Editor’s Note: The special agenda session for Monday, July 28, has been canceled. It will be rescheduled at a later date.
Once again Councilman Will Anklowitz is proposing placing a referendum on the November ballot asking West Windsor residents whether they want a transit village at the Princeton Junction train station. The issue will be discussed at a special agenda meeting on Monday, July 28.##M:[more]##
This topic, along with others, including council travel expenses, the Hillier contract, and council reimbursements, were originally on the agenda for the July 21 meeting, but because the meeting was running late, council instead scheduled the special agenda session.
Township Clerk Sharon Young said if council decides it does want to put up a referendum in November, it has to make a decision soon, as the township will have to send the question to the county clerk by Friday, August 22.
Anklowitz first proposed the idea for a referendum last summer, but failed to gain support from his colleagues on council. Since then, there have been a few times during public forums where other residents have suggested the idea as well. Resident Pete Weale has mentioned the idea numerous times during public comment sessions, and some residents have brought up the issue in various meetings, including at the mayor’s town hall meetings, throughout the year.
Some residents have said they supported the idea of holding a referendum because they believe it will decide once and for all where the majority of township residents stand when it comes to the type of development at the train station, and whether it should include a significant housing, retail, and office space component. Others believe it will prove that the majority of residents simply want infrastructure improvements and nothing else.
Residents have questioned numerous times throughout the past year where the majority of residents actually stand on the issue, some saying the election of Anklowitz, Charles Morgan, and George Borek — who ran against 1,”000 new homes suggested in one of Hillier’s concept plans — shows residents want nothing more than traffic and parking improvements. Others have pointed to the small turnout in the election, and say most of the township’s residents support the transit village and want to have an area they can call a downtown center.
Still, there are those who are opposed to the idea of a referendum saying that there are so many components to redevelopment that wording the question would be cumbersome and unsuccessful in painting a true picture of taxpayers’ feelings. They say, for example, that it would be very hard to word the question in yes/no format when trying to gauge the number of housing units township residents would find acceptable in the development.
Nonetheless, Anklowitz said he has always supported the idea of holding a referendum. Last year when he became council president, he says, he was not in the position to make any motions to initiate a vote on the matter. Now that he is no longer the president, he says he can make a motion and push the issue.
His drafted resolution includes the wording for his proposed ballot question: “Does the township of West Windsor desire to see the construction in West Windsor Township of a Transit Village, a compact, transit-supported, mixed-use development with a strong, varied residential component centered around a mass transit hub, where there is a commitment to grow jobs, housing, and population, and which is designed to maximize the appeal of public transit, to be bicycle and pedestrian friendly, and to provide a focal point for community activities?”
The interpretive statement following the question explains that voting yes on the question would indicate that “the township residents are supportive of seeing the development of a transit village in West Windsor. The Transit Village would be a new neighborhood designed to discourage the use of automobiles and encourage the use of walking, bicycling, and using public transport to get to work, shopping, and recreation by creating a compact development where housing, offices, retail stores, restaurants, and cultural and recreational buildings share the same area and are not segregated from each other by any kind of buffering. The Transit Village would provide an increase in the amount and variety of housing as well as an increase in commercial development within the township, and would attract new residents and employees to West Windsor.”
Anklowitz says the township has been successful in the past with placing referendums on the ballot. He points to a referendum on open space a few years ago that reduced the open space tax and increased the percentage that can be used to developing maintenance of open space.
“I think our voters are really capable of handling a question like that,” he says of a referendum on redevelopment. He acknowledges there will be some people who will fight against having a referendum, but he says it is more “democratic” to have one. “This is probably the biggest project in West Windsor’s history, and it seems only fair to me that West Windsor voters get to weigh in on the most important aspects of it.”
Bob Akens, during public comment at the July 21 meeting, said he wanted to state that he has been “very much in favor of referenda or of getting some sampling of the view of the people in West Windsor” on redevelopment.
Lately, a number of residents have been showing up to council meetings, including on July 21, simply to voice their support of a transit village. Resident Sandra Duffy said she grew up in Princeton and that she knows “the joys of having a place to walk to.” She said she has been a real estate broker for 40 years, 20 of those years in West Windsor, and says people who come to look for homes these days want two things – to be able to walk somewhere and to have easy access to the train station. She said most of those people include young singles, people looking to retire, older singles, and empty nesters, who want to find homes in the township that do not have four to five bedrooms or are at least 3,”000 square feet.
Resident Ruth Plawner said she also strongly supported a transit village, and that having lived in West Windsor for 20 years, she has seen a lot of plans come and go. She said she was part of the “silent majority” of residents who feel the same. She said she was very excited to hear from council members that they intend to have a redevelopment intact by the end of the year. “Let’s give West Windsor some soul, some life, some improvements on Main Street,” she said.
