Plans for the proposed Jewish Community Campus on an 81-acre tract on Clarksville Road in West Windsor are tentatively en route to the township’s Planning Board in December, as long as the project’s professionals finalize their site plans with the township’s own consultants first.##M:[more]##
Representatives for the United Jewish Federation of Princeton-Mercer-Bucks appeared before the township’s Site Plan Review Advisory Board October 22, after SPRAB members had requested more information and carried the meeting over from September 10. But SPRAB members were worried there were some details to be hashed out before the proposal heads to the Planning Board.
“The thing is that all of this is going to go up to the Planning Board as kind of loose,” said Ted Begun, a resident representative on the board. “If this isn’t straight all around, you’re going to have a problem at the Planning Board.”
The 78,”000 square foot structure, scheduled to be completed in fall, 2009, is projected to cost $28.5 million, and include a child care and early education center, health and fitness facilities, a Kosher cafe, private JFCS suites, and offices for the United Jewish Federation and Jewish Community Foundation. It will also include recreation fields and a swimming pool. The property is designed to accommodate future expansion of the facilities.
During the meeting, Robert Stout, an engineer for the project, told SPRAB that the two main revisions to the original site plan submitted included a one-way traffic circulation pattern, as recommended by township professionals, and rerouting of the campus’s main drive so that it was no longer going directly through a remote parking area on site.
He said the project’s professionals don’t feel the campus will need extra parking, so they reduced the number of parking spaces to comply with the township’s ordinance. The project’s consultants were also able to cut the number of buses coming onto the site in half — from 16 to 8 — through consolidation.
SPRAB members and township traffic engineer Ted Ehrlich raised concerns about one particular area of the site near a bus drop-off/parking area, where it appeared people trying to move to and from the nearby remote parking lot would need to go in between the parked buses to get from one place to the next.
The project’s professionals explained, however, that the buses — used for the summer day camp on site — would drop children off in the morning over staggered 15-minute periods and that the bus parking spaces are really only used in the afternoon. Even with that schedule, the remote parking area located near the bus spaces will be used for employees. Out of the 80 parking spaces in that area, 70 of them will be taken by employees, so parents coming to pick up their students will be parking in the main lot away from the buses.
And, as it has been for the past 40 years the group has been holding summer camp, “parents must get out of their cars, come to a central spot, sign out and pick their kids up,” said Drew Staffenberg, the executive director of the Jewish Community Campus Development Council. “We don’t allow kids to go to their parents’ cars.”
But Ehrlich said that typically, with a day care or school facility, a description of how the pick-up and drop-off occurs, as well as a description of the operations of the facility, are submitted to the board to ensure plans can accommodate those activities appropriately.
Stout told the board the circulation plan did allow for two-way driving in one section of the site to allow for internal navigation. SPRAB members wanted drawings of those patterns.
SPRAB also discussed their concern about a main sign for the campus that uses L.E.D. lighting, and that any sort of movable and changeable messages on the sign would distract drivers on the road. Township professionals said they would have to determine if that type of sign is permitted, and if so, Planning Board members would have to dictate if, and how often, messages on the board could rotate.
Township Planner John Madden said that “because this is going to be a community facility, the board may see it differently.” This is because the sign could be used to alert the public to events being held at the campus, he said. SPRAB members seemed to like other signage designs for the rest of the campus, calling them sophisticated and comparing them to the Carnegie Center.
And there are other issues highlighted by township professionals — including plans for a security fence, the need for a full traffic study, more details of internal operations, and concerns over a proposed left turn lane to the site — in their memos to the board that have gone unaddressed, SPRAB members said.
“Somebody has to see these plans because we’re not seeing them,” said Susan Abbey, a representative from the Zoning Board of Adjustment. “The only way that we can move this tonight would be if all of our consultants would meet with you and they have to sign off” on the final plans.
Nonetheless, township consultants said they thought it was generally a good design and that the application is fairly free of needing waivers. Project professionals said they had no problem complying with any of the suggestions pointed out by township consultants.
JCC professionals now have a strict deadline to finalize those plans. A tentative meeting for Wednesday, November 21, has been set for them to meet with township professionals to ensure every requirement has been met. Township professionals will have 10 days to submit their reports. By Friday, November 30, if township professionals approve, JCC consultants will have to file to go before the Planning Board at its Wednesday, December 12, meeting.
If plans are not finalized, the issue will head back to SPRAB again after the new year.
