A week after the Township Council approved a new contract with RMJM Hillier for the firm’s completion of a redevelopment plan for the 350-acre Princeton Junction train station area, township officials met with representatives from NJ Transit, the state Department of Transportation, the governor’s office, Hillier, and InterCap Holdings to focus on the traffic circulation framework for the train station area.##M:[more]##
Township officials are touting the June 19 meeting, which was closed to the public, as a major step forward in completing the redevelopment plan. Without coming up with a traffic circulation plan that wins the approval of township as well as state and county officials, township officials say they cannot make decisions regarding the mixed uses in the redevelopment area, including the number of housing units.
Mayor Shing-Fu Hsueh said that the main focus during the meeting was to reach consensus on the process for making decisions on infrastructure layout, which Hillier will use in creating the plan. The parties agreed that they will all be reviewing the data and technical analysis together in time for another meeting to take place on Thursday, July 17.
Said Hsueh: “Before the next meeting, there will be a lot of exchanges of technical data and information between the entities, and there will be dialogue to make sure they are prepared for the meeting on July 17.”
Councilman Charles Morgan, one of the meeting’s participants, also said he thought the meeting “could not have been more productive and positive.”
“We got very good, very strong signals of support from NJ Transit and DOT,” he said. “There were clear that they were going to expedite review of our traffic data with their folks in order to facilitate a process that will accommodate our August objective of a draft of the redevelopment plan from Hillier,” he said.
According to a press release sent out by the township, the information to be reviewed includes traffic data gathered by West Windsor, Hillier, and InterCap Holdings, owner of a 25-acre tract next to the train station. During the meeting, officials also indicated they hoped to include the Mercer County Department of Transportation in the review process as well.
In addition, the Township Council on June 23 also approved contracts with township consultants Gary Davies, the traffic engineer, and John Madden, the township planner, for their services as related to their work on the redevelopment. The contracts were not to exceed $18,”000 for Urbitran — Davies’ firm — and $15,”000 for Maser — John Madden’s firm.
“These funds are to direct our township professionals to interface with all these separate parties and report back to the council on recommendations,” said Councilwoman Heidi Kleinman, who also participated in the meeting on June 19.
Councilwoman Linda Geevers said she wanted to see that the consultants report back to the council on how the Hillier and InterCap plans “related to the scale and scope goals of the township.”
“You want infrastructure improvements and you want a parking garage and all of these things,” she said. “It costs a lot of money, and where is the money going to be generated from? I want our consultants to start thinking about what we’re hearing from the community.”
Morgan said state officials “were very, very receptive, but with the understandable cautionary statements about the need to get it right.”
Given there are multiple owners of the property in the redevelopment area — land is owned by NJ Transit, Amtrak, InterCap, and West Windsor — Morgan said it is important to know which entity would be taking the lead on driving the process. “They were clear that West Windsor should take the lead,” Morgan added. “West Windsor is the initiator and obviously Hillier is going to be preparing that redevelopment plan in light of the findings that will presumably be aired on July 17.”
Both Morgan and Hsueh say that while they would have ideally liked to open up these meetings to the public, at this point, they want the professionals to feel comfortable expressing their ideas and concerns freely.
“We really need to move the process forward in a way that is going to minimize misinterpretation of what’s going on that could just get us sidetracked into discussions that are unnecessary,” Morgan said. “It’s a work in progress. A private meeting will allow the government folks from the state, as well as the local folks, to feel free to be open about their concerns and their ideas without feeling like they have to self-censor.”
Hsueh said that the information that the officials will be reviewing include data from Goldin and Hillier, as well as West Windsor, all of which have been previously discussed in the public forum.
Morgan said that “what the community needs to know is that I have not changed my position on scale and scope, and as far as I know, nobody else on council has,” he said. “I’ve always supported redevelopment of the train station, but in a way that accommodates the values of West Windsor residents, and that boils down to parking and infrastructure need for the parking. Yes, there is going to be housing there. The community is just going to have to accept that COAH is an iron fist that we cannot ignore on affordable housing.”
He also reiterated that InterCap Holdings was not driving the process. “They’ve put some good ideas on the table for consideration, and they’ve certainly helped greatly at their expense. That raw data, along with data that West Windsor developed and Hillier developed, is what’s going to be crunched by the state.”
“Once we have a consensus on traffic circulation, the next step will be that we can start looking into the land use patterns,” said Hsueh. Before we get into all of this, there’s no way we can get into how many housing units will be” there, he said.
Hsueh says having the state and county entities on board with the plans will create more of an opportunity for him to go to the state for more funding for improvements in West Windsor. He says he is “cautiously optimistic” the process can move forward from here.
Davies and Madden participated in the meeting on June 19, as well as Planning Board vice chairman Steve Decter, and West Windsor Parking Authority Chairman Andy Lupo. Councilwoman Linda Geevers attended the meeting, but did not participate in order to avoid a quorum, the press release stated. Business Administrator Chris Marion also was in attendance.
Bradley Walters and a team of consultants from Hillier, as well as Steve Goldin from InterCap and a team of his consultants, were also involved. Assistant Commissioner Mark Stout was among the DOT officials in attendance.
During the June 23 meeting, a group of residents turned out to tout proposals by Goldin, and encourage the council to continue the progress toward redevelopment, and a transit village.
Resident Mel Levine said he supported Goldin’s plans for additional parking and a transit village. “It is virtually impossible to park and get a train to New York,” he said. “Consequently, I always go by bus.”
He said he understands that redevelopment comes in phases and could take up to 20 years to be fully implemented, but he still hopes it can happen. “It may take a lifetime, but let us begin,” he said.
Janet Lerner commended the council for “returning back to the redevelopment, and to very quickly set deadlines for the 350-acre train station plan.”
Robert Cagan said that “clearly there are some implications of what could happen by not going with redevelopment.”
“I don’t pretend to speak for all of our neighbors, but I’m confident that there’s a lot of support in our neighborhood for moving along with the redevelopment plan,” he added.
Kirsten Weinsten said she moved to West Windsor three years ago with her husband, who grew up in the township. Originally from Doylestown, PA, she said she would like to see a village center happen so that she and her husband wouldn’t have to drive out of township to shop and participate in family activities.
Resident Bob Akens, however, said that residents in Edison, where Goldin has been involved in another redevelopment project, rejected their proposed redevelopment plan, and one of the reasons they gave for doing so was that it contained too much housing.
He also criticized the council for not allowing the meetings with state officials to be open to the public and wondered if any decisions had been made behind closed doors. Members of the council told him the only decision that had been made at the meeting was that West Windsor would take the lead on circulation issues, and that the next meeting would be scheduled for July 17, after review of the data by all parties involved.
