When Roy Oser moved into his North Jersey condo in 2018, he thought he was buying into a quiet retirement: a manageable backyard pressed against a pristine forest, a stable community and the promise that the woods next door would remain untouched.

A former attorney, Oser even did his due diligence—reviewing planning documents and noting wetlands protections and steep slopes that, to his eye, made large-scale development of the woods impossible.

He was wrong. Today, that 120-acre forest is slated to become an apartment complex.

The property sits atop the Second Watchung Ridge, the last old-growth forests in Essex County—the most densely populated county in the nation’s most densely populated state. It is home to deer, turtles, songbirds and an estimated 89,000 trees. Developers argue the

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