tilden Avenue site.

But 13 years later the property is still owned by the township and is still vacant.  Although Vincent Werling, whose house abuts the property to the east, voluntarily maintains the lot, there are areas thick with weeds. Poison Ivy grows along the front and sides. A fireplace, almost completely submerged under green ivy, and a broken wall stand as evidence of a former construction. A few tulips planted Werling are the only dashes of color.

"There are lots of weeds and droppings from vines that create new growth," said Vanessa, a neighbor on the west side of the lot who did not want her last name used. She said that she trims the vines that overreach onto her property.

She noted that she has asked the township to prune the trees.

"They said they did but it doesn’t look like they have," Vanessa said.

From time to time people ring her doorbell to ask about the land, assuming that she is the owner, she said.  She noted that several years ago she inquired about buying it from the township, but the $80,000 price was too steep.

In February, the council created two vest pocket parks, on American Legion Drive and Sackville Street, the first in the township’s history, according to Mayor Elie Y. Katz.

Katz said he had been unaware of the Tilden Avenue site until informed by Teaneck Suburbanite.  After viewing the lot, he declined to comment about whether the township would seek to develop it as a vest pocket park.

But Carla Lerman, chair of the township’s Advisory Board on Affordable Housing, who spoke in support of Habitat proposal in 1995, said that a vest pocket park would be an appropriate use.

"The house that was designed for the site would have fit in very well, but if it can’t be used for housing, it would make a very nice park."

She recalled the 1995 meeting, at which several neighbors spoke against Habitat’s proposal.

"It was the worst example of not-in-my-backyard," Lerman said. "The people who live on that street live in houses on plots of the same size."

But Vanessa said she would not welcome a vest pocket park.  She noted that Phelps Park is just blocks away.

"We have no need for a new park," she said. "There are no children on the block.  I would like to see it kept as it is, but cleaned up and better maintained."

However, she said she would object less to turning the site into a community garden, where residents could raise their own produce.

"I clean it up to keep away rodents. The town has never done anything for that lot," Werling said, noting that the $80,000 sale price quoted to his neighbor is probably closer to $120,000 today, after the revaluation.

"I would prefer that the property is left the way it is," Werling said, while acknowledging the township’s right to turn it into a vest pocket park.

George Reskakis, chair of the township’s parks, playgrounds and recreation advisory board, noted that the new vest pocket parks were created in areas underserved by parks.

With Phelps Park nearby, Reskakis said, it is unlikely that the township would put a playground at the site, even if it were eventually designated as a park.