Stan Katz has renounced his earlier projection that the WW-P school district would be able to absorb the influx of school children from the phased construction of a transit village with 1,”000 homes or more.##M:[more]## This could be another blow for supporters of the transit village. Katz’ projections have been widely quoted throughout the planning process.
Katz said the change comes as a result of recent information on applications before the planning board that would result in 32 new homes in West Windsor. “[When I gave my initial report] I specifically asked the Mayor, who was sitting on the dais, was it safe to assume that there were no other housing projects on the horizon,” said Katz. “I was told, point blank, that ‘all other projects are on hold’.”
Mayor Hsueh denied lying or failing to disclose information.
“So in just 4 months, the expectation of ‘no additional students from other housing projects’ has gone from zero to 40. And these are only the ones that I know about,” said Katz. “If this can happen in just four months, what can we expect of the six-year time line that I used to project where we would be at the time of any new housing from a transit village? I find it difficult to believe that both of these proposed developments came as a surprise to the Township, yet I was never given any indication that they were on any drawing board.”
Hsueh responded to what Katz said was not an accusation against any one person: “I wasn’t aware of those developments. There was no way of knowing they were coming. I think we need to talk about this. This is why we need a clear vision for development. They won’t be built in the next six years. I agree with you. It was not the right way of dealing with it.”
Katz said later that he thought the mayor’s response missed the point he was making. “He seemed more interested in the question of why these 2 developments came as a surprise to him than he was in the big question.”
That big question, according to Katz, is: “If developments such as these two new ones can come up so quickly and easily, how can we make a 6-year forecast with any confidence? I don’t think there is any way that we can assert with confidence that there will be 300 seats available in 2013 if we can’t even be sure that there won’t be any more housing developments in the next year or two.”
Katz is an 11-year member of the school board, and is has become the district’s “”de facto demographer.”” His projections for other developments in West Windsor and Plainsboro have borne out with accuracy.
Read the entire statement made by Stan Katz on Monday, June 11.
