The West Windsor Planning Board has unanimously voted to send to the Township Council its report on the draft redevelopment plan for the 350-acre Princeton Junction train station area with over 100 recommendations for changes to the plan.
Finishing its report about a month ahead of the state-mandated 45-day review period, the board took the vote on January 29, and has since faced public criticism and accusations that the vote was premature and that the board did not spend enough time considering the concerns raised by groups like the West Windsor Bicycle and Pedestrian Alliance (WWBPA) and the West Windsor Parking Authority, both of which had submitted formal comments and suggestions to the board at the 11th hour.
Planning Board Chairman Marvin Gardner, however, said that the board did what it was asked to do within the limits of the law — review the plan the Council spent hours creating through the fall.
“It may not have been to their absolute satisfaction, but the fact is we did not gloss over any issue whatsoever,” says Gardner. “It was addressed openly and publicly. The public was given ample opportunities to address their concerns. Our duty was just to review it, and by state statute we were given just 45 days to do so. We were not called upon to draft the plan.”
Criticism began at the January 29 meeting, when members of the WWBPA said they felt they were not given sufficient time to discuss their list of concerns — particularly dealing with bicycle lanes on roads throughout the redevelopment area — before the council vote.
In the days following the vote, Council President Charles Morgan also publicly expressed concern, saying he was surprised the board voted as early as January 29. The council will hold what it says is a final work session on the plan on Monday, February 23 beginning at 6 p.m.
Residents or groups should submit comments in writing no later than Friday, February 20. The comments should include specific suggestions for changes in the wording of the plan, as well as changes in the maps. Council indicated it hopes to complete the work on the plan at this work session so that it can be introduced in time for a final hearing in March.
Planning Board Discussion. The board began reviewing the land use and zoning districts for the redevelopment plan a week earlier. Planning consultant John Madden and traffic consultant Gary Davies explained the details of the zoning as drafted by council.
The plan calls for a base number of 524 total housing units — 307 of which are market-rate and 217 of which are affordable — for the entire site, excluding the 47 affordable units generated by development on state-owned property, which township officials are assuming will be waived by the Council on Affordable Housing. All together, the redevelopment area is projected to have 220,”287 square feet of retail space and 840,”538 square feet of office floor area, as well as 200,”000 square feet of parking and other uses.
District 1, which is the 25 acres of property on Washington Road that is owned by InterCap, would contain 350 residential units — 280 would be market rate and 70 would be affordable units generated by those market units. It also includes seven affordable units generated by the 62,”250 square feet of retail in the zone, and two affordable housing units associated with the 7,”250 square feet of office space there.
District 2, which consists of the slim piece of property on Station Drive where the Chinese restaurant is located, is estimated to generate one COAH unit from the 9,”696 square feet of retail allowed in the district. District 3 is expected to generate three COAH units as a result of the 27,”377 square feet of retail area and the 45,”629 square feet of office space.
District 6 — which includes everything left and right of Vaughn Drive, including Mack Cali and properties owned by West Windsor — is zoned for parking and offices. The zone includes a limitation of three stories for offices and a hotel conference center with at least 100 rooms as a possibility. However, officials would allow up to five stories if the two top stories are used for the transfer of development rights from the Sarnoff Woods.
All together, officials are anticipating the total office floor area to be between 440,”538 and 570,”538 square feet. Of that, there is an estimated 94,”024 square feet of office space at Mack Cali and 43,”635 square feet at the Polychrome site, which generate 15 and three affordable housing units, respectively. Officials said these units were accommodated in the township’s fair share plan for the third round. However, there would be between 250,”000 to 380,”000 square feet of office space with the transfer from the Sarnoff Woods in District 10, as well as public parking, which would generate between 44 and 67 affordable units. And 40,”000 square feet of retail near the parking garages would generate about four COAH units.
Instead of accommodating these units on site, the plan was drafted to state that the affordable housing generated by development on the state property to subsidize the parking should be waived by COAH.
The plan assumes that Sarnoff officials will transfer over the development rights to the hotel conference center and some of the office approved by the township under Sarnoff’s general development plan.
District 7, which includes everything currently on Route 571, from Wallace to Alexander roads, would generate 36 units — 27 of which would be residential and three of which would be affordable. It is estimated that there would be 53,”964 square feet of retail along Route 571, including 20,”673 square feet in the Rite Aid development. After deducting credits for the demolition of existing non-residential floor area, it is estimated that there would be six affordable housing units associated with the retail in that zone.
In District 10, officials are estimating a total of 91 housing units generated by the 270,”000 square feet estimated to remain on the Sarnoff tract if 130,”000 square feet is transferred to District 6. Of the 91 housing units, 70 would be generated by the remaining office space and 21 would be associated with the hotel conference center or other uses on site.
Among the board’s recommendations were the idea to remove the option that the developers of the InterCap property would be able to either choose the new zoning for the property, or have the option of retaining the current zoning, which is a research, office, and manufacturing district — an option that Gardner said he had concerns about because he was worried that the specific site, and its developers, were being given special treatment.
Before the vote on the recommendations, Morgan said that while the language was added to the plan while the plan was still in council’s hands, he did not necessarily support the idea. “It was an interesting idea that was not fully vetted,” he said.
Included in the board’s other recommendations was the unanimous suggestion that the council allow the option of having a portion of the residential units on site be for rental, as opposed to requiring that they all be for-sale units, as it is currently written in the plan.
“I think you want to allow a flexibility,” said Madden. “For-sale market is doing pretty badly. Rentals have become increasingly a lot more valuable.” Madden told the board that as the project is built, township officials will have the option of negotiating with developers if the township no longer wants rental units to be built.
The board also recommended keeping the cul-de-sac on Old Bear Brook Road in the plan, to prevent vehicular access through the neighborhood coming from the redevelopment site. Davies said fire, police, and emergency officials did not express concerns about reduction in response time as a result of a cul-de-sac.
One of the most heavily discussed issues was the bicycle and pedestrian network in the redevelopment area. At prior meetings, board member Diane Ciccone and other bicycle and pedestrian advocates urged the board to consider creating an entire network of bike lanes throughout the redevelopment site.
However, Davies said it would not be possible to include on-street bike lanes in every scenario. He came up with a concept for an off-roadway bike/multi-use trail running from the Sarnoff connector road to Washington Road, and then following Vaughn Drive from Washington Road to the Dinky.
In the area of the existing Vaughn Drive, Davies said that putting on-roadway bike lanes would require the removal of the parking spaces currently located there, and designate those streets as curbed streets with bike lanes designated in the shoulder area. However, in doing the math and looking at the measurements, “we realized there are about 250 parking spaces on these streets here in District 6. Essentially, the on-street parking that would be displaced by the bike lanes would be a large portion of one of the parking garages. Upon reflection, it didn’t seem to be such a smart idea.”
Instead, he suggested extending the off-roadway bike/multi-use trail into District 6, as he was proposing for the area near the Sarnoff connector. This would also allow the township to save the street parking on Vaughn Drive.
However, Ciccone said she insisted on having bicycle lanes on all the streets in the redevelopment area. “My whole point in insisting on bike lanes is that, as a progressive community, I thought we need to recognize the bike lanes on all the roads,” she said. “We have people who are commuting, we have people who are living there, and they should have the same kind of free circulation and mobility as a car and a pedestrian.”
Said Davies: “We’re saying that in this case, it would not be part of the roadway. It would be separate — we’re just discussing this for along Vaughn Drive and the Sarnoff connector.”
Davies showed a chart, depicting widths of roads with bike lanes. The example he had showed a car parked in a 6-foot parking lane with a 1-foot offset from the curb. However, the state Department of Transportation standard calls for 13-foot lanes.
In addition, the vehicular travel lanes should be at about 11 or 12 feet instead of 10 feet, to allow cars to maneuver without going into the bike lanes. After adding all of this extra width, the cross section starts to get very wide, bringing it to at least 48 feet, and possibly going up to 50 or 52 feet, which conflicts with the township’s goal of creating traffic calming measures, which would call for streets with widths around 34 feet.
“My perspective is that we should only make this about a 34 to 35-foot wide street, and it should not be a street that is 48 or 50 feet wide,” Davies said.
Planning Board Attorney Gerald Muller said he understood the need for bike lanes in areas like the promenade, but agreed that the off-lane bicycle roads were the best option for the areas near District 6. “It seems to me that it’s much safer,” he said. “At the same time, you don’t lose the traffic calming features that would lose with a wider road. With respect to these roads, the off-road solution is an optimal solution. I don’t see what the problem with that is.”
However, Gardner pointed out that the issue of an in-depth bicycle and pedestrian plan was not something that was discussed when council was drafting the plan, and that the board is only supposed to review what the council has given to it. He said it is not needed to be done at this time. “I think a general statement indicating what our goals and objectives are is probably more than sufficient at this time. If we ever get to the stage of a site plan approval, then I’m certain those areas would be discussed very thoroughly.”
The board included Davies chart with the off-road trails as only an idea that could be looked at when it comes to the site plan review.
Other concerns were raised by a letter from the West Windsor Parking Authority, including the number of levels in the parking garages on site. The parking authority wanted to have the flexibility of going to five stories, with six levels, as opposed to four stories with five levels, as called for in the plan because “once they get a footprint, it’s easier to go up than it is to find additional footprints.”
Davies said that the plan, as written, contained 6,”000 spaces. The parking authority said it needed about 4,”800 for commuter parking. However, officials believe that the 800,”000 square feet of office space on the west side of the redevelopment area would need another 2,”000 spaces just to serve that need. “The 6,”000 spaces that is shown on the conceptual plan on five levels is something in the order of 500 spaces short, or one small garage short.”
He said that at the time the parking authority was discussing the issue with the council, these numbers were not yet available, and that five stories would be practical in this case.
However, Councilwoman Heidi Kleinman, who also sits on the planning board, said the discussion of height of the parking garages was a hot item that was discussed for over a year at the council level, and that while the parking garages can be designed to look like attractive buildings, their height would still be able to be seen from nearby neighborhoods like Berrien City. “Even four stories was a very difficult task,” she said. “People wanted it to be three stories.”
However, board member Larry Rubinstein said he felt that “to go through with what’s going to be hundred of millions of dollars of redevelopment that still has the same problem of not having enough parking,” would not be a good idea.
Instead, Kleinman suggested allowing wider footprints to accommodate more spaces instead of adding more height, an idea that was supported by the rest of the board.
Other recommendations from the parking authority were noted, but the board did not make any major recommendations, with Gardner saying the board did receive the comments until the day of the meeting, and that these, like those of the WWBPA, were concerns that should be addressed more thoroughly at the council level.
Reactions. WWBPA members said the alliance was under the impression that the concerns in the recent letter and an earlier one it submitted would be discussed in detail at the planning board level.
“We asked questions, we had our professional enter into a dialogue with you and your members at the last session,” Gardner said in response. “We made a number of comments we included in the material in our report as recommendations to the council. So, we were very responsive, I think.”
Morgan said during the planning board meeting that he has watched the board “struggle with some tough issues,” and that “there was some really good conversation reaching generally good results.”
However, in the days following the board’s unanimous vote to send the report and recommendations to the council, community groups, including the WWBPA and environmental commission, urged council to allow further review of the plan to address their specific concerns.
Morgan echoed the sentiment at the council’s meeting on February 2, saying he had received feedback from the community and wanted to set up one more work session, “given the Planning Board’s conclusion of their review Thursday, which came as a bit of a surprise to me and apparently a bunch of others. I want to make sure we have as public and inclusive a process as possible.”
Ken Carlson, the president of the WWBPA (who also sent a letter to the editor — see page 2), said the council has the opportunity to “really create a bicycle and pedestrian-friendly train station area.” He said members of the alliance “were rather disappointed in the whole process. There really wasn’t a sufficient review process for traffic in the redevelopment plan,” and that there was not a lot of time for the alliance to review the plan, which the board began reviewing on January 12 and concluded on January 29.
“We welcome the opportunity the Township Council will provide for a review process by community groups to really look at the details,” he said. “There were no bicycle lanes in the redevelopment area other than Washington Road in the draft plan, and that’s a real missed opportunity.”
In response to public criticism, Gardner said the board permitted a range of issues to be discussed, during which the public had ample opportunity to question the board’s professionals.
Gardner also said the fact that the board made over 100 recommendations, which he says includes most of the recommendations from the alliance and the parking authority, shows “that a body of volunteers can be effective and efficient in meeting its challenges and responsibilities.”
Responding to public reports that Morgan has characterized the Planning Board’s action in sending the plan back to the council as being politically motivated, he said, “perhaps he ought to look in the mirror.”
Resolution to DOT. In other business during the council’s February 2 meeting, a resolution calling on the state Department of Transportation to take necessary steps to assure the allocation of federal stimulus funds for infrastructure necessary to support redevelopment at the train station was passed with a 4-0 vote.
Morgan said he drafted the resolution after hearing that the U.S. Congress had enacted a major stimulus package that provides infrastructure financing throughout the country, and that the state DOT will play a major role in the allocation of funds from the stimulus package. He said he did not want to wait until those funds are already dispersed elsewhere.
However, Mayor Shing-Fu Hsueh still expressed frustration, saying he had already been meeting with Congressman Rush Holt and with other high-ranking state officials.
“According to Rush Holt, he feels we need to have all this ready in February,” Hsueh said. “The only problem we have is we don’t have a redevelopment plan” that is approved. “If council is going to be voting on in it March, it’s too late.”
He pointed to the loss of $159 million in state funding for Route 1 improvements and $19 million in state funding for Vaughn Drive last year, during which state officials cited the township’s lack of a plan for the train station area as a major reason they dropped the projects from their priority list.
“The state DOT and NJ Transit already hired their consultants to work with us, but they’re waiting for our approved plan,” Hsueh said. And “once it’s approved, it’s still not final,” he added, saying that state and county representatives would go over the plan with township officials, and changes might be made as it moves forward.
Hsueh said he wanted the council to wrap up the plan so he can bring it to Trenton to have the projects included in the stimulus package. Hsueh says he has been having other discussions with state officials about including other township projects, like Clarksville Road improvements, in the stimulus package as well.
“If the council waits until March, I’m afraid we’re not going to be in line for competition with other townships,” Hsueh said. “I’ve been working on this with Trenton and also Rush Holt’s office. This cannot be taken care of with one resolution.”
