Les Varga has been hired as Plainsboro’s first director of planning and zoning, a position that replaces the director of community development.##M:[more]##
After interviewing him in executive session last week, the Township Committee voted to hire Varga, who comes from the South Jersey Transit Authority — a metropolitan planning board in Vineland — where he served as manager of regional planning. He also previously spent nine years as the principal planner for Hunterdon County and has also worked in Mount Olive in Morris County, and in Vermont and California.
He has a degree in city and regional planning from California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo and currently lives in Hillsborough.
“”I’m looking forward to working with the progressive planning department, Bob Sheehan, and the mayor and being involved as quickly as I can in the day-to-day and long-term projects that face the township,”” Varga said after last week’s meeting. His first day with the township will be November 13.
Mayor Peter Cantu said the township received a number of applications and after interviewing about six or seven people for the position, the committee unanimously decided that Varga was the most qualified because he has an extensive planning background in and outside of the state at the municipal and county levels.
“”He comes with a familiarity of planning issues in New Jersey, and has a fair understanding of the issues that Plainsboro Township faces, so we’re delighted he expressed an interest in the position,”” the mayor said.
The township created the new position after deciding to do away with the community development director position when Ernie Freeman resigned from that post in June.
Varga will be in charge of all the township’s community planning and zoning responsibilities. He will also be in direct charge of supporting the planning and zoning boards and their various subcommittees, said Township Administrator Robert Sheehan. And he’ll coordinate the activities of planning consultants that work with township professionals on specific projects.
“”It’s an extremely important position in a community that has valued and had great success in community planning,”” Sheehan said.
These responsibilities are different from that of the former director of community development in that the latter not only dealt with planning and zoning responsibilities, but also with engineering, building, housing, and fire safety.
After Freeman resigned, the township evaluated the organizational structure and took out the housing, building and fire responsibilities and placed them under the new Department of Code Enforcement, with the zoning officer in charge of the department. Engineering responsibilities now fall to the director of Public Works.
