LEONIA, N.J. — A 50-year-old land dispute involving Leonia, Bergen County and the state could force the borough to tear down a functioning public works building or find a much larger piece of replacement land.

The fight centers on a roughly 31,000-square-foot strip next to Overpeck County Park that Leonia has used for its Department of Public Works facility since 1974.

Mayor Bill Ziegler said he was informed shortly before taking office in 2024 that an easement runs underneath the property and directly through parts of the DPW buildings. The land is now classified as protected under New Jersey’s Green Acres program.

That creates a major problem.

To resolve the alleged encroachment, Leonia could have to demolish the DPW facility or provide replacement property at a five-to-one ratio, meaning roughly five acres for every acre affected.

“Technically, to clear the encroachment we’d have to demolish a perfectly functioning building, or I’ve got to find five times that amount of land,” Ziegler said. “It doesn’t make much sense.”

The dispute dates back even further than the DPW building.

Leonia donated roughly 125 to 150 acres to Bergen County in the 1950s for what became Overpeck Park. After the county failed to develop the land as a park, Leonia sued in the 1960s. The dispute was eventually settled, with the county moving forward with the park and returning about seven acres to the borough.

The DPW facility was later constructed on part of that returned land.

Now county officials say the borough’s facility sits on county-owned Green Acres parkland and must be brought into compliance with state requirements.

Bergen County spokesperson Derek Sands said the issue has continued through multiple administrations and warned that failure to resolve it could put the county’s future Green Acres funding and other environmental grants in jeopardy.

Leonia has asked the state Department of Environmental Protection for relief, arguing that removing the building would impose an enormous financial burden on the small borough.

The county has proposed several possible land swaps. One would have involved about 124,000 square feet of borough-owned property around the DPW yard. Ziegler has since proposed another option involving property near the Overpeck County Golf Course.

The mayor said the easement is essentially “a road to nowhere” and will never serve the recreational purpose intended by Green Acres.

For now, Leonia, Bergen County and the state remain in talks over how to resolve a land issue that has been quietly hanging over the borough for decades.