Verona

Verona is slightly older than New Jersey as a whole, with many residents having spent most of their lives in this Essex County suburb known for its superior parks, walking trails and recreational amenities.

With more than 1 in 5 Verona residents now over age 65, establishing and sustaining a long-term age-friendly community initiative could be the best way to ensure older residents who want to age-in-place will have the support they need.

That was the conclusion of the Age-Friendly Action Plan drafted over the course of a year by a team of consultants, municipal staff and community stakeholders in Verona.

“The conversation doesn’t stop here when the grant is over,” said Chris Sotiro, who previously worked for New Jersey Future and presented the findings of a year-long study and the resulting action plan at a July 6, 2026 Township Council meeting.

Completion of the action plan, which suggests a series of short- and long-term steps to help promote aging-in-place, was the last step needed for the town to be officially accepted into the AARP Network of Age-Friendly States and Communities.

Prior to drafting the plan, town leaders engaged NJ Future, a nonprofit planning agency, to lead two focus groups with key stakeholders and to develop and implement an age-friendly community needs assessment. The survey, distributed in print and digital forms between Feb. 4 and March 6, 2026, elicited 278 responses.

“Consistent themes emerged through both the survey and focus groups,” according to the final report. “Respondents widely considered Verona a good place to live as they age, but are feeling constrained by rising property taxes, few opportunities to downsize, difficulties with home upkeep, and limited transportation options.”

About 3,400 of Verona’s 15,000 residents are over 65, and many have lived in Verona their entire lives, project leaders said. The community has a large commercial corridor along Bloomfield Ave, featuring shopping, dining, recreation, schools, and municipal buildings. Verona Park is also a major attraction, with its walking trails, fishing, and paddling attracting visitors from neighboring towns, such as Montclair, that lack larger open spaces.

But Verona also has a tight and expensive housing market, with very few condos, townhomes or other alternatives to the single-family detached homes that dominate its landscape, or what planning groups like NJ Future refer to as “the missing middle” in housing options.

At the same time, this Essex County town is much more developed than the state as a whole, and most of what remains has either been permanently preserved as parkland or cannot be built on due to environmental constraints. 

These combined characteristics make for very few downsizing options for the vast number of longtime residents who would like to remain in Verona. Many survey respondents expressed concerns about affording property taxes, while some listed the need for help with chores like leaf raking and snow shoveling.  Many also asked for a more centralized way of learning about older adult resources and transportation options such as the town’s Senior Shuttle.

The township began its grant-funded effort with the formation of an Age-Friendly Community Leadership Team, composed of municipal staff, community stakeholders, and older adult representatives. In their report, the leadership team and project consultants recommended that the Township prioritize the following low-cost actions:

The action plan asserted that “meaningful planning for an aging population requires direct engagement with residents and a complete understanding of the factors that influence their ability to remain healthy and independent.”