The West Windsor Township Council introduced a $200,”000 bond ordinance on November 26 to fund continuing work on the Princeton Junction train station redevelopment, after a month of discussion and debate over whether to do so.##M:[more]##
The bond ordinance covers the costs 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 council had to introduce the ordinance by November 26, and must adopt it on Monday, December 17, or risk 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. The board was handed that responsibility from the council in October.
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.
“I think a decision to turn the bond down is a decision to stop redevelopment,” Councilman Charles Morgan — who was absent for the vote on November 26 — said at the November 19 special redevelopment meeting. “It’s a decision to delay redevelopment a year or kill it. Let’s get real — if you turn down a bond ordinance, let’s just agree we’re moving on without redevelopment.”
During the November 26 meeting, Business Administrator Chris Marion explained that the previous $400,”000 approved for redevelopment by council in the beginning of the process was in anticipation of the $330,”000 needed for the architect planner, Hillier, and additional money for any professionals to review the Hillier plan as it came through the Planning Board process.
“At no time did we anticipate that we would want a real estate financial consultant separate and distinct,” he said. “At no time did we discuss additional work to be done by the traffic engineer, which includes specific modeling and focus on certain things. My interpretation is we added an extra step in the process to help build that consensus to give Hillier the direction to finish that project,” he said referring to the need for the additional $200,”000.
Township attorney Mike Herbert said state redevelopment statute allows the township to recuperate the costs associated with creating a redevelopment plan from developers — once its adopted and discussions with those developers begin. He also told the council that approving the bond ordinance doesn’t bind them to any specific contracts, but rather it just authorizes the funding. Payments to Hillier are not included in the ordinance. So far, Hillier has been paid $165,”000 of the $330,”000 contract.
“This is a process that was started a little less than a year ago, and basically we need to bring this to some type of conclusion,” said Councilman George Borek. “Two-hundred thousand dollars may turn out to be good; it may turn out to be bad, but we need to finish this one way or another. I think in the end, $200,”000 will be wisely spent.”
Councilwoman Linda Geevers, who abstained during the roll call, said Hillier has been asking for direction from the council since the June 4 meeting, but the council has never held those subsequent discussions. Instead, the council has talked a lot about process and the guiding principles document, which she thinks is in good shape. But, “I thought that since we’re supposed to be moving this process to the planning board that the guiding principles would be the document that they would use in helping them move forward with the process,” she said. “Since then, I’ve seen different memos, different thoughts being circulated among council members, and I’m wondering if we’re all on board.”
Further, she said, “I’m still not sure if we’re all on board with the exact work that our township professionals are going to do. I still don’t think they’re sure exactly what the redevelopment attorney is going to do. These are land use-planning discussions, not necessarily legal/contractual discussions, so I have some concerns about money for that.”
The memos from council members to which Geevers was referring have been circulating among council members in the past few weeks concerning direction the council wants to give to the Planning Board. Conversations during the November 19 meeting — when the most recent memo appeared — centered around a resolution the council is expected to introduce at its meeting on Monday, December 10 to supplement the new funding. The resolution would provide specific directions to the Planning Board in moving forward.
A draft of that resolution — referred to as the “yellow memo” — was based on a memo prior to that by Council President Will Anklowitz. That memo contained an 18-point resolution outlining such standards, which drew attacks from Mayor Shing-Fu Hsueh, who called them “too restrictive.”
Instead, during the November 19 meeting Councilman Charles Morgan presented a more condensed version of Anklowitz’s points he and Anklowitz drafted into a resolution — printed on yellow paper — just prior to the meeting, but council decided to table it. Morgan explained he and Anklowitz had worked on it late the night before.
The draft resolution called for convenient parking at or adjacent to the train station; Vaughn Drive to be a three-lane connector; Main Street along the east side of Route 571 to be a small scale village and incorporate the bypass around Penns Neck; commercial development on the west side of the tracks to be consonant with the township and surrounding neighborhoods; the review of the area along the south side of the Dinky Tracks to be designated as part of the redevelopment area to be consistent with parking and circulation plans; retail on the west side to be consistent with a small-scale village; and for the minimum amount of Council on Affordable Housing units to be consistent with the law, with a ration of market housing to COAH housing targeted as 1-1.
Councilwoman Heidi Kleinman said she was willing to talk about the “yellow memo,” but she felt that the memo overlapped many of the guiding principles.the council put forth over the summer, and that the memo didn’t provide the type of direction the Planning Board had requested.
She also said she felt the Planning Board did what was outlined by the council, but “did not ask to be told how to run a discussion about planning issues.”
“They did not ask to be micromanaged with predetermined square footage of businesses, width of the streets and a number of affordable units which is picked out of a hat,” she said. “They asked for direction on the key issues outlined in the Madden-Davies Proposal. Let’s provide an answer to the question they asked.”
She also said she was concerned about the implications the yellow draft resolution would have. “I represent both sides of the tracks,” she said. “I am not predetermining which is the ‘right’ side of the tracks, which side gets a Main Street and which side gets parking, which side gets a pleasant place for pedestrians and which is an environment for cars. I want to work to connect both sides through good planning.”
Further, she said, “leadership is about listening and then creating a policy which incorporates what you have learned. Leadership is recognizing your own limitations and having the strength to delegate to others you identify with the expertise required for a given task.”
Morgan emphasized that the memo was an effort to push the conversation forward and that he shared others’ concerns that the council shouldn’t micromanage what the Planning Board does, but he did say it was important for the council to set policy. He also said he felt the council, for the most part, agrees on the direction of the project moving forward, but that it was just a matter of “wordsmithing.”
“Nomenclature is a big deal,” he said. “I’ve heard Heidi and me agreeing on the general direction. We’ve argued only over wordsmithing, and if we’re arguing over wordsmithing, just imagine what the community is doing in terms of watching us. This is why this is so important.”
Anklowitz suggested that Kleinman and Morgan do some additional work on the draft resolution and bring it back to the dais on Monday, December 10. He also suggested the council pick one plan — one scenario — for Davies and Madden to study, instead of three.
While transit villages are a good idea and can be very useful, “I don’t think West Windsor needs one, at least not with a big, giant housing component,” he said.
“People who go to the train station go to work,” he said. “They don’t want to have to meander through martini bars and lots of other things. They want to run from their cars to the platform and hope they make it just on time.”
A draft of the final resolution should be submitted to the clerk’s office by Tuesday, December 4, and Planning Board members will get the chance to review it and submit their comments on it, Anklowitz said.
In response, Hsueh has sent his own memo to council stating his concerns as they draft the resolution. Among his suggestions in the memo were to keep the COAH policy open until the third round of regulations is issued by the state; to design “Main Street” in a way that it connects and integrates the entire community; and to refrain from defining Vaughn Drive as either a two- or three-lane road without first having a traffic assessment done.
Council will have a busy December, with a special Parking Authority meeting on Saturday, December 8, a discussion on the resolution on Monday, December 10, and the decision on whether to adopt the bond ordinance set for Monday, December 17.
Mayor Shing-Fu Hsueh said he is still optimistic about the redevelopment process today, almost a year after the start of the public meetings held by Robert Hillier and his professionals, to gather public input on the plan, which depicted a transit village at the train station. They were held between January and April, but community sentiment turned against the project when Hillier introduced a residential element to the transit village that called for the construction of 1,”000 units of housing, including state-mandated affordable units. The election of three transit village opponents — Morgan, Anklowitz, and Borek — to the council in May’s municipal election killed all momentum that had been building on the project. The three fully publicized their opposition to the 1,”000 housing units to catapult them to victory.
“(Hillier) never said all of this was the only way to go,” Hsueh said. “Basically, he already presented all the options,” and he even made modifications to the options after hearing the public input, he added.
Hsueh said he understands the council majority wanted to have a second opinion on Hillier’s work — which is why the new funding is needed — but there needs to be a long-term redevelopment plan.
Redevelopment, according to Hsueh, is necessary for a few reasons. First, redevelopment statutes give the township the authority to manage growth in the future — an authority the township does not have under municipal land use law, and an authority it will not get unless it first approves a redevelopment plan.
He points to a township growth ordinance that West Windsor introduced 13 years ago and was shot down by state courts. So, Hsueh says, there is no other option but redevelopment. “That authority will allow the township to control our own destiny,” he said. “If we don’t have a redevelopment plan under the current municipal land use plan, we have no control over whoever wants to come to the planning board.”
In addition, going with redevelopment will allow the township to know what the area will look decades from now, instead of having developers come in with different plans for each parcel of property. Having a redevelopment plan will also make the township eligible for state grant money and other funding, including for the Vaughn Drive construction and brownfield cleanup on the site.
Hsueh also said that through the redevelopment program, a comprehensive plan allows the township to negotiate with the property owners in the zone. For example, the property owners in the area of the Acme and PNC Bank on Route 571 could share parking so that more parking facilities won’t have to be built. “A redevelopment plan could look at everybody in this area, without looking at each individually,” he said. Having a shared lot would encourage residents to park in one spot and walk along to all the various businesses in the area, as opposed to getting in their cars and driving to them, thus reducing traffic.
Also, “if you’re going to build parking garages without taxpayer’s money, you have to ask for contributions from all these property owners, and the first question is going to be, ‘What am I going to get out of this?’” Hsueh said. “Then, the township taxpayers will have to pay for it, and as long as I’m the mayor, I will never use a penny for any redevelopment implementation,” including building garages and other amenities, he said.
If action isn’t taken now, “we will be in competition with many other municipalities,” for money from the state. “If we miss some of the opportunities, I just don’t know when the opportunities will come back again,” Hsueh said.
Now, Hsueh said, all he wants to see is consensus among all members of council and the planning board on a plan, so the process can move forward. “We have a lot of choices, options, and it’s up to West Windsor to make a decision. We are elected to make decisions.”
Hsueh said that if the council passes the bond ordinance on December 17, the process of developing a redevelopment plan would most likely take two to three months. At that point, Hsueh said he’s like to see a plan that people can really discuss. If the redevelopment plan is then approved, it would become an additional attachment of the Master Plan.
Hsueh also addressed comments by critics who have said that continuing to fund the redevelopment would create more work for township employees, and thus the need for more money. But Hsueh said the additional $200,”000 covers all the staff time involved. And, “my time is free, and I put in a lot of hours,” he added.
Hsueh said the extra $200,”000 was for the additional step called for by the council, who wanted to get a second opinion on Hillier’s work. After that is done, there should be no more expenses, especially since he says Hillier has agreed to finish up his work within the $330,”000 contract approved in the last bond ordinance. He also said the redevelopment project does not take away from other township projects.
