Garage loft pull-down stairs and the eventual fate of 192 units of proposed corporate suites dominated the discussion at the August 19 Planning Board meeting for Toll Brothers’ 45-acre Maneely tract. This was the second meeting for the applicant’s proposed mixed-use development on Bear Brook Road and Old Bear Brook Road, which in addition to the 192 corporate suites will also include 20,000 square feet of retail space with 40 apartments built above, and 51 three-bedroom townhouses. Ten acres will be deeded over to the township for a 72-unit affordable housing development. A third Planning Board meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, October 7.
The detached garages for the three-bedroom townhouses were debated at length. Earlier concept plans included an enhanced option for a bedroom and bathroom above the garage, with a connection to the townhome. Toll Brothers attorney Henry Kent-Smith, of Fox Rothschild in Lawrenceville, proposed a garage loft for storage that would have electricity and a finished stairwell, but no HVAC or plumbing.
Seeking assurances that the garage loft would not be converted into housing, Planning Board members Robert Lorenzo and Linda Geevers, who is also Council vice president, voiced support for pull-down stairs instead of a finished stairwell. Kent-Smith insisted on the need for a finished stairwell for better storage access, and the Planning Board declined to vote on the matter.
Resident and local realtor Linda Kinzinger, who lives across from the proposed development in Windsor Haven, expressed concern regarding the garage loft.
“I would anticipate those would be used as in-law suits or illegal rentals,” she said, adding that maximizing the number of residents in a space such as a living room is prevalent in West Windsor.
Landscape architect Dan Dobromilsky also said the garage loft seems destined to become a bedroom. In addition to legal remedies such as deed restrictions on individual homes, Dobromilsky asked what design remedies could be implemented to control the number of bedrooms. After evaluating Toll Brothers’ application, the lot sizes of the townhouses were larger than originally anticipated.
“We envisioned smaller townhouses than what Toll Brothers proposed,” Dobromilsky said. “If you add up the excess townhouse lot width, and parking spots, there is 70,000 to 123,000 additional square feet of area.”
Planning Board chairman Marvin Gardner said after the meeting that the goal is to reduce the number of bedrooms and lofts, which would be achieved by permanent deed restrictions on individual townhouses. This would control the floor area ratio and ultimately restrict the number of bedrooms.
However, Kent-Smith ruled out deed restrictions for the short stay corporate suites, which means their occupancy use could be changed in the future, pending Zoning and/or Planning Board approval. Of the 192 units, 97 will be one-bedroom units and 95 will be two-bedroom units, at roughly $1,500 and $2,000 per month respectively. Toll Brothers executive Brian Oos said the intention is for the majority of suites to have one-month to one-year tenancies, while roughly 10 units will be nightly and weekly stays. The corporate suites are hotels, and Oos said the intention is to have “flexible stay accommodations.”
When asked how many units are set aside for nightly and weekly stays, Oos said, “The intent is to not have more than five percent of the corporate suites for shorter term stays. We will let the market determine the occupancy.”
Gardner asked the applicant how much demand there is for corporate suites, and whether the company has reached out to local employers. Oos said Toll Brothers has not contacted any companies, but the developer does operate 635 rental units in the Mews at Princeton Junction, 50 of which are leased in bulk to an operator that subleases shorter-term stays.
“What if there is a failure?” Gardner said. “Do you come before us and ask for a change of occupancy?”
Toll Brothers representatives indicated the use of the corporate suites could change in future decades.
While the stated corporate suite tenancy is one-year, Gardner said he remembers seeing proposals for two-year stays. In response to an inquiry by Geevers, Gardner confirmed that as long as there is some sort of residence permanency at the corporate suites, any children living there would be eligible to attend the school district.
After two-and-a-half hours of testimony from Toll Brothers, the public was given 30 minutes to speak. Akka Ma, a Windsor Haven resident whose residence faces the development, took exception to the sign variances requested by Toll Brothers. A professional designer, Ma argued a 50 percent increase of lettering size from 12 inches to 18 inches represented unnecessary permanent advertising for the Toll Brothers logo, and another variance for a 25 percent sign height increase to eight feet compromised the integrity of the neighborhood. He also added that lighting of signs and any changing message signs, such as the one in front of Princeton Meadows Church, would contribute unwanted “visual noise.”
Fellow Windsor Haven resident and trustee Robert Suto, whose residence is on the corner of the T-intersection that will become a rotary traffic circle, was concerned about additional traffic.
Toll Brothers engineer Nathan Moseley said the company measured a peak morning traffic of 500 cars per hour. Suto said he recorded 433 cars earlier in the day, but added that school is not in session in August. With retail employees, customers, and residents at the proposed development, Suto expects a dramatic increase in traffic, especially nighttime car headlights circling the rotary.
“We are taking a lot of cars through the rotary,” Suto said. “My point is we have to look at how many cars go through.”
