For a second time, the presentation of the application for West Windsor Gardens, the rental development planned for a 44-acre tract southwest of the intersection of Clarksville and Meadow roads, was not completed at the January 17 Planning Board meeting.##M:[more]##
The majority of the three-and-a-half hour meeting was spent debating the inclusion of an office in each of the two-bedroom units of Akselrad Associates’ planned 352-unit complex, which would include 71 affordable housing units.
Planning Board Chairman Marvin Gardner said he believes the offices are actually intended to be used as bedrooms. The township, which has been locked in litigation over the application for two decades, would prsumably experience a greater influx of schoolchildren if the two bedroom units are converted to three-bedroom use by lesees.
Akselrad’s plans include building a desk into the office. At the meeting the company’s representatives, including attorney Frank Petrino of Stern & Wenroth, said the developer would be willing to amend his plans to include dual-swinging french doors for the office, and possibly build one of the rooms’ walls at half height to further suggest that ther were only intended for use as an office. “If it looks like a duck, and it sounds like a duck, it must be a duck.” said Petrino.
Gardner quoted Shakespeare in response. “A rose is a rose is a rose. A rose by any other name would smell as sweet,” He said. “Mere terminology is not going to persuade me that the intent of the applicant is not to use that third room as a bedroom.”
The application is scheduled for further discussion on Wednesday, February 21, unless the township changes the transit charrette meeting back to that date.
