After a series of drafts and memos circulated between council members in the past few weeks, the Township Council voted 4-0 on December 10 to pass a resolution providing direction to John Madden and Gary Davies in their proposals for studying the redevelopment area.##M:[more]##
The move is meant to accommodate whatever funding is approved by council to move forward with the redevelopment process, which has stalled since the summer. Now, the council must vote on a $200,”000 bond ordinance to cover the cost for the Davies and Madden proposals at a total of $105,”000, and the costs for hiring a redevelopment attorney, a real estate and financial consultant — Integra — and for funding work by Gerald Muller, the Planning Board attorney. The bond ordinance itself, however, does not tie the township into those contracts, and the proposals are estimates for the work.
The bond ordinance is up for a public hearing and adoption on Monday, December 17, the last day the council can adopt it without the risk of delaying the process by at least another six months. Passing the bond ordinance any later would force the township to have to place it in its 2008 budget, as required by state law.
The board heard proposals in October from Urbitran traffic consultant Gary Davies and township planner John Madden, and asked for council input and funding before it could begin work on a redevelopment plan.
Davies and Madden proposed that officials select one or more development scenarios for the 350-acre area, including different uses and densities. They also said that to simply study traffic, a parking garage, and infrastructure improvements, was impossible without looking at how various uses would impact traffic and those infrastructure improvements.
The resolution passed by the council December 10 sets out various measures for proceeding with redevelopment. It states council support for the $200,”000 bond ordinance to cover the costs, and also calls for sufficient funds for a dedicated paid staff to provide Channel 27 coverage of redevelopment proceedings.
It also states council support for the administration’s efforts to renegotiate the Hillier contract to maintain the fixed amount of $330,”000, although Township Attorney Mike Herbert said that Hillier has already agreed to work within that limit.
The council also stated in the resolution that the administration and consultants would be charged with reviewing all proposed contracts to ensure services performed by Hillier would not be duplicated by the consultants, and requested that Davies and Madden include in their proposals the amount of time required to build consensus with the Hillier Architecture scope of services.
The redevelopment finance committee (see story below) was also directed to begin meeting, and the council requested that the Planning Board set up an action plan to interface with the Parking Authority.
In the resolution, council members also responded specifically to guidance requested by Davies and Madden, who were waiting for direction into which scenarios they should study to determine the impact on traffic, infrastructure, and parking. In response, the council selected the Hillier plan with 500 residential units, including Council on Affordable Housing obligations, “as a means to begin discussion about the needed road infrastructure components,” the resolution stated.
That section of the ordinance specifically pointed out that “this is meant to identify the plan, and not as any approval of the number of units.” Still, Councilwoman Linda Geevers raised concern when the resolution was first being reviewed and again before voting, saying she didn’t know why the council would select the 500-unit plan to begin the study when it hadn’t discussed any of Hillier’s original four plans — schemes A,B,C, or D.
Councilwoman Heidi Kleinman said in response: “All of these points are things that we’re responding to in the Madden report. It’s not conclusive. It’s a response. This document came out of the planning board writing the council a letter, and it said, ‘Please respond to the Madden report.’”
Geevers still said she was concerned that “even if we had followed the June 4 meeting, that we wouldn’t have been picking A,B,C or D. We probably would have been picking conceptualized ideas to form a conceptual plan. I was thinking more broadly, just saying, ‘Let’s work on conceptual plans up to 500 residential units, as opposed to just reviewing the specific Hillier Plan of 500 units.’”
Still, Kleinman emphasized, “If you talk about the roads, you have to talk about who’s on the roads, and that’s what we’re using as a modeling tool. It’s not a discussion of everything that’s in the Hillier Plan. It’s a mathematical thing. It’s just a number. We’re responding to another report, so I’m just not sure that can be written in a way to be so inclusive.”
Council President Will Anklowitz said if the plan were to come out right now with 500 units included, he would shoot it down. “You’ve got to start somewhere,” he said. “Let’s start with this, fiddle around with it, and make it work, and dabble with it until it gets there.”
He said he did some calculations himself before considering the resolution, using Intercap Holdings CEO Steve Goldin’s property, which currently has 164,”670 square feet of office space. “If you took his office park, and it tripled what he has now, you wind up with 40 COAH units. That’s it. That’s your growth under the current growth share. That’s not 500.”
He also suggested that if the township were to run a PILOT program, it could wind up pulling in $1.2 million a year it could use for bonds, and at a 30-year 6 percent rate, “that means you get a little over $18 million,” he said.
Anklowitz also pointed out that Goldin’s property is “one of the biggest, most exciting pieces of property in the whole redevelopment (area),” and suggested the council meet with Goldin soon to hear his ideas on what to do with his property because if the township does not have willing developers, there won’t be any redevelopment.
The resolution also voices support for the review of a multi-purpose arts/cultural entertainment component, but it flatly stated that it “does not support the 20-screen multiplex theater concept until economic data establishes the viability of this concept.” It also “supports the analysis of a hotel/conference complex, similar to the approved plan on the Sarnoff site, as another possible component of the redevelopment plan worthy of review to understand changes in road capacity.”
Council also supported review of the overlay ordinance for Route 571 to look into the possibility of including second-floor housing, an analysis of zoning changes to properties along Alexander Road to facilitate additional parking garages with a midpoint Dinky-BRT stop, and a detailed analysis of Vaughn Drive to “highlight design aspects that reinforce the carriage-way as a through-road connector.”
In defining its support of the second floor housing, it specified it should be built over retail in apartment style, typical row house arrangements with shared parking and ownership of residential units instead of rental units and that child friendly amenities are to be discouraged.
One new idea in the resolution was the direction the council gave to the consultants to review the potential zoning uses on the Maneely site. “The potential impacts of planning for Project Freedom [a low income housing group], an extended stay hotel, housing, or retail should be considered as a complement to the redevelopment site,” the resolution stated.
Florence Cohen, a township resident, Affordable Housing Committee member, and a member of the Project Freedom board of directors, asked council that “because Project Freedom has been around so long, and West Windsor has said they wanted it here, that you really consider the proposal that the developer of Maneely have made to donate 10 acres to Project Freedom for building on its site.”
She said that in December, 2001, Project Freedom came before council to discuss building near the Acme, but it turned out not to be a good site. At the time, however, officials said they definitely wanted Project Freedom in the township. “I’m also concerned that if we don’t do something soon, we we’re already going to be up against it with the statute of requirements in the coming year, since Project Freedom and others were part of the affordable share plan that was approved by the council.” She mentioned the new COAH rules rumored to be released this month. “The township really needs to consider moving forward on this,” she said.
Planning Board Vice Chairman Steve Decter commented he felt that the resolution was much of an improvement over the previous drafts and memos, which had some community members, including Mayor Shing-Fu Hsueh, accusing the council of trying to micromanage the Planning Board.
However, Decter pointed out remaining concerns, including that the council has to be specific in the scope of services it asks the consultants to perform and get them all together to plan what they’re doing and how much it would cost the township. He also questioned what framework in which the finance committee would work, and said he would like to see a village green on the east side of the tracks. “We would like to have better connections between east and west side of the tracks than we do now,” he said.
Planning Board member Diane Ciccone said she would like to see NJ Transit be more involved in the process.
Some residents in attendance voiced concern that the 500-unit plan was mentioned in the resolution. Among them was Berkshire Drive resident Virginia Manzari. “Not knowing whether or not that is a plan township residents want and also not having any data to support that as a financially viable solution is an issue,” she said, adding that the council should also first do a study on how a plan like that would impact the number of students in the school district.
She said from her experience in business, she would never spend money on something that might potentially be determined not to work. “I know that you probably think that (500 units) as right in the middle, and I know they told you that you had to pick something, but I would suggest that maybe you pick something else like things that you have consistently heard that people want — maybe a plan that includes Vaughn Drive, main street, and more parking for residents, and maybe have them do a plan based on that.”
John Church, of Princeton Place, said he doesn’t think any new housing should be included at all. “You’ll need more police, more fire, more school, possibly,” he said. He also said there already is a severe flooding problem on Route 571 by the indoor tennis courts, and more development would make it worse.
Resident Bill Benfer said “I would never ever put a financial adviser in the development group. I suggest that if you have a fiscal consultant in the Planning Board, not only are you going to waste all the Planning Board’s time, and it would be redundancy with the committee you’re talking about.” Councilman Charles Morgan said he agreed with Benfer.
George March commended the council for making an effort to cover the meetings on Channel 27, but asked that more effort be made to edit them as well.
Mayor Shing-Fu Hsueh called the resolution “one step in the right direction,” although he had concerns about a suggested timeline for the project. The Planning Board will review the resolution and have a discussion on it in January.
