A site plan proposal just for the hospital, and a subdivision application for the whole FMC site have been submitted by the Princeton Healthcare System to Plainsboro planning officials, who will be reviewing the preliminary plans in time for a Development Review Committee meeting on Tuesday, April 15.##M:[more]##
The plans were submitted in February, a month after the Plainsboro Township Committee adopted the redevelopment plan for the 160-acre FMC site proposed by the University Medical Center at Princeton for a new hospital. The plans were submitted by the hospital, under the auspices of FMC (since the hospital at that time didn’t actually own the property) in order for the application to be deemed complete, and so that a review of the plans could begin, says Les Varga, the township’s director of planning and zoning.
Since that time, Princeton Healthcare System has purchased the site, confirmed Carol Norris, the vice president of marketing and public relations with Princeton Healthcare System. She said the hospital was not releasing the terms of the agreement, including the purchase price. The purchase was completed on March 18.
“Our organization has spent four years planning this project and now everything is going to plan,” said Princeton Healthcare System CEO Barry Rabner. “I shouldn’t be surprised, but given its complexity, I am. It’s the result of an enormous amount of work by literally hundreds of people.”
As is the case with all major applications, says Varga, township professionals found some deficiencies in several areas of the plans, and sent it back to hospital officials to further refine and resubmit.
The “boxes and boxes” of resubmitted subdivision and site plans, which the township received on March 28, have been distributed to the members of the DRC, who have already begun their review. They “literally started going through it with the objective of meeting to discuss it on April 15,” Varga said.
“The next step in the process is the DRC, at some point, making recommendations with conditions” so the planning board can schedule a meeting, he said.
The redevelopment plan adopted by the Township Committee calls for a hospital-medical office component, a continuing care retirement community, and a skilled nursing facility. A general office and research complex will be located below Plainsboro Road, and south of Plainsboro Road, along the Millstone River, there will be a 32-acre public passive park.
The total anticipated floor area of the site at maximum is 2.4 million feet. “It kind of seems a little bit daunting if you think about it in total, but if you break it down to the actual sum parts, and set some realistic objectives for each step, it’s not as daunting,” Varga said..
Windmere Grove Asks for Wrap-Up
The Windmere Grove Homeowners Association is seeking the Plainsboro Township Committee’s help in getting developer Centex Homes to finish work on common ground areas around the neighborhood. And it’s not just esthetic issues the association is concerned about. According to the association’s president Paul Komosinsky, who approached the committee during its March 12 meeting, it’s also a matter of jurisdiction.
Centex Homes, which built the development of 55 single-family homes off Wyndhurst Drive, still has a few remaining final improvements to make, including landscaping and drainage work on common areas that surrounding the homes.
While the common areas don’t include recreation facilities or playgrounds, the “thing that does really affect the neighborhood is that all these things have to be completed so the common ground areas can be turned over to the association, so it can be in our control,” Komosinsky says.
And more importantly, the improvements need to be completed “so roads can be turned over to the township,” he added.
Komosinsky says he doesn’t believe there was a deadline Centex Homes had to meet to finish the improvements, but “we’re asking the township to move them along to get these things finished. It’s been dragging on a few years now.”
Construction on the houses began in 2003, and by 2005 all of the houses had been built, Komosinsky said. Komosinsky said that generally there have been no problems with regard to any of the individual homes, and that the association just wants Centex to move along with the remaining work on the common ground areas.
According to Les Varga, director of planning and zoning, “there’s a whole laundry list of things that they (Centex) have to do to complete the development before the township will take over the jurisdiction of the road,” Varga says.
The “punch list items” include work like replacing dead trees and repairing sidewalks. “Once they’re completed to the township’s engineer’s satisfaction, the township will go through the process” to take over jurisdiction, he said.
“Certainly our police department has police jurisdiction over those roads even though we don’t maintain them,” he explained.
Township Administrator Bob Sheehan has sent a letter to Centex Homes, and the township engineer has been working with Centex representatives, he said. “The process has been ongoing,” he said.
“I did speak with their representative, and he was going to schedule a meeting with the three of us. That hasn’t been ironed out yet. The dates haven’t been settled yet.”
“We are still holding some money from these folks and certainly won’t release it until everything’s been done to our satisfaction,” Varga said.
In other business during the March 12 meeting, township resident and High School North student Jason So was selected as the teen representative to the Plainsboro Human Relations Council.
