Intercap Holdings CEO Steve Goldin is preparing to show residents what he proposes for his own 25 acres on Washington Road in the redevelopment area, and those plans include less than half of the 1,”000 housing units proposed last year by Hillier, significant retail space, and a large section of public open space.##M:[more]##
Goldin says 450 units — townhouses and condominiums priced at around $400,”000 and equipped with no more than two bedrooms and two bathrooms and free of child-friendly amenities and including some senior housing units — are needed to fund the cost of pubic amenities, including a parking deck and road infrastructure improvements, that combined with tax increment financing, will leave funding of the redevelopment project out of taxpayers’ hands. At the same time, Goldin says, the proposal will help offset the township’s Council on Affordable Housing obligation.
Goldin will discuss his plans on Saturday, May 31, from 9 a.m. to noon at the Hyatt on Route 1. The session is the next in a series of public presentations Goldin has been holding to present his ideas for redevelopment. Goldin has also expended his own company’s money hiring consultants to perform various studies. His $293,”000 traffic study is now in the hands of the township’s traffic engineer, and other studies he released to the public include the parking demand and pricing study and parking deck cost study. His consultants are finishing up a financial impact study to be released shortly. This is in addition to surveys and focus groups Goldin says he has used to understand what West Windsor residents want to see in the 350-acre train station redevelopment area.
From what he’s gathered so far, Goldin says residents want a parking deck, traffic and road improvements, and a town center with a retail component. But these things “obviously cost money,” he says, pointing out that township officials have already said they will not use taxpayer money to finance these improvements. “The cost in this case is that there’s got to be some housing as part of the redevelopment,” Goldin says.
Goldin says that under a redevelopment plan the whole area needs to be looked at as one parcel. In that context, there should be a mix of office, retail, and residential areas. “You don’t have to have all of those things on every parcel,” he explains. “The question is what goes where and why.”
New Jersey Transit, he says, will probably not sell its property, but instead would ground lease it. This works for commercial properties, but for-sale housing cannot be built on such property. Main Street, particularly in context of a Town Center, is going to develop “organically” over time. A redevelopment plan would allow current property owners there to develop their properties to a greater extent than they currently can, and at the same time, would require them to improve their current buildings.
So, “you will need a significant residential component, one to support the retail,” says Goldin. “You also need a certain amount of residential to animate the space, otherwise you’re going to end up like Forrestal Village, empty at 5 p.m.,” he says.
Goldin says he understands residents’ concerns about an influx of school children being brought in by such a project. But Goldin points to statistics drawn up by school board member and the district’s de facto demographer, Stan Katz, which show that the district’s current capacity is about 9,”800 students, and “it’s going to go down to about 8,”500 in the next 10 to 12 years,” he recalls.
So, Goldin says, for every year that goes by in the next few years, a significant number of seats will open up in district schools. “The point is by having the redevelopment plan, you’re not going to see homes in the area until 2012,” Goldin says. Then, another factor is how many homes will actually be selling at that time.
This phasing approach, says Goldin, is important. If a redevelopment plan is adopted by the end of 2008, he says it’s going to take time to get necessary approvals, and to actually construct the homes. He says he would anticipate home sales to begin in 2011 and stretch over a few years, each year adding maybe 150 units. “Some years will sell more, some will sell less, and it’s a combination of, first and foremost, what the school can absorb,” Goldin says.
One of Goldin’s intentions is to also include senior housing in the project, which he points out has no impact on schools, and is revenue positive for the township.
With regard to the 450 units Goldin is projecting, he says his consultants first looked at what the whole redevelopment itself can handle, including structured parking versus surface parking and the costs for each amenity. Surveys of West Windsor residents also showed that residents wanted to see the housing units to be for-sale units with no more than two bedrooms.
The combination of town homes and condominiums would not include tot lots, backyards, or playgrounds, which he says discourages families from moving into those units. “This project would appeal to people who want to use mass transit,” he said. Goldin says he is still working on the number of senior housing units, and will have that information ready for his presentation on May 31.
Another major concern of residents and township officials is the township’s COAH obligation. Goldin says new amendments have been released this month to the third-round regulations originally proposed by COAH in December. While no one knows what the official affordable housing obligation will be until the rules are adopted, he says the newly proposed amendments actually carry some benefits for West Windsor.
One of the new amendments would give West Windsor a number of affordable housing credits for demolition. Just on his site alone, Goldin says, the township would get credit for 31 units when Goldin demolishes the commercial buildings on the site to make room for the residential component. Under COAH regulations, municipalities must provide a certain number of affordable units for new jobs created in the township. In this case, when these units come down, the township will get the credit because those jobs would no longer be there, Goldin says.
In addition, the new amendments, he says, carry a 33 percent benefit for municipalities that build affordable housing within a half mile of a train station. “If you build nine affordable units, you get credit for 12,” Goldin explains. “That’s pretty significant.”
“Whatever that number (COAH obligation) ends up being for West Windsor, they will be able to reduce that number by a third, if those units are built within a half-mile of the train station,” Goldin added.
Under the COAH regulations, developers are allowed to build four market-rate units for every COAH unit. Goldin says his proposal for 450 housing units might generate about 90 COAH units, but the township would actually get credit for 120. In addition, he says, 25 percent of the COAH requirements can be senior housing, he added.
In addition to the residential component, Goldin also envisions 72,”000 square feet of retail — slightly larger than the 62,”000 square feet Acme retail center. All of the retail would surround a “spectacular” central open public space, which would be used for things like the farmer’s market, street festivals, and other community events, he says. “We started out with pedestrians and open space, and from that, we created the retail, and from that, we got to a certain amount of residential,” he explains.
During the presentation on May 31, Goldin says he will describe what the land looks like, including the 72,”000 square feet of retail, and will have a layout of his entire proposal, highlighting the three parcels — his property, the NJ Transit property, and the main street area — and hopes to have a lock down on the numbers and costs for all of the public improvements that will need to be funded.
Goldin said his May 31 presentation will also show the Vaughn Drive connector going through his property and would probably take the form of several parallel roads as opposed to one wide thoroughfare.
Mayor Shing-Fu Hsueh said until he knows what the layout looks like, how the traffic circulation is set up, and what type of plan council would be willing to accept, he couldn’t comment on Goldin’s proposals. He also pointed out that without a comprehensive plan, township officials won’t be able to see how many and where to place housing units. “His proposal is probably a good idea, but we also need to have New Jersey Transit, and New Jersey Department of Transportation to be part of this dialogue, and of course, the public,” he says.
In response to Goldin’s proposal for 450 housing units, Anklowitz says he is “not going to take a position on an application that hasn’t been filed yet.” He did say that “as far as housing, I think the voters were pretty clear in the last municipal election. Housing was the big controversy.”
He said even though there have been new amendments to COAH regulations that provided additional bonus for transit-oriented development, “we still haven’t had a full assessment of what those regulations are going to be.”
Councilwoman Linda Geevers said that Goldin could propose anything, but it doesn’t necessarily mean the township is going to be in agreement. She said she also wanted to wait for Goldin’s presentation before having any reactions to his proposals, although she said she was disappointed to hear “that he wants to have all residential on his property, since he’s been saying he was trying to attract a corporation to build on that property.”
Bradley Walters, a senior associate with RMJM Hillier, said associates at the firm have not seen Goldin’s plan, although they have heard bits and pieces of it. “In terms of specific density or number of units or the amount of commercial construction, it will really depend on what the goals are,” Walters said. “We’ve been working with the township to build consensus around township goals.”
“We’re planning to continue to work with the township to stay focused on what the township as a whole wants, and once that is satisfied, we can better evaluate Mr. Goldin’s proposals,” he added. “450 (residential units) may be a fine number, it may be too many, it may be too few. In the abstract, there’s no single answer to that question.
He said associates from his firm were still in the process of setting up a date to meet with council during a public meeting. He said that meeting would most likely happen in early June.
In addition, the township’s redevelopment finance committee will soon be issuing a report to the council containing all of the information it has gathered, and its recommendations, including using tax increment financing to fund redevelopment and information it gathered from talking to two experts regarding how many school children are estimated to be brought in as a result of redevelopment. The report might be discussed at the council’s meeting on Monday, June 9.
