To the Editor:
Ten Points to Weigh
On Transit Village
It seems to me that those who rail against (pun intended) the proposed transit village are using faulty math – statistics of the current situation in West Windsor instead of the situation as it could be.
Consider the following:##M:[more]##
1. Of the proposed 996 housing units, 394 are senior units.
2. The remaining 602 units are proposed to be approximately 1,”100 square feet. How many school-age children do you think would live there, with 100 trains going by every day and no planned facilities for children?
3. Existing transit villages report three children per 100 units. Recently retired school board member Stan Katz projected that by 2012 the school population in West Windsor would drop as it ages (unless we want to force people out of their homes after their children are grown.).
4. There are currently thousands of commuters who do not have parking permits; if they do not get to the station by 5:30 a.m. for a daily spot they must be driven to the station and picked up afterward: 4 trips instead of 2. The additional parking plus commuters living at the station could eliminate all of those extra trips, alleviating the traffic backups.
5. In addition, if there is something for the commuters to do besides get the heck out of there, it could spread the traffic out more manageably.
6. Candidates for the station condos are most likely to be the young upwardly mobile singles or couples currently living in apartments in the area and driving to the station every day.
7. The building of parking decks has to be economically feasible. If you count on decks to be self-sustaining, it is estimated that the per-space cost would be in the thousands per year. The only way to support both the decks and the commercial base is to include residential units; otherwise you are left with another Princeton Forrestal Village, which hasn’t been able to keep a solid base of tenants since it was built in 1987. The best way for PJ to become another Metro Park is to not have housing to sustain the commercial development.
8. By providing the affordable housing required under law, we are forestalling “builders’ remedy” lawsuits that would allow more housing that comes with affordable unit obligations. This allows the township to be pro-active rather than reactive. If we need those units, the builders WILL come.
9. Look at Hoboken, Jersey City, South Orange — it’s the young up-and-coming New York commuters that have revitalized the town.
10. There’s a trend among retirees to move to a town instead of to an adult community where one has to drive everywhere. Princeton has very little housing in walking distance to the downtown area. We have an opportunity to keep our seniors here and to attract others by packaging a place to live with access to Princeton, New York, and the rest of the world without the need for a car.
Sandra Duffy
15 Westwinds Drive
NIMBYs Among Us
As a resident of West Windsor for 26 years, I have followed closely the long delayed redevelopment plan. I have attended both the Intercap meetings and the WW Board Meetings.
I find that the same individuals over and over again write and speak out to prevent any action by the Board. These people are against anything that moves the township forward. They are simply NIMBYs – “not in my backyard”.
Their letters give your readership a skewed vision of what the people of West Windsor want, as well as spread misinformation. I even heard one loudly complaining the redevelopment plan won’t solve the traffic problems on Route 130, only to be reminded that West Windsor does not have authority over this state route.
I have seen and heard the enthusiasm from hundreds who have attended redevelopment workshops and public meetings, as well as many who have voiced support in your newspaper. The overwhelming majority of residents are excited about the future at the Princeton Junction train station.
Redevelopment will solve many issues of concern for West Windsor. A parking deck for township residents will be constructed, millions of dollars will be poured into upgrades to the area road network and our very own downtown will be created. West Windsor will become a more exciting place to live, benefiting us all.
This small group of opponents loves to portray gloom and doom, twisting information to make the people of West Windsor scared of redevelopment. This is a huge disservice. The people of this town are intelligent, care about the community and strongly favor redevelopment.
As I have done in order to find out what is going on – based on fact rather than fantasy – I urge you to attend the council meetings this fall and winter to discuss the redevelopment.
Get the facts and ask questions of the board. After hearing the possibilities for West Windsor from talented, unbiased planning professionals, you can make up your own mind. Let’s move this project forward.
When I take my visiting friends on a tour of the area, and I get asked, “Where is the downtown or the town center?” I hope, one day, I won’t have to continue to tell them, “We just passed it – that’s the Acme, Sunoco station, and the row of banks.”
J. Gary Fox
2 Baylor Place, West Windsor
Setting the Record Straight About COAH
Within the last several weeks many inaccurate statements have been disseminated regarding the process by which we are trying to provide hard working New Jersey residents with the affordable housing opportunities they deserve. Governor Corzine and I believe it is in the public’s best interest to set the record straight about these misnomers so that we can effectively continue to ensure that working families across this state have a place to live.
First, it is important to address the stigma about affordable housing that has been manipulated to justify exclusion of this housing from some communities. Let me be clear: affordable housing is for hard working men and women who simply seek a home of their own.
In Bergen County, a family of four making up to $61,”658 would be eligible for affordable housing. In Hunterdon County a family of four making up to $77,”360 would be eligible and in Ocean County , a family of four making up to $67,”653 would be eligible.
These examples represent people we all know, the hard working yet struggling individuals who want to live closer to their place of employment or just want to be near their families, or maybe just want to remain in the community in which they grew up.
That is what we mean when we say affordable housing. It is housing for your children who have now grown up and entered the workforce but cannot afford a home in their own community. It is housing for parents, brothers, sisters, friends and loved ones. It is housing for everyone from teachers and firefighters, to child care workers and physician’s assistants — all who work hard day in and day out but simply cannot afford a home in the towns in which they work. We cannot in good conscience deny these people affordable homes they need and deserve.
Additionally, there have been criticisms about the amount of affordable housing requested under COAH’s revised third round rules. What these statements have ignored is the fact that COAH is allowing municipalities to build affordable housing based only on the actual growth that occurs in their communities.
Essentially, you must only build affordable housing when you build market rate housing and commercial development. Court decisions have long established the constitutional requirement for affordable housing and the requirements that municipalities plan to build affordable housing to meet COAH’s projections.
The municipalities, however, are only responsible for building affordable housing in relation to the actual growth that occurs. COAH has made this fact very clear through various workshops, training sessions and outreach to communities.
Claims that affordable housing will result in hundreds of thousands of affordable and market rate housing units across the state at great expense to the taxpayers are also mistaken and based on reverse logic. COAH’s rules state that for every five housing units built by a municipality, one of them must be an affordable unit. This does not mean, as some imply, that if a municipality builds 20 affordable units they must then build 80 market rate units.
There is also the contention that affordable housing will drive up property taxes. This is simply untrue. Municipalities have many ways to meet affordable housing requirements without raising property taxes. They can collect local development fees based on market rate housing and commercial development. This money can be kept locally by towns participating with COAH and they will have priority access to a new statewide pool of funding for affordable housing, which is expected to provide up to $160 million each year.
Currently, more than $200 million in unspent development fee funds are sitting in municipal affordable housing trust funds. Additionally, the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 just signed into law in July will bring millions of dollars of new money into New Jersey . The private sector can contribute as well.
Further, municipalities’ affordable housing obligations are based on growth share obligation, which says that one unit among every five housing units created in a municipality must be affordable and one affordable housing unit must be provided for every 16 jobs created in a municipality, measured by new commercial development. But again, a municipality is only responsible for building affordable housing when they have built market rate housing and commercial development.
Because affordable housing must only be built if market rate or commercial development takes place, it is implausible to blame hard working individuals for any increase in taxes.
It has also been suggested that COAH will make towns build on various pieces of land that are obviously unfit to have housing on them. This is absolutely false. COAH would not approve affordable housing proposed by the municipality on environmentally sensitive sites and follows all DEP and other rules in place to protect the environment and water supply.
Furthermore, COAH does not dictate where municipalities build affordable housing. That is a decision we leave to the municipality because we believe municipalities know best where and how to plan within their own community.
If a municipality believes their vacant land is less than what COAH thinks it to be, they can certainly contact COAH to discuss the issue as many municipalities already have done.
As part of our effort to clear the air about COAH, we now have a fact sheet available on COAH’s website that will provide residents with accurate information regarding what affordable housing is and how COAH works. This sheet is available at: www.nj.gov/dca/.
Despite the best efforts of some to distort COAH’s purpose we continue to move forward with the implementation of the third round rules. We encourage municipalities to continue planning and engage in the COAH process as soon as possible. Joseph Doria
Commissioner,
Department of Community Affairs
GroWW Success
GroWW Environmental Education Fair on Saturday, September 27, attracted 2,”500 attendees arrived at the fair with an open mind to learn about the better choices which are available to protect your personal health and the health of the planet. To all our neighbors, thanks for showing up and asking good questions.
A special thanks to all the High School students who have been an integral part of the planning process and worked tirelessly all day on Saturday. The committee would like to acknowledge Erika Fields, Jennifer Sharma, Jenny Yu, Pritha Dasgupta, and Annie Scharfstein for demonstrating leadership skills far beyond your years .
Heidi Kleinman
WW Township Council VP
and GroWW Committee chair
Yard Sale Raises
Funds for Cancer
I want to let you know the outcome of our service project on Saturday, September 27 (despite the rainy weather), the MOMS Club of Plainsboro raised $479 for the Susan G. Komen Foundation through our “Yard Sale for Cancer.” In addition, dozens of leftover toys and clothes were donated to an area domestic violence shelter.
We wanted to thank you for publicizing our event. Our success was due to the hard work of our members and to your support.
Jennifer Cross
Plainsboro MOMS Club Member
