In West Windsor, meetings beget more meetings. Whether any of those meetings will beget decisions remains to be seen.##M:[more]##
Redevelopment planner Bob Hillier met with the steering committee on August 20 about his plan to continue the redevelopment process with three public educational meetings, followed by a joint meeting of the planning board and township council, at which a decision could be made about whether the proposed plan will enter the planning board approval process.
According to the proposal, the first meeting, on the subject of “Existing Conditions & Off-Site Opportunities,” will be held Thursday, October 11, at 7 p.m. The second, “Parking/Traffic/Circulation,” will be held Monday, October 22, at 7 p.m. The third, “Economics,” is scheduled for Wednesday, November 7, at 7 p.m. The joint meeting is scheduled for Monday, November 19, at 7 p.m. The locations have not yet been determined.
Notably, none of the meetings focuses on the most controversial element of the plan, the construction of new housing. Bradley Walters, a Hillier architect, explains that his firm believes the housing is one of many elements that are a part of the discussion on economics.
“The housing is a hot issue because of the economics that are atached to it,” says Walters, a West Windsor resident. “People raised eyebrows about the housing because of its impact on the school system, on the fiscal side. If we can show that we can build housing without a negative fiscal impact, the reaction may be different.”
Steering committee and council member George Borek said it should be the township’s goal to have a plan approved to enter the planning board process “by the holidays.”
Heidi Kleinman, also a steering committee and council member, agreed, saying that would allow the planning board to hold its meetings to vet and vote on the plan in spring, 2008. She said also that council would hold an open mic night following each of the public education meetings.
“Getting support from the council is the goal,” Kleinman said to Hillier about his proposed land use plan. “There is not support from council on the plan as shown. This is supposed to be coming to an end. We are all frustrated that you have no direction.”
Planning Board Chairman Marvin Gardner suggested that the process has been difficult due to the enormity of the scope of the project. “It is almost impossible to satisfy all the elements for what will take place over 30 years. No one can project accurately what will happen in 30 years. If we are to achieve consensus, we need to address the problem incrementally, and we need to minimize the consequenses of the plan. Separate the short-term objectives from the long term objectives.”
Gardner continued: “Can we just remove ourselves from having 1,”000 housing units. Let’s talk about, initually, having 250 units, having retail to support that, and allow for further development in the future.”
Hillier responded: “We need to establish our vision for what the project will be. Otherwise you could waste the land. We can do a plan for 30 years in the future that also deals with immediate issues.”
Gardner also said that the township should press state agencies like New Jersey Transit and the Department of Transportation to give “firm funding commitments” for their parts in the process.
Mayor Shing-Fu Hsueh said the township needs to have a plan before the state will make commitments. “The state will not accept a half-baked potato,” said Hsueh.
“They’re hiding behind us, using us as as subterfuge,” said Gardner. “They’re not sure the state has the resources. They don’t, between me and you. We should have a plan for us to tell the state what we expect them to do. They should come forward and be specific. No more generalities, no more ‘ifs’. The squeaky wheel gets the grease. It is time for us to be that squeaky wheel.”
Hillier suggested that the process would be more efficient if, in the future, the steering committee took a central role in the process. Walters distributed a flow chart proposing a new structure of information flow for the process. It shows RMJM Hillier dealing directly with the steering committee, which would then report to the Mayor, Council, and Planning Board. In this proposed structure, the planning board would work with various township staffers, giving it more power than the council.
Kleinman said the council would not agree to the change. “I don’t think they’ll accept the steering committee taking this kind of responsibility. It was set up as an administrative entity. This would be changing the process from when you were hired. It’s been a messy process, but this is what you bought into,” Kleinman said to Hillier.
Despite Kleinman’s objections to changing the agreed-upon process, council had only recently made a decision to create subcommittees that will research issues involved with the finance, infrastructure, and traffic of the redevelopment proposal. On August 8, the planning board asked planning board attorney Gerald Muller to make a formal request to the township council to include planning board members to sit on the subcommittees. Those members would be selected by the planning board itself, according to Muller’s request.
Throughout the redevelopment process, council and the planning board have been engaged in a power struggle over which entity controls what parts of the redevelopment process.
Hsueh, who is a member of the planning board, says he will not make recommendations on who should sit on the committees, but that he does believe the planning board’s role should be more clearly defined. He says the committees should be integrated, and the council should decide which council members will take part, and the planning board should decide which planning board members take part. The mayor’s statement echoes a point made by Muller on August 8 when he said the planning board should be more involved in redevelopment decision-making.
“I don’t know who’s making decisions,” said Muller. “Hillier, the steering committee, or what. I just know it’s not us.”
Said Gardner: “At this point it doesn’t appear as if anyone is making any decisions.”
Morgan’s Missive
Bob Hillier may not have asked for notes from Councilman Charles Morgan, but he should have expected them. In an August 13 memo to Hillier, Morgan lists his concerns about the firm’s plans for proceeding with the redevelopment.
The missive also includes comments from a group that Morgan calls “my advisory committee.” The group of non-elected officals (most of them supporters from his re-election effort in May) was formed in June by Morgan to advise council on various matters.
The memo does not specify which members of the committee, which includes Chairperson Alison Miller, David Siegel, Virginia Manzari, Valerie Servis, and former mayor Bob Murray, made which comments.
“If we absolutely must use Hillier,” wrote one member, “then we should also have independent people on the committee who will work on this educational piece and verify it every step of the way. And I believe that paying them more money is absurd. They didn’t fulfill their duties for the first chunk of cash we game them.”
Morgan’s own comments includes a list of reasons he is disappointed in Hillier’s proposal: “A continuing effort to return to the existing concept plans is a mistake; Engaging the community in one-way presentations rather than open sessions is a mistake. The suggestion that much of the new work is beyond the scope of the original contract is a mistake.”
