"During my research for this story, archaeologists working in one capacity or another for Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico all said virtually the same thing during their interviews, all insisting they would lose their jobs if I quoted them by name: 'You have to understand developers run this state.'"
from "What Lies Beneath," by Reed Karaim
in Preservation, the magazine of
the National Trust for Historic Preservation,
(September/October 2001), p. 48
New Jersey Is Running Out of Open Land It Can Build on The New York Times, May 24, 2003
Anti-sprawl map becoming a blueprint for revolt, The Star Ledger, April 7, 2003
Governor favors boosting planning boards' powers, The Star Ledger, April 5, 2003
Smart growth boosted, The Trenton Times, March 31, 2003
Forum: Give planning power to counties, Princeton Packet, March 7, 2003
Can't ignore growth, The Star Ledger, March 5, 2003
Builders gain in revised sprawl map, The Star Ledger, March 4, 2003
Business alliance forming, The Trenton Times, February 20, 2003
Rouse lets business leaders in on plans for Route 1 site, Princeton Packet, February 14, 2003
Mall's growth no bargain, foes say, The Trenton Times, February 14, 2003
S. Brunswick OKs pact to preserve 214 acres, The Star Ledger, February 6, 2003
Brownfields may become light-industry center, The Trenton Times, February 4, 2003
Find consensus on growth The Star Ledger, January 30, 2003
NJ Department of Environmental Protection web page "Antisprawl"
Amend the map The Star Ledger, January 20, 2003
Sprawl talk harks back to Whitman The Star Ledger, January 19, 2003
State officials draw the line on sprawl The Star Ledger, January 17, 2003
War on sprawl The Trenton Times, Editorial, January 16, 2003
Sprawl speech hits home The Star Ledger, January 16, 2003
University poised to swap land to gain hotel zone Princeton Packet, January 10, 2003
Environmental group pans warehouse project The Trenton Times, January 10, 2003
Growing concern on center The Trenton Times, January 10, 2003
A better method for managing growth The Star Ledger, January 8, 2003
New Jersey Governor Enlists Himself in 'War on Sprawl', The New York Times, January 2, 2003
PU's growth plan: thinking outside the century Princeton Packet, December 31, 2002
Hullfish North settlement is high priority for borough Princeton Packet, December 31, 2002
Plainsboro fights sprawl with new urban-style development, The Star Ledger, December 15, 2002
CYANAMID SITE AND TAX-SHARING NJ Future, December 13, 2002
Rouse unveils W. Windsor plan, The Trenton Times, December 12, 2002
Transportation Forum asked to design road to Smart Growth, Princeton Packet, December 6, 2002
For open space, another landslide at the ballot box The Star Ledger, November11, 2002
After the sprawl: N.J. reinvents, The Trenton Times, October 31, 2002
Rt. 1 corporate developers vie for tenants, The Trenton Times, October 30, 2002
Mostly Sprawling and Warmer, The New York Times, October 24, 2002
Governor promises reforms for sprawl, The Star Ledger, October 23, 2002
A good start at the sprawl summit, The Star Ledger, October 23, 2002
What's Up for Sarnoff? Questions for a New CEO, US 1, Ocotber 23, 2002
Sprawl for dummies, The Star Ledger, October 20, 2002
"Green-Based" Urban Growth: Next Wave of Environmentalism, D.L. Parsell National Geographic News April 22, 2002
Development and a Drought Cut Carolinas' Water Supply, The New York Times, August 28, 2002
N.J. justices back Toll, The Trenton Times, August 2, 2002
Trenton Court Upholds Law on Moderately Priced Housing, The New York Times, August 2, 2002
Toll Brothers Press Release, August 1, 2002
Supreme Court Toll Decision (PDF file) [Download Adobe Acrobat]
More obstacles for West Windsor master plan, The Trenton Times, July 31, 2002
TRENTON RECEIVED $45K BROWNFIELDS GRANT, July 24, 2002
Governor names director of new Office of Smart Growth, Princeton Packet, July 16, 2002
Planners, neighbors take issue with office park proposal, Princeton Packet, July 12, 2002
Downside of development, The Trenton Times, July 7, 2002
Business incubator may wither, The Trenton Times, June 29, 2002
Master plan OK caps year, The Trenton Times, June 28, 2002
Sarnoff growth plans OK'd, The Trenton Times, June 25, 2002
New definition [Sarnoff Corporation], The Trenton Times, June 23, 2002
Reinventing the Inventor, The New York Times, June 2, 2002
Effective conservation policies begin with master plan, Princeton Packet, May 28, 2002
Sarnoff anticipates positive tax impact, Princeton Packet, May 24, 2002
Sarnoff tightens its belt, The Trenton Times, May 17, 2002
'Innovation' key to N.J. prosperity, The Trenton Times, May 8, 2002
Back to the board room for Sarnoff, The Trenton Times, May 7, 2002
Sarnoff's technology campus proposal gets fiery reception, Princeton Packet, May 3, 2002
Sarnoff shows new plans for technology campus, The Trenton Times, May 3, 2002
Sprawl equals strife, author says, The Trenton Times, May 2, 2002
Trenton: Sprawl Legislation Developing, Mobilizing the Region #363, April 29, 2002
West Windsor settles limits at Sarnoff site, The Trenton Times, April 23, 2002
Chances for downzoning on Route 1 improve, Princeton Packet, April 19, 2002
Attempt to cut development levels fails. The Trenton Times, April 9, 2002
Statement on Issues Related to Zoning of Sarnoff and Wyeth Properties, April 8, 2002
Carnes to retire as head of Sarnoff Corp. The Trenton Times, April 2, 2002
Transportation budget aims to spur smart growth, The Trenton Times, April 2, 2002
Land Use Articles January 1 - March 31, 2002
Land Use Articles before January 1, 2002
Encouraging Smart Growth: Link to the U.S. Department of Environmental Protection
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Smart Growth Publications
Planetizen Urban Planning Newswire, Planning & Development News (weekly updates)
Flexible Design on Main Street , a study by the Rutgers Transportation Policy Institute
Talking About Sprawl by the Biodiversity Project (PDF file)
Download Adobe Acrobat to read PDF files
New Jersey Is Running Out of Open Land It Can Build on
By LAURA MANSNERUSGREENWICH TOWNSHIP, N.J. - New Jersey, far more densely populated than any other state - more crowded than Japan or India, for that matter - is on course for another distinction: it will be the first state, land-use experts say, to exhaust its supply of land available for development.
The prospect of running out of open space to build on, a phenomenon that planners call buildout, is at the heart of Gov. James E. McGreevey's well-publicized campaign against sprawl. In poll after poll, voters in this most suburban of states say they hate what they see, and elected officials on all levels have taken note.
Roughly two million of New Jersey's five million acres are developed, and a little over one million are protected by various levels of government. The state has promised to acquire or preserve enough land, including farmland, to bring the number of protected acres to two million by 2009. Some of the rest is unsuitable for development, leaving less than a million acres to be fought over. Since those estimates were made a few years ago, some of those acres have surely been developed.
The pace of suburban development is a powerful issue in many other states after a 10-year onslaught of building, but the political and economic tensions are especially raw here, where more people are scrambling over less open space. Builders accuse the governor of thwarting the American dream, environmentalists say builders will kill agriculture, and many towns try to avoid the costs of growth, like developing infrastructure and building schools, by zoning out housing that would bring in children.
The pattern in New Jersey is the very definition of sprawl: land consumption is increasing faster than the population is growing. As in other parts of the country, land is consumed three to four times faster than the population grows. "We're taking bigger bites with each wave of development," said Barbara Lawrence, the director of New Jersey Future, a land-use planning organization.
Some project that buildout will occur within 20 years, while New Jersey's population of 8.4 million is expected to grow by 1 million in that period, but other estimates are that buildout could take many more decades. The timing depends on population and employment growth, which can swerve wildly with the economy. Government could hasten buildout by putting more land off limits to development through environmental controls.
The debate now under way will determine whether the population will continue to spread across the landscape or become more concentrated in the cities and older suburbs. It will determine, in short, what a built-out state looks like.
New Jersey officials do not know how much land has been consumed since the last statewide land surveys, taken in the mid-1990's. Estimates range from 16,000 acres to more than 40,000 acres a year. Mr. McGreevey says the state is losing 50 acres a day to development, a figure that other state officials describe as conservative.
But the rate of consumption may have increased in the late 1990's, many land-use experts say, in a pattern entrenched across the nation. American appetites for space have put ever-smaller families onto ever-larger lots.
"In the '50's and '60's, a quarter of an acre was a lot, and half an acre was huge," said James W. Hughes, the dean of the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers. "Now it's one acre, three acres, five acres."
That change, Mr. Hughes said, portends self-perpetuating congestion. Each new resident, for example, adds 1.2 vehicles. "When you move into a McMansion you need three cars to fill your three-car garage," Mr. Hughes said, "and a big S.U.V. for the two snow days per year."
Each new resident spurs more commercial development, too. Since 1980, Mr. Hughes notes, retail space per capita has doubled and office space per capita has increased sixfold.
In northwestern New Jersey, Greenwich Township, bordering the Delaware River in the southern lobe of Warren County, was transformed by the completion of Interstate 78 and the office parks that came with it across the state from Newark. To look at the landscape here - say, from the road between the new Home Depot and the new Lowe's - is to see how New Jersey could quickly run out of real estate.
Splaying east and west on former farm fields are about 800 of the new houses that brought the population of Greenwich Township to 4,365 in 2000 from 1,899 in 1990, a 130 percent increase. A few miles north, off Route 57, big lumber skeletons are rising at the Grande at Scotts Mountain, a subdivision where the lots average 3.4 acres.
"This is supposed to be a scenic highway, but it's all for sale," said Mike King, the chairman of a civic group that is promoting development in the sagging town of Phillipsburg, near Greenwich Township, and is fighting it in the outlying townships.
Mr. McGreevey inherited a program that spends about $200 million a year to buy open space and preserve farmland, which he rolled into a bigger "smart growth" campaign to steer development to population centers, mostly by making it difficult elsewhere. He issued an edict last month to restrict building near 15 reservoirs, rivers and streams, halting several projects just days from construction, and state officials are working on what they call "the big map," delineating areas where they will impose restrictions on growth.
As for the governor, Mr. King said, "he's thinking all those right things, but it's later than he seems to realize."
Developers say they have been forced into rural areas as older suburbs, already built out, become prohibitively expensive. Even then, "we are not able to meet demand," said Joanne Harkins, the director of land use and planning for the New Jersey Builders Association. "When they open a new development we have waiting lists. Virtually everything is sold before it's built."
According to the United States Department of Agriculture, 39 percent of New Jersey's land area was developed as of 1997, while the next on the list were far behind: Massachusetts and Rhode Island at 30 percent and Connecticut at 29 percent.
The department found that about 42,500 acres a year were developed from 1992 to 1997, the latest year for which figures were available. A 1995 survey by the state Department of Environmental Protection found a much lower rate of development, 16,000 to 18,000 acres a year, largely because it did not count open space attached to new buildings, like a wooded campus surrounding an office cluster, as developed.
The state is awaiting results of a new aerial survey and has compiled information from local governments, but those will not show thousands of projects that are in the pipeline.
Bradley M. Campbell, the state commissioner of environmental protection, said that when the aerial photographs are analyzed, "there's every reason to believe the rate will be higher" than the governor's estimate of 50 acres a day lost to development.
First, Mr. Campbell said, the recent trend - "a very grim pattern" - has been accelerating land consumption. Second, he said, rapid economic expansion occurred in the late 1990's. "Third," he said, "there's been no real effort to strengthen regulatory controls on development" until recently.
"What's as troubling as the pace of loss is the location," he added. About 40 percent of new development, he said, is in areas the state classifies as rural or environmentally sensitive.
Mr. Hughes at Rutgers is doubtful that one million new residents will materialize by 2020. In a state that has no room left for new highways, he said, development is self-limiting. "As congestion gets worse, and it's going to get worse, and as it becomes expensive, these inhibitors to growth are going to kick in."
But Jeff Tittel, the director of the New Jersey chapter of the Sierra Club, estimates that "we'll hit buildout within 20 years" in all but Cumberland and Salem Counties, in the far south of the state.
"There could be some pieces left," Mr. Tittel said, "but they would be environmentally sensitive or just junk property."
Environmental regulation is the governor's main means of curbing development, since the guidelines in the State Development and Redevelopment Plan are voluntary. "The time you reach buildout depends on what kind of regulatory controls you have to protect water and wildlife," Mr. Campbell said. "If the right safeguards are in place, buildout may be sooner rather than later."
Developers, while not disputing that, say the administration's anti-growth measures threaten the housing that the state most needs. "When Mr. Campbell's done, there will be no place outside the ghettos for middle-income and low-income New Jerseyans," said Patrick J. O'Keefe, the chief executive of the builders association.
Joseph J. Maraziti Jr., a former chairman of the State Planning Commission, said that builders could see that as a new business model: redeveloping cities instead of expanding the suburbs. "The consensus is like none I've ever seen about revitalizing our cities."
But he added, "It's in our genes as a country that began as a colony. You don't get it out of your system fast - you should tame the land and expand. There's a lot of momentum behind the idea that goes back 300 years. It doesn't stop because of some speeches and legislation."
copyright The New York Times, 2003
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/24/nyregion/24JERS.html
Anti-sprawl map becoming a blueprint for revolt
Northern, southern Jersey counties, long at odds, unite to fight land plan
Monday, April 07, 2003
BY STEVE CHAMBERS
Star-Ledger StaffTough new state policies intended to curb sprawling development have done something past governors failed to accomplish -- unite county politicians from North and South Jersey.
Unfortunately for the current administration, the eight southern counties and the five in northwest New Jersey are united in revolt.
"These regulations out of Trenton can be so arbitrary," Burlington County Freeholder Vince Farias said. "The plan we've been working on in Burlington County for 20 to 25 years has now been changed. We'd planned to do things we're being told we can't do; we don't want growth where we're supposed to be putting it."
So far, the united front has focused on a tri-colored statewide map designed by the Department of Environmental Protection and intended to draw the line on sprawl. The DEP has pledged to speed permit approvals in areas marked in green, closely examine those in yellow and oppose most of those in red.
The united counties fear long-held plans for development are being rendered moot by the Blueprint for Intelligent Growth, or Big Map.
"They arbitrarily went out and said, 'We don't think you should be developing in these areas,'" Morris County Freeholder Director John Murphy said. "I think it needs to be tweaked and fine tuned. It doesn't appear they got enough input."
Responding to a firestorm of criticism, DEP Commissioner Bradley Campbell has held numerous meetings with builders, environmentalists and local politicians.
On Friday, he told a meeting of county officials in New Brunswick -- including some of his sharpest critics -- that "obviously, we have a lot of work to do."
"The first map generated a lot of input, but it's been productive," Campbell told a gathering of the New Jersey Association of Counties. "We're making a lot of corrections and changes with your input."
He is scheduled to unveil a revised map and regulations designed to give it the force of law next month.
The South Jersey coalition, which was born 20 years ago during the height of a secessionist movement, has long complained about being shortchanged in state aid and has chafed at strict development prohibitions in the Pinelands. The northwestern counties, once largely rural but increasingly suburban, have similar complaints.
Two years ago, the largely Republican counties of Hunterdon, Morris, Somerset, Sussex and Warren, formed their own Five County Coalition in an effort to amplify their voices. Last month they huddled for the first time with leaders from the South.
"We have similar issues, and when we combine forces, we represent 40 percent of the population," Hunterdon County Freeholder Marcia Karrow said. "United we stand."
John Eskilson, deputy administrator in Sussex County and a member of the state Planning Commission, said his rural county has spent years and hundreds of thousands of state dollars designing a growth plan, only to see state attitudes shift.
"We have a number of sewer service areas listed in red," he said. "In Hardyston and Vernon we have hundreds of millions of dollars in approved projects, and this is inserting chaos into the process."
Any effort to curtail sprawl in New Jersey is bound to raise complaints from some quarter, but the DEP's Big Map also drew fire from longtime anti-sprawl advocates, who say it dilutes a competing map that was drawn over more than a decade by the state Planning Commission. Campbell has vowed to work toward combining the maps, but Eskilson voiced skepticism.
"Undoubtedly, there will be a DOT (Department of Transportation) map and an agricultural map," he said. "Each has the potential for another layer of bureaucracy growing up around it."
Karrow said her constituents were distressed to see areas along Route 78 colored green on the Big Map. She noted that those still-pristine areas included two reservoirs that serve 1 million residents of Central Jersey.
She said that with urban Democrats clamoring for more state Green Acres funding to be spent on refurbishing their aging parks, rural politicians are wary of the DEP's motives.
"The concern is that this map is designed to devalue land out here, so the state can preserve it for less money and shift the excess to the cities," she said, noting that urban areas already receive the brunt of school aid and other state funding.
Hunterdon County Freeholder Director Paul Sauerland Jr. said there also are concerns that with Gov. James E. McGreevey vowing to curtail state spending in environmentally sensitive areas, the Big Map could be used as a noose to choke off aid.
"The rural counties are going to suffer, because they're all red," Sauerland said. "I'm not just talking about the ability to grow, but the ability to keep up with existing needs created by past growth. There are roads that need to be improved, human services, all kinds of things."
Murphy said that, despite widespread calls to protect the Highlands, a great swath of forested ridges that skirt North Jersey, the state must be selective.
"We have companies that made big investments to build in areas out in the middle of nowhere, developing property based on the current zoning," he said. "Now, their plans are jeopardized by the Big Red Map. Do they just lose a boatload of money?"
Steve Chambers covers land-use issues. He can be reached at schambers@starledger.com or (973) 392-1674.
Copyright 2003 The Star-Ledger.
Governor favors boosting planning boards' powers
Saturday, April 05, 2003
BY STEVE CHAMBERS
Star-Ledger StaffIn an effort to bring a regional approach to his battle on sprawl, Gov. James E. McGreevey proposed yesterday that county planning boards be given more power to impose fees on developers and, possibly, act as referees in local border wars.
Officials of the New Jersey Association of Counties, gathered for a conference in New Brunswick, were predictably supportive, but some said they anticipated legal challenges by builders.
McGreevey's proposals, which need legislative approval, also would require county master plans to mirror the state Development and Redevelopment Plan, a statewide blueprint for growth that seeks to channel growth into cities, suburbs and newly defined rural centers.
Freeholders interviewed said there is so much concern about overdevelopment that county governments would likely be untroubled by that change, which would effectively make mandatory what is now a voluntary plan.
"I think we're coming around to the notion that county government can't be out of sync with the state," said Middlesex Freeholder Jane Brady, president of the association. "There may be specific situations where it doesn't work, but everyone understands the need for good regional planning."
Burlington County Freeholder Vince Farias, a former association president, said he welcomed the notion of charging developers broader impact fees. Counties only review projects on county roads, and then can only assess fees for traffic impacts in the vicinity.
"I think there are legal issues," Farias added. "We've been saying for years that the impact on nearby roads and infrastructure should be considered, but the courts haven't been friendly to that argument."
McGreevey's proposal also would allow counties more input on large projects of regional impact -- even those off county roads -- although it stops short of giving them any veto power.
To stem border wars, McGreevey wants to set up "mediation forums" that would allow counties to help referee disputes between neighboring towns building on one another's borders.
Copyright 2003 The Star-Ledger.
Sunday, March 30, 2003
By MIRTA D'AMATO
PRINCETON BOROUGH - Recognizing the strides that environmental activists have made, Gov. James E. McGreevey said the fight is far from over.
"In these coming weeks or months, I must rely upon you to convince the Legislature for the necessity to move forward with the most aggressive smart growth legislation in the nation," McGreevey told participants in the 17th annual New Jersey Environmental Federation. "The time for debate is over, the time for action is now."
McGreevey also promised to aggressively fight sprawl and to protect open space and the state's drinking water.
He talked about The Big Map his administration has developed as a tool in the fight against sprawl. "The goal of The Big Map," he said, "is to provide a clear understanding of the areas that constitute appropriate as well as inappropriate areas for growth."
He said it will serve as a guide for state investments and help local officials more efficiently plan construction and development projects.
"We have substantial challenges but we will honor that fight," McGreevey said. "Our partnership will strengthen us and I am confident that the citizens of the state of New Jersey will want us to succeed."
The conference drew about 180 environmental activists to Princeton University's Robertson Hall for a full day of workshops.
"The state is becoming more and more segregated and one of the impacts of that is that many places in New Jersey are disproportionately impacted by pollution and environmental degradation, whether it's in the workplace, the community, the parks or the schools," said Amy Goldsmith, NJEF director. "We want to make available different tools that they can use and be able to network and get access to people."
Divided into two sessions, the event began at 9 a.m. with opening remarks followed by a series of workshops.
The topics discussed included healthy schools, building lobbying skills and how activists can use the media to their advantage.
Paul Schwartz, Clean Water Action's national campaign director, spoke on legislative and regulatory overview of the Clean Water Act.
"The Bush administration deregulation of the Clean Water Act might undercut some of the progress that we are making here in the state," he told the gathering. "The Bush administration is proposing to remove all sorts of lakes, rivers, streams and ponds from coverage under the Clean Water Act."
At another workshop, Jim Young, special projects director for New Jersey Work Environmental Conference, addressed the importance of using the media in building a grass-roots campaign.
"It's important to know how to get the message across through the media," he said.
The conference also recognized David Pringle, NJEF campaign director, and Jane Nogaki, secretary of Coalition Against Toxics, their contribution to improving the environment.
Copyright 2003 The Times.
Forum: Give planning power to counties
By: David Campbell , Staff Writer 03/07/2003
Central Jersey Tranportation Forum wants counties to implement governor's smart-growth agenda.
The Central Jersey Transportation Forum has approved a plan to empower the counties to implement Gov. James E. McGreevey's statewide smart-growth agenda.
"The governor looked to this forum for a recommendation," said John Coscia of the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission, which moderates the forum. "I think without exception we have to strengthen the counties."
County Executive Robert Prunetti responded favorably to the proposal last week. While the tradition of "home rule" by New Jersey municipalities is strong, he said, he predicted most municipalities will willingly participate in the plan.
"Planning cannot stop at municipal borders, and growth doesn't stop at political or geographic boundaries," Mr. Prunetti said. "We acknowledge that growth is a fact of life if we are to have a healthy economy. This allows us to plan for growth."
Gov. McGreevey appeared before the forum in December to ask members to devise a mechanism for intermunicipal planning that would, in turn, help the state achieve its smart-growth goals and better implement the State Development and Redevelopment Plan.
The governor said smart growth is difficult to implement statewide when each of the state's 566 municipalities zones as it pleases.
In a recent meeting at Sarnoff Corp. in West Windsor, the forum's legislative subcommittee proposed a possible solution: Regional Action Plans that would give the counties authority to enforce and monitor planning by the municipalities within their borders.
Under the proposal, municipalities would work with counties and the state to devise and agree to a Regional Action Plan for each of the state's 21 counties, to be implemented and modified as needed in tandem with the State Plan.
Timed-growth ordinances, transfer of development rights, tax sharing and vehicle-trip-reduction ordinances would be among the tools municipalities could use to work together under the proposal, according to a document presented by the Legislative Committee.
To promote compliance by municipalities, counties and the state would "aggressively" employ incentives and disincentives such as legal shields for potentially litigious zoning changes, streamlined permitting processes in designated growth areas and restricting permits in conservation areas, the document said.
Bob Wolfe of Princeton Forrestal Center, chairman of the Legislative Committee, said the governor is expected to make a proposal soon that addresses regional smart-growth planning. Mr. Wolfe asked the forum to grant the committee the discretion to work with the state on the Regional Action Plan proposal, which it did.
Princeton Borough Mayor Marvin Reed, a forum member, said the Regional Action Plan proposal needs to provide opportunities for municipal planning agreements to be formed across county lines.
"It's very difficult to stay within the boundaries," Mayor Reed said. "If there is a way of doing that, this would be more applicable to our current situation."
The Princeton Borough mayor said that while incentives are important, so are disincentives by state agencies, such as restrictions by the Department of Transportation on highway access in areas not designated for growth.
"We can't have development streaming ahead of the state's ability to keep up with the infrastructure," Mayor Reed said.
Plainsboro Township Mayor and forum member Peter Cantu said he believed cooperation among municipalities under a countywide plan is possible, but recommended caution in any proposal to empower the DOT.
Mr. Coscia said the Regional Action Plan must be voluntary for municipalities, not mandatory.
Mr. Prunetti said increased funding at the county level will be a factor that needs to be addressed. As an example, the county executive cited opposition by Freeholder Brian Hughes to his request for $80,000 in the 2003 budget to create a new County Growth Management Plan that would coordinate growth and conservation initiatives by municipalities.
That proposal would cost $200,000 and take 18 months to complete, but cost would be defrayed by a $100,000 matching grant from the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation that was secured by The Regional Planning Partnership, which helped develop the plan.
Mr. Hughes called Mr. Prunetti's charge against him "unilaterally untrue," adding, "Regional planning is not something new and it shouldn't be something new to Mr. Prunetti."
The county freeholder said he questioned the $80,000 to get more information, not to cut it from the budget.
The Central Jersey Transportation Forum is made up of state and community officials and public-policy advocates in central New Jersey. It seeks solutions to transportation issues in light of current and planned growth, primarily along the Route 1 corridor and the surrounding region.
©Packet Online 2003
Wednesday, March 05, 2003
For years, we've been told that 1 million additional residents would be coming to New Jersey by 2020. The forecast just got worse. Now the expert thinking is it will be more like 1.2 million new residents.
Builders see this as more evidence that New Jersey needs lots of new houses and apartments and that the state had better plan for them. Some politicians and enviros are skeptical. They seem to believe the higher forecasts can only lead to more building in the countryside, more sprawl.
Listen to Assemblywoman Connie Myers (R-Warren): "Who says we have to grow by 1 million people? It's based on the past and it's meaningless to me."
This kind of denial is dangerous. The fact is our population is growing, and whether projections are off by 10 percent one way or another is unimportant. We need to plan if we want to avoid uncontrolled sprawl and traffic nightmares. We need more mass transit. We need to revive our cities. And we need to keep some open space off limits.
Growth is coming, and New Jersey has to plan now if it is not going to overwhelm us and diminish our quality of life. We've made that mistake before. Myers and others who want to ignore that history might reread Santayana: Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it.
Copyright 2003 The Star-Ledger.
Builders gain in revised sprawl map
New version of plan to curb growth pushes into contested regions
Tuesday, March 04, 2003
BY STEVE CHAMBERS
Star-Ledger StaffThe new version of a statewide map intended to curb sprawl will encourage more building in regions where anti-sprawl fever reached its highest pitch in the 1990s.
Places like Burlington County, Ocean County, western Monmouth County and stretches along Route 78 in Hunterdon and Somerset counties got markedly greener in the new map unveiled yesterday by the state Department of Environmental Protection.
Green on the so-called Big Map -- for Blueprint for Intelligent Growth -- is a virtual green light for developers, intended to streamline the environmental regulatory process. The green area grew by 300,000 acres to 1.027 million acres on the revised map, or roughly 20 percent of all state land and more than half of all undeveloped land.
Critics of DEP's first offering released in January argued that it did not provide enough growth areas, particularly given projections that the state population will rise by 1.2 million in the next two decades.
Others faulted DEP for sowing confusion by introducing a rival map to the state Development and Redevelopment Plan, a blueprint drawn over more than a decade that also maps out areas of the state where building should be discouraged and encouraged.
The new map unveiled yesterday by DEP Commissioner Bradley Campbell is much closer to the State Plan map, but there was continued confusion in planning circles about its implications. Builders said they were pleased that DEP had listened to their concerns, while environmentalists were wary.
"We can accommodate more growth in New Jersey," Campbell said. "We can do that even as we strengthen protection of the environment, if we do it in a rational, coherent way that is captured in this map."
Campbell said another revision of the map should be ready by spring, when it will be published along with regulatory changes necessary to give it the force of law.
Asked how red areas of the map -- where DEP will discourage building by scrutinizing environmental permits -- could shrink so much in one month, Campbell said, "as in any area that relies on data, data is never perfect."
More specifically, he said, the brunt of change came by converting to green many areas the State Plan identifies as Planning Area 2. That designation is linked to sewer service areas, where towns have decided it is reasonable to expect sewers will be built by 2020.
Some environmentalists argue that planners who drew those lines gave no regard to the impact development would have on the state's water supply. Campbell said about one-third of the PA2 areas were excluded from the DEP map for environmental reasons.
Jeff Tittel, director of the state's Sierra Club chapter, accused the DEP of bowing to pressure from builders.
"The mapping should be based on sound science and natural resource concerns," he said. "It shouldn't become a tug-of-war between environmentalists and builders."
Peter Reinhart, executive vice president and chief counsel for the K. Hovnanian Companies, the state's largest residential builder, said his company was pleased that DEP appeared willing to listen.
"Our initial take is that DEP has listened to the concerns expressed by many people about the need for more growth areas," he said. "DEP is moving in the right direction."
And at least one anti-sprawl activist pronounced the map a qualified success.
Nick A. Corcodilos, chairman of the Clinton Township Community Coalition, which opposes a large-scale development proposal called Windy Acres, said the revised map continues to designate the vast majority of that tract red. Under the State Plan, the site would have been open for development.
"It's refreshing to see the DEP presenting some science to us, and saying this is an area we need to protect," Corcodilos said. "The State Plan is a wish list that isn't based on a whole lot of anything. It's a set of suggestions without teeth."
Planners in regions that saw large additions of green were cautiously optimistic.
"This latest round of changes starts to make the Big Map more consistent with the State Plan map," said Somerset County Planning Director Bob Bzik. "We're still waiting for a more detailed explanation in terms of how this will be used to shape the legislative and regulatory agenda."
"We had invested a lot of time and effort in the State Plan map," said Bonnie Goldschlag, assistant planning director for Monmouth County. "We felt it was a very balanced map, and it's important it be taken into account."
Barbara Lawrence, director of the anti-sprawl group New Jersey Future, said questions remain. Although Campbell has said his map is meant to encourage growth in the right places, she wondered what the process has been for deciding the map's boundaries.
"The essence of what is wrong with this process is there is no process," she said.
Steve Chambers covers land-use issues. He can be reached at schambers@starledger.com or (973) 392-1674.
Copyright 2003 The Star-Ledger.
Thursday, February 20, 2003
By DARRYL R. ISHERWOOD
WEST WINDSOR - More than 30 representatives of the West Windsor business community gathered yesterday morning for the first meeting of the proposed West Windsor Business Alliance.
The meeting at the senior center was sponsored by Mayor Shing-fu Hsueh, who said the purpose of the new group is to foster a better working relationship with area businesses.
"I want to forge a stronger alliance between business and government and establish regular communication between the two," said Hsueh. "I want to make West Windsor a more business friendly community."
The meeting included representatives from the financial, real estate and retail sectors, as well as developers such as the Rouse Co., which has been contracted by the Wyeth Corp. to develop the former American Cyanamid property.
"I think this is very positive," said Warren Wilson, vice president and director of new business at Rouse and the point man for the proposed development. "It's good to see political and business leaders in the same room."
Wilson said the alliance was a great way to meet area business leaders and to help get the word out about Rouse's ideas for the development.
Hsueh told the gathered business people that property taxes in West Windsor were a major concern to him and only by bringing in more businesses, could West Windsor hope to stem the tide of escalating taxes.
Hsueh said the current ratio of 70 percent residential to 30 percent commercial tax base was not balanced enough. His goal is to raise the commercial tax base to 50 percent.
Larry Hollander, a West Windsor resident and owner of Entrepreneurial Management Group Inc., a business consulting firm, said he was happy to see a group like this meeting in the township.
"There are a lot of people who both live and work in West Windsor and it's good for us to meet with representatives from other area businesses," Hollander said. "I don't know that they've come together like this before."
One issue recently voiced by the business community is concern about increasing traffic.
Hsueh addressed those concerns, saying he hoped to work with area businesses to try to alleviate traffic problems.
"For the past year and a half, we have been talking about businesses being part of the solution instead of part of the problem," said Hsueh. West Windsor is open to businesses in the 21st century."
Yesterday's meeting was the first of what he hopes will be many, Hsueh said. A second meeting will be held at 7:30 a.m. Tuesday for any area business people who were unable to attend yesterday.
Copyright 2003 The Times.
Rouse lets business leaders in on plans for Route 1 site
By: Gwen Runkle , Staff Writer 02/14/2003
Positive reaction but also concerns about traffic and impact on adjacent malls.
WEST WINDSOR - Wyeth Inc.'s massive 653-acre property off Route 1 and Quakerbridge Road is hardly unnoticeable. With its expanse of open fields and groves of trees, it stands in stark contrast to the corridor's dense concentration of office and retail buildings.
So it's no surprise that Wyeth's plans for developing that land have garnered a high level of public attention - and now the area's business leaders are getting in on the action.
On Tuesday, nearly 100 business representatives from across the region packed the clubhouse at the Mercer Oaks Golf Course on Village Road West to hear a presentation by the Rouse Co. outlining the company's background and what it sees happening on Wyeth's property.
The presentation was sponsored by the West Windsor division of the Greater Mercer County Chamber of Commerce in cooperation with the Policy and Regional Issues Committee of the Princeton Regional Chamber of Commerce.
The Rouse Co., a leading development firm noted for projects like Boston's Faneuil Hall and South Street Seaport in New York City, was brought in by Wyeth late last year to assist in fleshing out plans for the property's future.
Currently, a mixed-use development - combining upscale shopping with stores like Nordstrom's and Banana Republic, office space, adult housing, research facilities, a hotel and community recreation space - is being considered.
About 220 acres of wetland and trees on the site are expected to remain undeveloped.
The vast majority of those in attendance at Tuesday's meeting reacted positively to Rouse's preliminary plans, but several business and municipal officials raised concerns about traffic and the effect of Wyeth's development on nearby shopping venues.
"One of our main concerns is what transportation problems rise out of this," said William Guhl, Lawrence Township municipal manager. "Rouse seems sensitive to the conditions that already exist, and it may be that a mixed-use development would generate less traffic than strictly office, but I'm not sure we could handle even mixed use.
"It may be buildable but it may be unsupportable," he continued.
Mr. Guhl also said he worries about how the mixed-use development's retail components would affect the Quaker Bridge and Mercer malls, both in Lawrence.
But Warren Wilson, vice president and director of new business development for the Rouse Co., stressed the retail uses on Wyeth's property would be different and would not lure away tenants from nearby malls or put them out of business.
"I see the malls at Quaker Bridge and Mercer continuing to be very successful," he said. "They cater to a more moderate price point. What we're proposing is high-end retail, a completely different end of the spectrum."
Other business representatives raised concerns about possible environmental contamination on the site and wanted to make sure alternate modes of transportation, such as rail or bus rapid transit, would be included, along with housing - not just for senior citizens, but also for young professionals.
In addition, some worried Rouse's plans too closely emulated concepts found in the beleaguered Princeton Forrestal Village shopping center in Plainsboro.
"When I close my eyes and envision the mixed retail, office and open-air concepts you're proposing, I see something awfully similar to the Forrestal Center, which has failed to thrive," said David Holmes of the Eden Institute in West Windsor.
But Mr. Wilson stressed he believes there is no relevant comparison between Forrestal Village and Wyeth's property, due to its location, size and the type of retail that is expected to be built.
"If we have a retail component it would have a strong anchor and would be something you couldn't find within 20 to 30 miles," he said. "Forrestal has struggled, but we see this as a completely different project."
Despite the concerns, many business representatives believed if anyone could put it all together to make both the public and business community happy, it would be Rouse.
"Right now Wyeth's property is like a hole in a doughnut for the town," said Bruce Carnegie of Maguire-Burke, a real estate agency on Quakerbridge Road. "Rouse is definitely at the top of the food chain and I believe the combination of Wyeth and Rouse has created a formidable development team. I know whatever they come up with will be good."
Rouse expects to have formal development plans available for review over the summer.
©Packet Online 2003
Mall's growth no bargain, foes say
Friday, February 14, 2003
By DARRYL R. ISHERWOOD
WEST WINDSOR - Holiday traffic jams and gridlock are not the only problems neighbors fear will worsen if the Nassau Park Pavilion shopping center is expanded.
Residents and township officials have raised more serious concerns about increased crime and the inability of rescue vehicles to penetrate the clogged roadways in and around the sprawling center.
"The crime there is rising," Port Mercer resident Marion Gordon-Gerecke told the planning board on Wednesday at a hearing to discuss the proposed addition.
Gordon-Gerecke, whose home is closest to the sprawling center that has retail behemoths Kohl's and Wegmans Food Market, said she worries about people running through her yard trying to elude police.
"I don't want to feel unsafe about my child in the back yard. We need to deal with the reality of crime at the mall," she said.
Police Chief Joe Pica said his officers spend a lot of time responding to calls from merchants and shoppers. Last year, West Windsor police responded to 2,529 calls for service in the center, an average of seven per day.
Pica said a call for service can include anything from a criminal complaint for shoplifting or car theft to a call to help alleviate traffic. The department responded to a total of 38,558 calls last year and Pica said Nassau Park represented by far the highest concentration.
With all of the activity in the parking lot, Pica said, his officers are taken away from other areas of town.
Last week alone, two men were chased in the parking lot after shoplifting from stores in the center. One man was caught in the women's room of the nearby Hooters restaurant.
"When we have an officer that spends most of his shift in that parking lot, that precludes him from patrolling other areas in that zone," said Pica. "We have 27 square miles that we are responsible to patrol; this is just one small corner."
Harrison Uhl, also a Port Mercer resident, told the planning board that in addition to crime at the center, his major concern is access for emergency services vehicles.
"There has been gridlock there where nothing was moving," said Uhl. "If somebody had an attack or if a fire started it would be impossible to do something about it."
Uhl told the board he is afraid that if he suffered a heart attack in his home, an ambulance would not be able to get through the traffic to save his life.
Princeton Junction Fire Co. Deputy Chief Dave Gayley said the residents' concerns are valid.
"It's very bad in there," said Gayley. "We wait in line and we push people out of the way. There is not a lot you can do."
Lt. Michael McMahon of the West Windsor emergency services department said his department had not experienced any problems getting into the site, and residents should not worry in the event of an emergency.
"We haven't had a problem getting in. We still have the ability to get in with lights and sirens," he said.
While Pica is quick to acknowledge traffic problems in the center, he also advised residents not to worry: Emergency vehicles will get to them if they are in trouble.
"There could be a slight delay, but we'll get to them, you can be sure of that," Pica said.
The planning board is listening to the residents' concerns and has told the developer a solution to the access problem must be met to the board's satisfaction before the expansion plan will be approved. The board also has asked for specific crime statistics from the site's private security force.
"I consider (access) a major problem," said Planning Board chairman Marvin Gardner. "I think the plan needs to include not only local police hired by the developer, but access for emergency vehicles with a dedicated lane."
Pica said a dedicated officer would greatly alleviate the problem of officers assigned to other areas of the township spending too much time responding to calls at the center.
The developer, Developers Diversified Realty has attempted to address some of the concerns of the Port Mercer residents but there had been no assurances that the residents' request for a fence to keep out any unwanted fugitives will be honored.
Tim Todaro, a representative for the developer, told the planning board that a fence was being considered, but he could not guarantee it until he determined the cost.
Todaro was not available for comment, however, Scott Schroeder, a spokesman for Developers Diversified Realty, said the developer was open to discussions with the residents.
"We want to be a good neighbor. If that's what they want, we are looking into it and we'll see what we can do," said Schroeder.
The planning board hearing on the proposed addition was continued until Feb. 26, when the board hopes to get additional information on the developer's plans to alleviate traffic into and out of the center.
Copyright 2003 The Times.
S. Brunswick OKs pact to preserve 214 acres
Deal lets Princeton University build more research, office space
Thursday, February 06, 2003
BY SUE EPSTEIN
Star-Ledger StaffAfter extended debate, the South Brunswick council voted early yesterday morning to approve an agreement with Princeton University that would preserve 214 acres -- part of the former Princeton Nurseries property -- just south and east of Kingston.
In return, the university's development arm, Princeton Forrestal Associates, received the rights to double the amount of office and research space it can build on 150 acres adjacent to Route 1 at some point in the next 20 years.
The town would also have to rezone 78 acres from residential to office and research as part of the agreement, a move that would bring South Brunswick into conflict with Gov. James E. McGreevey's state planning map unveiled last month. But, state officials say the map is still a "work in progress," and wouldn't interfere with concluding the agreement.
The 3-2 vote came after midnight and followed extended debate over permitting Princeton to construct buildings higher than one story and whether the township should have any agreement at all with Princeton.
Councilman Edmund Luciano, a Democrat, argued Princeton is a major supporter of Route 92, a controversial toll road that would connect Interchange 8A of the New Jersey Turnpike with Route 1 through South Brunswick -- a project that has been vigorously opposed by the council for several years. He said he could not vote in favor of any agreement with Princeton.
The Route 92 project is in limbo awaiting completion of an environmental study on the project and a decision by the Army Corps of Engineers on whether to approve permits to fill in about 11 acres of freshwater wetlands.
Councilman Edward Van Hessen, the governing body's lone Republican, argued that the agreement violated the township's own master plan by permitting the university to construct five-story buildings on the 150 acres along Route 1.
The agreement had the support of the other council members -- Mayor Frank Gambatese, Councilwoman Carol Barrett and Councilman Christopher Killmurray.
Following the vote, Gambatese and members of Princeton Forrestal who were present at the meeting, signed the agreement.
Gambatese, who has made the project a cornerstone of his term as mayor, said in 30 days the council will introduce the zoning ordinances required by the agreement. Once the ordinances are passed, the land swap becomes legal. He expects the entire transaction to be finished by June 1.
The township is getting 72 acres outright and another 70 acres that it will own jointly with the state Green Acres program. The rest of the property will belong to the Delaware & Raritan Canal State Park.
The land purchased by Green Acres is still owned by the Flemer family. The Flemers originally owned all of the land and founded Princeton nurseries in 1913.
Princeton University purchased 488 acres from Princeton Nurseries in 1986. The land straddles the South Brunswick and Plainsboro borders with 364 acres in South Brunswick and 124 acres in Plainsboro.
The agreement matches one forged by the university with Plainsboro in 1986 in which Princeton agreed not to develop land west of Mapleton Road in return for Plainsboro rezoning a part of the nursery between Route 1 and the Delaware & Raritan Canal to permit 2 million square feet of office and research development and 220 luxury apartments. The university hasn't built any office space yet, although construction has begun on the apartments.
Sue Epstein covers Middlesex County. She can be reached at sep stein@starledger.com or (732) 634-6482.
Copyright 2003 The Star-Ledger.
Comments from Robert von Zumbusch:
This "deal" does NOT let Princeton University build more research, office space.
The "deal" would allow Princeton University to build more research, office space on the South Brunswick portion of the former Princeton Nurseries land, but caps the total amount of research, office space on the former Princeton Nurseries land in both Plainsboro and South Brunswick combined at 2.9 million square feet (the amount allowed under current zoning.) It
effectively allows Princeton University the right to transfer some of the research, office space from Plainsboro to South Brunswick, but NOT to increase the total combined amount of research, office space in the two townships. The "deal" also eliminates a residential area (on which approximately 300 new dwelling units could be built. It preserves the historic cultural landscape on Mapleton Road in South Brunswick (that in Plainsboro was largely lost to the 220 units of "upscale" rental housing know once as the "Villas at Tuscany" and now as "Barkley Square" and the road revisions that accompanied it.) Not only will the land between Mapleton Road and the D. & R. Canal be preserved, but a considerable amount of the land along the east side of the road including the core of the former Kingston Site of Princeton Nurseries. Furthermore, not only the land, but also most of the historic buildings (including a few of the
greenhouses)which are an integral part of the scenic and historic cultural landscape will be preserved with historic and footprint easements.This "deal" will not reduce the amount of research, office space in the Route 1 corridor, but it will not increase it either. The deal will preserve a significant historic cultural landscape that is important in its own right and a key part of the context of the D. & R. Canal. South Brunswick Township, particularly it Mayor, and Princeton University are to be commended for having the vision to implement this deal. The "deal" concentrates development in the immediate Route 1 corridor and preserves open space in the D. & R. Canal corridor (as well as the greenbelt around
Kingston.) There are still details to be worked out, but this is a significant accomplishment for all who have worked on the preservation of this critical area for so many years.Needless to say, the regional problem of the Route 1 corridor remains and still desperately needs to be addressed in a regional manner.
Brownfields may become light-industry center
Tuesday, February 04, 2003
By ALBERT RABOTEAU
TRENTON - The city plans to acquire more than 10 acres in North Trenton to create a light-industrial complex similar to the award-winning Route 1 Commerce Center on North Clinton Avenue.
The new complex would be along the Assunpink Creek off Enterprise Avenue and stretching to Lawrence. A portion of the site is in Lawrence. How that will affect the project has not been determined, city officials said.
The site is comprised of two properties. City officials expect MedPointe Healthcare Inc. to eventually give them about 7 1/2 acres. MedPointe's land, often called the Carter Wallace Site, after a former owner, had housed a condom manufacturing plant.
A liable party, the Youngs Rubber Corp. shareholder Liquidating Trust, has spent millions clearing the site of pollution, city officials said. The cleanup is expected to be complete soon and the transfer of property to the city will follow, they said.
The city also plans to pay $150,000 for an adjacent, 3-acre plot owned by Princeton Commerce Center Inc. Legislation authorizing the purchase will be introduced Thursday by the city council.
Including both properties, the Enterprise Avenue site would be slightly larger than the Route 1 Commerce Center, but how many businesses would be located at the new site and whether it would be broken up into parcels or transferred in its entirety to some developer, has not been decided, city officials said.
"We've had considerable interest by small companies looking for a place to put a new 10,000-square-foot or 20,000-square-foot building," said Dennis Gonzalez, city director of housing and economic development.
The Route 1 Commerce Center, often referred to as the Crane site, after the pottery company once located there, is often cited by city officials as a example of reviving a long-vacant and polluted location that was an eyesore for decades.
The Route 1 Commerce Center received a 2001 Phoenix Award. Such awards honor efforts to develop contaminated manufacturing sites, known as brownfields.
The city plans to use about $2.5 million in U.S. Economic Development Administration grant money preparing the Enterprise Avenue site for construction. Some city money will be added, but how much has not been decided, said Leah Yashenchak, city brownfields coordinator.
The EDA funds are part of a $4.7 million grant the city received after 1999's Tropical Storm Floyd swelled the Assunpink, flooding several industrial properties in North Trenton.
The Enterprise Avenue site is along the creek but out of its flood plain, Yashenchak said. She said the site hopefully will be ready for construction by fall 2004.
Copyright 2003 The Times
Thursday, January 30, 2003
Gov. James E. McGreevey has made fighting sprawl a top priority. The governor used his State of the State address to call uncontrolled development the "root cause" of high auto insurance bills, high property taxes and high school taxes.
McGreevey was not shy about placing the blame: Developers use deep pockets and high-priced legal talent to "bully" towns into taking sprawl. Builders saddle taxpayers with the costs for added roads and schools while they get the profit from strip malls and McMansions.
Builders see it differently and place the blame elsewhere: The governor ignores the state's affordable housing crisis, they say; he downplays key principles of the state's own development plan.
Look just beyond the tough talk and a more promising picture emerges. The governor and the builders have agendas that are strikingly similar, at least on the surface. They should put aside the hawkish rhetoric and focus their efforts on finding the common ground that will save open space and promote economic growth.
Balancing these often-conflicting interests will not be easy. The governor's bellicose tone is especially disappointing given the political challenges and the need to build consensus. But the two sides have a number of natural starting points.
Both builders and McGreevey recognize that high property taxes sap the state's vitality. Seniors cannot afford to stay in their homes, and poor communities cannot afford to educate their children.
The governor has not been willing to tackle the property tax issue head on, either through a constitutional convention or a plan to redistribute the tax burden. But he wants to establish impact fees -- cash payments from developers to towns that take some of the sting out of paying for the additional children and vehicles that accompany construction.
The builders agree that "equitable" impact fees have a place. They undoubtedly have a different view of what "equitable" means. But there is room for negotiation.
The same is true for many major planks in an anti-sprawl platform. Both the administration and the builders speak of better targeting land for open space purchases. That change is overdue.
Too often preservation is proposed only after a developer becomes interested in building housing. Towns scramble to buy out the developer, and the resulting bidding war raises the cost to taxpayers. Such "ambush acquisition" undercuts wise planning and produces a patchwork of open space parcels with little or no connection to each other and minimal benefit to the environment or wildlife.
Environmental Commissioner Bradley Campbell and the builders agree in principle on another, closely related issue, one that is perhaps the most challenging of all: the need to decide where we should and should not build in the coming years.
Development is going to happen. Our cities and suburbs aren't big enough to accommodate all of the 1 million-plus new residents expected by 2025. Some of those people will go to outlying areas.
Most people in New Jersey like their communities just the way they are. Those in already developed areas are not interested in getting more traffic, and neither are residents of rural towns and villages.
Both the administration and the development community have expressed support for clustering most new development. The best way to save open space and reduce, if only slightly, our addiction to the auto is to connect clusters in outlying areas to existing centers.
The Department of Environmental Protection has proposed a new map to guide development decisions. It outlines areas to be developed (shaded in green) and areas to be preserved (shaded in red). Areas in between, where development is not to be encouraged or discouraged, are colored yellow. The shades are based on environmental criteria, such as effect on water supplies, endangered species and the like.
Builders see too much red. Many local towns do not see enough. The DEP says the coloring is subject to change, based on input from all groups. That dialogue is supposed to take place over the next few months.
We suggest a more serious, more structured outreach effort on all sides. Now there seems to be more sound-bite sniping than productive exchange of ideas and specific suggestions. Biweekly meetings between ranking DEP and other administration officials and representatives of builders and municipalities, environmental groups and the business community could change that.
There will be plenty of arguments over the planning map, government priorities, home rule and other thorny issues. That's all right. We do not need another public relations exercise. We need messy negotiation that produces results.
It will be hard work, much harder than trading verbal jabs. But building on the common ground is the only way to lay the foundation for a better New Jersey.
Copyright 2003 The Star-Ledger.
Monday, January 20, 2003
New Jersey now has a "super map" to guide development, and it has developers seeing red.
The new state planning map paints New Jersey red, green and yellow to indicate, respectively, where building will be discouraged, encouraged and allowed with the usual standard of review. It is a promising strategy, but it needs refining.
For instance, most of Hunterdon, Warren and Sussex counties are targeted for preservation. Most construction is to be steered to the densely populated regions near New York and Philadelphia, and along the Monmouth County shore.
Regulations and state spending decisions are to put teeth behind the map zones. Permits will be easier to get in green areas, harder in red zones. State dollars for new roads, sewers and other needs will be targeted to the growth areas.
So far so good. But this map has a glaring weakness: There aren't many rural "centers" being given a green light for growth. At best, hamlets and villages are labeled yellow, places where the state won't discourage building but won't do anything to encourage it, either.
Unfortunately, the zones earmarked for growth in our cities and older suburbs don't have enough room for all the 1 million new residents expected in New Jersey over the next two decades. Small outlying centers will have to add streets here and there, or else many of those people will end up living in Pennsylvania or New York -- and still clogging our highways while they drive to and from work.
The good news is that Environmental Commissioner Bradley Campbell recognizes Gov. James E. McGreevey's war on sprawl will fail unless there are enough places to accommodate the growth that is coming. Rural centers will need to take their share. This map could change.
The map has a lot going for it. Unlike previous efforts, the boundary lines have some rational justification. They were drawn using detailed information about the location of critical water resources, endangered species and valuable natural habitats, and roads, sewers and other infrastructure.
If the administration amends the map to encourage growth in some of those rural villages and hamlets instead of locking them away in a picturesque time warp, the map could become a blueprint for preserving our most vulnerable spaces.
(The map can be found at the Department of Environmental Protection's Web site at http://www.state.nj.us/dep/antisprawl/map.html.)
Copyright 2003 The Star-Ledger.
Sprawl talk harks back to Whitman
Ex-governor had much the same idea
Sunday, January 19, 2003
BY ALEXANDER LANE
Star-Ledger StaffSpeaking before the Legislature, the governor launched a bold new campaign to steer development away from cornfields and into cities.
"Every part of New Jersey suffers when we plan haphazardly," the governor declared. "Sprawl eats up our open space. It creates traffic jams that boggle the mind and pollute the air."
James E. McGreevey last week? No, Christie Whitman in 1998.
That year, Whitman launched a series of anti-sprawl programs that eerily mirror the proposals McGreevey unveiled in his State of the State speech on Tuesday.
Whitman vowed to give teeth to the state's development plan, just as McGreevey did. She spoke in favor of letting towns charge developers "impact fees," like McGreevey. And she pledged to help redevelop old industrial sites, direct builders to urban areas, and spend more on open space, as McGreevey has.
"A lot of that speech was very familiar," said Eileen McGinness, who was chief of policy for Whitman and until recently her chief of staff at the Environmental Protection Agency. "We talked about very much the same things."
Despite some successes -- particularly in open-space acquisition -- anti-sprawl crusaders view Whitman's efforts as mostly fruitless. Yet they're optimistic about McGreevey's chances.
"The atmosphere is completely different in 2003 than in 1998," said Barbara Lawrence, executive director of the smart-growth group New Jersey Future. "The recognition of the problem is higher in municipal halls as well as in people's living rooms."
Or is that just wishful thinking?
By 1998, sprawl had emerged as one of the most pressing issues in New Jersey and in the nation. In a Star-Ledger/Eagleton-Rutgers Poll that year, 72 percent of voters said preserving open space was "very important."
Whitman seized the issue, devoting 51 paragraphs of her inaugural address to ideas about redeveloping cities, curbing suburban building, easing traffic and saving open space.
"Too many towns bend over backward to pursue development, hoping it will help balance their budgets," she said. "In the process, they strain not only their backs but also the services needed to support this development. The result is a double whammy: less open space and higher property taxes."
McGreevey said much the same thing last week. His suggested solutions include several that Whitman tried. She directed state agencies to use the State Plan for Development and Redevelopment -- which envisions fewer rural strip malls and more urban development -- as their "fundamental guide" in granting permits to developers. McGreevey unveiled similar proposals on Thursday.
Whitman appointed an activist State Planning Commission chairman who vowed to breathe new life into the state plan. She also spoke in favor of legislation to allow municipalities to temporarily freeze development and charge developers "impact fees" to cover the costs of municipal services -- two key proposals in McGreevey's nascent anti-sprawl package.
Under withering attack from builders and town officials protective of home rule, those anti-sprawl laws died in the Legislature. Whitman's effort to enforce the state plan shriveled.
There were exceptions. One area where sprawl opponents credit Whitman with some success is in preserving open space. She backed a program to spend more than $1 billion over 10 years to preserve open space, which 68 percent of the state's voters supported on Election Day in 1998. McGreevey's open-space preservation plan calls for using this money.
Nevertheless, builders agree with environmentalists that it's a different governor in a different time now. Whitman never mustered the venom toward builders that McGreevey demonstrated in his State of the State speech, said Henry Hill, a lawyer for many New Jersey developers.
"This speech was personal," Hill said. "Everybody in home building is reeling right now, wondering whether he's (McGreevey) gone to war with a $3 billion industry."
Democratic lawmakers said McGreevey has a much better chance of shepherding his ideas into legislation than Whitman did, partly because he has made the fight against unwise development more of a priority.
"He's addressing it out of the box in his first State of the State speech, whereas Gov. Whitman waited until the beginning of her second term," said Assembly Majority Leader Joe Roberts (D-Camden).
McGreevey spokesman Micah Rasmussen said the current governor is more determined than the former.
"There's no question this is going to be difficult. There's no question this is going to meet with a lot of resistance," Rasmussen said. "The governor has no illusions about that. But this is a battle that must be fought, and must be won."
Also, there are some indications that some of those who opposed Whitman's anti-sprawl measures are willing to deal now. The president of the League of Municipalities -- which represents local leaders who are protective of home rule -- said the league was willing to talk with the McGreevey administration about towns ceding some planning power to the county level. And Hill said builders were willing to consider impact fees as long as they are fair.
Then again, the league initially supported some of Whitman's efforts, only to later join builders in the fight against them. And developers claimed to accept the idea of impact fees in the late 1990s, only to undermine the idea by supporting an impact-fee bill full of loopholes.
Already Roberts was raising questions last week about whether "there might be an issue of Constitutionality" with respect to McGreevey's proposal to let towns pass one-year development moratoriums.
Inevitably, the same opposition that squashed some of Whitman's ideas will rise up against McGreevey's, McGinness said.
"He's going to have the same fight in the Legislature," McGinness said. "These ideas have been around a long time. The difficulty is executing them."
Alexander Lane may be reached at alane@starledger.com or (732) 634-1236.
Copyright 2003 The Star-Ledger.
State officials draw the line on sprawl
State maps out where growth should occur
Friday, January 17, 2003
BY DUNSTAN McNICHOL
Star-Ledger StaffTwo days after Gov. James E. McGreevey promised to draw the line on suburban sprawl, administration officials yesterday showed where that line falls.
They unveiled a new map that plots how the state intends to steer housing and commercial development away from New Jersey's dwindling farmlands and forests.
"This will be a true blueprint for New Jersey's future," said state Department of Community Affairs Commissioner Susan Bass Levin during a Statehouse news conference.
The new planning map paints better than two-thirds of the state in red, the color that marks the areas where the administration wants to stop housing development. The areas cordoned off for protection include most of Sussex, Warren and Hunterdon counties.
The initial reaction from developers was skeptical, while environmentalists welcomed the new map.
In some cases, it differs from a similar map formulated under the existing State Plan. For example, a stretch of the Route 78 corridor west of Bridgewater that had been designated for growth under the State Plan map is now in a red zone.
Areas where state officials want to steer growth, shown in green on the map, include most of the densely populated areas of the state adjacent to New York City and Philadelphia as well as the northern and eastern reaches of Monmouth County. Areas where the administration wants to take a cautious approach to growth are marked in yellow.
Once the map is adopted in final form, developers will find it much tougher to get state permits to build housing projects in the red areas, said Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Bradley Campbell.
For example, Campbell said permits to disturb wetlands will have tighter standards in red areas than in the green zones. Developers in red areas will have more trouble getting permits for highway access than those seeking to build in green growth zones.
In addition, state funds will no longer be used to build new highways or make other improvements that contribute to growth in areas the state does not want development, Campbell said.
"We're going to make sure that not a single dime is spent to subsidize growth there," said Campbell. "It means that the (transportation) projects that contribute to sprawl -- lane widenings and new roads -- are going to be limited in these areas."
Levin and acting Transportation Commissioner Jack Lettiere said some of that process has already begun. Lettiere noted that state spending on highway expansion, which accounted for 20 percent of transportation spending a year ago, made up only 4 percent of this year's DOT budget. Levin said the Housing Mortgage Finance Agency is already using the new map to target its next round of aid.
Developers and planners were reluctant to comment on the new map, largely because they did not get the chance to see it until late yesterday. But several did say McGreevey's changes to the 12-year-old State Plan will hurt developers who have spent years and dollars laying the groundwork for housing projects under existing state building rules.
"We just went through a good 10 years formulating a state plan," said Bill Weber, president of Pulte Homes, developer of the proposed 911-home Windy Acres project in Hunterdon County. The Windy Acres site was designated a growth area under the State Plan, but is colored a cautious yellow on the new map.
"If in fact the DEP map supersedes the State Plan map, I would hope there's some sort of grandfathering," said Weber.
Henry Hill, attorney for many of the state's most prolific developers, said the new ground rules will generate legal challenges if they are applied to projects launched under current rules.
"When you try to wipe out a large investment, you're likely to face litigation," he said.
Campbell stressed that the first draft of the state's new development plan will likely undergo numerous changes before it is finally adopted by midyear. He said the McGreevey Cabinet will hold hearings on the proposed map in every county, and the public will be able to comment on the proposal through the DEP's Web site (www.state.nj.us/dep).
The state will open a 60-day public comment period on the map next month. The DEP and Department of Transportation will propose new regulations that will establish tiers of standards for development permits. Looser standards would apply to the areas where the state wants to promote development.
Campbell described the new map as the state's first attempt to use newer, more precise data about the presence of endangered species and valuable habitat to establish boundaries for desired growth: "I think this is a revolutionary approach in terms of smart government," he said. "This is a major step forward for sound policy, for smart growth in New Jersey."
He said he has met with legislative leaders about changes in state laws that would be needed to allow quick approvals for development in areas where the state wants to target growth.
Viewed on a statewide scale, the new map is overwhelmingly red. Green "growth" areas hug the urban fringes of the state, with large additional green areas marking Trenton, Phillipsburg, Vineland and Bridgeton. Yellow "caution" areas include communities such as Readington that are already peppered with housing developments.
Campbell said a closer look will reveal that even the predominantly red sectors are laced with pockets of green and yellow.
Environmentalists embraced the new map.
"At least you see there is a fundamental basis for this mapping," said Jeff Tittel, director of the state's Sierra Club chapter. "Here you see there's a science to the mapping. That's a significant improvement."
Copyright 2003 The Star-Ledger.
http://www.nj.com/statehouse/ledger/index.ssf?/base/news-0/104278777479370.xml
also of interest:
Trenton Times article "Governor's `Big Map' tells where to build"New York Times "New Jersey Officials Present Map Showing Battlefields in New Fight on Sprawl"
Thursday, January 16, 2003
BY EDITORIAL
Gov. James E. McGreevey has made war on sprawl his top governmental priority in 2003. It's not a bad choice, both substantively and politically. The steps he proposed in his State of the State speech would address a real problem, and it wouldn't cost the state much money - a big plus when a $5 billion budget deficit is looming. But many obstacles stand between rhetoric and results.
The governor said he intends to put teeth in the State Development and Redevelopment Plan, which was intended to steer growth to cities, inner suburbs and older town centers with infrastructure already in place. Past governors have made similar pledges, but somehow the state-funded sewers and roads that make possible new construction in pristine open areas continue to be built. He said he'll push for new laws that would allow municipalities to charge impact fees to builders to pay for the additional public facilities made necessary by their projects, and also allow them to impose moratoriums on development so those facilities could be provided as the need emerges. He'll support expanding the authority of county and regional planning agencies to regulate land use that now is solely the province of individual municipalities, and he'll provide "legal firepower" from the Attorney General's Office to towns being sued by builders to allow more development than the towns want.
Those are worthy plans. But there remain those huge obstacles to be overcome before New Jersey can, in the governor's words, "say `no' to development in all the wrong places and `yes' to development that works for communities." One of them is the builders' lobby, which is extremely powerful at the State House and has defeated previous attempts to authorize such sensible things as impact fees and timed-growth ordinances. It's doubtful that the "carrot" part of the governor's program - expedited permission to build in cities and other already-developed areas - will be enough to persuade the builders to accept the "stick" part without monumental political battles. Another obstacle is the passion for home rule that grips so many mayors, town councils and township committees and is likely to impede any effort to give county planning boards the power to modify municipal land-use decisions.
The governor cited, as one of the malign results of uncontrolled development, New Jersey's overreliance on local property taxes to fund government. The evidence is as strong or stronger that it's the other way around, as Gov. McGreevey, a former mayor of Woodbridge, must know. For years, municipal officials' desperate pursuit of ratables has led them to make short-sighted land-use decisions that contribute to sprawl. Many of these decisions, as the governor noted correctly, turn out in the long run to generate more costs than revenues. Nevertheless, until New Jersey reforms its tax system, it can hardly expect to achieve real and lasting reform of its land-use policies. This administration has offered no fresh ideas for permanently reducing the tax burden on the state's property owners. We hope, in due time, that it will do so.
Copyright 2003 The Times.
Governor's proposal sparks local questions
Thursday, January 16, 2003
BY ALEXANDER LANE
Star-Ledger StaffGov. James E. McGreevey's new anti-sprawl proposals stirred hope, sparked skepticism and provoked a bevy of questions among municipal officials yesterday.
They wondered which towns would qualify for McGreevey's proposed one-year building bans. They wanted to know how much they would be able to charge builders for stress to schools and streets under the governor's proposal to legalize "impact fees."
McGREEVEY MAKES PLEA FOR OPEN SPACE. PAGE 13 Perhaps most of all, they wondered what power counties would usurp from them under McGreevey's push for regional planning.
Final answers won't come until McGreevey's ideas are turned into legislation, but administration officials rushed to reassure local leaders that they would not lose cherished home-rule control of their governments.
McGreevey introduced the ideas, along with proposals to spend more on open space, encourage building on old industrial properties and assist towns in court fights against developers, in his State of the State speech Tuesday.
"Good concepts. Good ideas," said William Dressel, executive director of the State League of Municipalities, which represents local governments. "Now he's got to sell the troops."
The troops are mayors, township committee members, county freeholders and the like -- the officials who try to navigate the middle ground between chasing new tax revenues and fighting unwanted development.
McGreevey's team will try to pull them onto his anti-sprawl bandwagon in a series of meetings in each of the state's counties, which Dressel and administration officials plan to set up on Friday.
Morris County's meeting promises to be lively.
Randolph Mayor Gary Algeier said McGreevey's ideas worried him. Algeier, whose formerly agricultural town issued 1,084 building permits from 1995 to 2001, said McGreevey's idea for one-year building moratoriums would put people out of work and dampen the local economy. He also wondered who would make the rules.
"Who says that the town is being overwhelmed with growth?" asked Algeier, a Republican. "Does the town say that? Does some bureaucrat say that?"
Mayor Benjamin Spinelli in neighboring Chester Township said the moratorium and the impact fees sounded like good ideas, but he was worried McGreevey would transfer too much power from municipalities to counties.
Several other leaders voiced the same concern.
"I wouldn't want the county telling Wantage or Hardyston, 'Here's what best for you,'" said Sussex County Freeholder Director Hal Wirths, a Republican.
Though Sussex has increased in population from 116,119 in 1980 to 144,166 in 2000, Wirths said the county and its municipalities have managed their growth just fine.
"All in all, I don't think we need the governor's help in telling us how to run Sussex County," Wirths said.
Warren County Planning Director David Dech was similarly skeptical of McGreevey's new schemes. He pointed out that legislation for greater county planning power fluttered around in the mid-1990s before being killed by building lobbyists and the League of Municipalities.
"Do I think it's going to be any different this year? No, I don't," Dech said.
Dressel said that while he's still waiting for details, the League of Municipalities might be much more willing to see some local authority shift to the county level.
"We wouldn't even have entertained this kind of a discussion 10 or 15 years ago," Dressel said. "Now, given the problems, given the issues, given the fact that traffic congestion doesn't know municipal boundaries, I think it's time we take a look at what the governor wants to propose."
There are limits to what locals will accept, Dressel said. "If the county government is going to pre-empt and usurp traditional municipal planning and zoning prerogatives, then we're going to have a major problem," he said.
Susan Bass Levin, commissioner of the state Department of Community Affairs, said that won't happen. "That is not the intention at all," Bass Levin said. "The intention is really to resolve disputes between towns."
When one town wants to build a strip mall on its border and a neighboring municipality objects, the county planning board could intervene under the changes McGreevey envisions, Bass Levin said. That proposal, like the others, will be fleshed out in a major legislative package McGreevey will soon present, Bass Levin said.
The one-year building moratorium will probably be available to towns that intend to use the downtime to make major planning changes, such as a master- plan revision, and would probably have to be approved by the state, Bass Levin said.
Construction that is already approved would be allowed to go ahead as planned, but towns could freeze further applications to put their zoning more in line with the state's overall development vision, she said.
"Our existing state land use law favors developers," Bass Levin said. "The governor's agenda will change the balance."
That's music to the ears of Peter Cantu, a Democrat who has been mayor of the formerly agricultural Middlesex County township of Plainsboro for the past 23 years, as its population has skyrocketed by more than 260 percent.
"I applaud the governor for identifying and taking on one of the most pressing issues we face as a state," said Cantu, who is also executive director of Keep Middlesex Moving, an organization that fights congestion by promoting alternatives to cars.
Cantu said McGreevey's regional planning proposal was the most promising of the bunch, but stressed that municipalities should be permitted to help draft regional plans and county planning boards should have the power to enforce them.
Barbara Lawrence, the executive director of New Jersey Future, an anti-sprawl group, said McGreevey's speech represented a victory for sprawl fighters, since it was the first time a governor had made sprawl a major theme of an administration.
But the outcome could be revolutionary or insignificant, depending on how the legislation looks in the end, she said. One thing's for sure, Lawrence said: McGreevey has bet heavily on sprawl as a political punching bag.
"He can't back away from this. He's the most able politician in New Jersey and the most able politician in New Jersey has decided fighting sprawl is good politics," Lawrence said. "Everyone has to notice that."
Staff writers Kristen Alloway, Katie Wang and Jim Lockwood contributed to this report.
Copyright 2003 The Star-Ledger.
Other article of interest:
New Jersey Governor Speaks Fervently on Sprawl, but Is Silent on Taxes The New York Times, January 15, 2003
University poised to swap land to gain hotel zone
By: Sharlee Jay DiMenichi , The Packet Group 01/10/2003
South Brunswick would acquire 220 acres of open space.
SOUTH BRUNSWICK - The township could acquire about 220 acres of open space from Princeton University in exchange for rezoning another 75 acres along Route 1, Mayor Frank Gambatese announced Saturday.
The proposal would require the creation of a new zone that would allow the university to build a hotel and conference center on the Route 1 property.
The parcels are part of a 370-acre tract bounded by Route 1, Ridge Road and Mapleton Road that contains both the historic Flemmer farmstead and greenhouses used by Princeton Nurseries, Mayor Gambatese said Tuesday.
The university owns approximately 300 acres surrounding the 70-acre farm owned by the Flemmers. The university plans to acquire the Flemmer farm and give it to the township along with 150 acres of its own property as part of the proposal.
Seventy-five of the 300 acres owned by Princeton University are zoned office/research and 225 are residential.
In exchange for the open space, the township would rezone 75 acres of property currently zoned residential to either office research or office conference, a zone that would have to be created by the township. The rezoning would give the university 150 contiguous office-zoned acres along Route 1, because it already owns 75 acres zoned for office-research in the area, Mr. Gambatese said.
"They intend to bring in a large international company," Mayor Gambatese said Saturday.
Mayor Gambatese said he did not know which company might occupy the land. He also said the slow economy might delay Princeton's plans.
The proposal would call for the council to create a new office/corporate zone. University officials are expected to approach the council Jan. 21 to ask it to create the new zone. Mr. Gambatese said the proposed office-conference zone would allow construction of a hotel on Princeton's property. Hotels are not permitted in the office-research zone. The proposed zone also would allow a maximum building height of 58 feet, compared with the 50-foot limit in the office-research zone, Mr. Gambatese said.
Planning Board member Joe Spataro said the zoning change is prudent.
"The rezoning that they asked for along the highway makes some sense because you cannot build housing along the highway," said Mr. Spataro.
The township Open Space Committee has long had the 150-acre parcel high on its list of desirable acquisitions, Mayor Gambatese said. It is part of a proposed open-space buffer around the village of Kingston.
Mayor Gambatese said he would like the open space parcel to be used for an ecological study area and for passive recreation.
"We're not looking to develop this into ballfields. We're not looking to develop this into an active area," Mayor Gambatese said.
The township will not have to pay to acquire the land, but will likely use money from the open-space trust fund and Green Acres funding to develop it, Mr. Gambatese said.
©Packet Online 2003
Environmental group pans warehouse project
Friday, January 10, 2003
By ANDREW KITCHENMAN
WASHINGTON TOWNSHIP - The Sierra Club's Central New Jersey Group said yesterday that it opposes the 5.6 million square feet in warehouses approved by the township for an area near Interstate 195.
Edward Pfeiffer of the Sierra Club said the planned warehouses conflict with the goal of "smart growth."
"We think a development of this size is just not smart growth at all," Pfeiffer said.
According to Mayor Douglas P. Tindall, the warehouse development is a necessary part of the township plan, which includes the development of residences, offices and retail shops in the Town Center. Tindall was elected mayor by the township committee on Monday.
The plan includes preservation of open space in other areas, Tindall said.
"We've been doing intelligent planning all along," Tindall said.
A group of residents from neighboring Upper Freehold Township filed suit to stop Matrix Development Group from building the warehouses in December.
The Sierra Club group sent a letter to Gov. James E. McGreevey, expressing its opposition and "calling for a rigorous smart growth review by all relevant state agencies that would relocate this complex to a more appropriate area such as a brownfield."
Pfeiffer said the township should look elsewhere for land uses that would raise tax revenue.
"I think any township should explore other options," especially to plans that affect residents in other townships, Pfeiffer said.
Tindall said the warehouse plan has features the state aims for in smart growth. It is near two major highways, I-195 and the New Jersey Turnpike, and allows for the preservation of open space in other parts of the township, Tindall said.
He said trucks would be a short distance from the highways and the development would prevent homes from being built near the noisy Turnpike.
Tindall, a farmer, said he is particularly concerned with preserving open space.
"I think I'm a steward of the land, and I try to instill that stewardship in the municipality," Tindall said.
The Sierra Club group said the warehouses would cause problems including storm water contamination, development of a farmland habitat that supports the endangered Savannah sparrow and bog turtle, and would increase traffic on Old York Road adding pressure to urbanize the area.
The group also said it is a threat to an area of "numerous skirmishes and encampments of British and Hessian troops on their way to the Battle of Monmouth in 1778. It should be further surveyed, investigated and protected" as a historical heritage area, according to a statement by the group.
Copyright 2003 The Times.
Friday, January 10, 2003
By DARRYL R. ISHERWOOD
WEST WINDSOR - A proposal to expand the sprawling Nassau Park Pavilion shopping center on Route 1 has drawn protests from gridlock-weary locals who fear the new stores will only worsen traffic problems there.
Developers Diversified Realty Co., an Ohio-based developer, appeared before the township planning board Wednesday night to pitch a site plan for an expansion that would add 78,000 square feet to the Route 1 center, which already houses Kohl's, Wegmans and other retail giants.
The new stores would increase the size of the shopping center by almost 20 percent.
The overall development was approved nine years ago, but the center was built in phases so the developer must again get the town's blessing before construction can begin.
Among the new stores they hope to add are Babies "R" Us, which will anchor the addition, plus several new smaller retail stores.
Some say expanding the center will make a bad situation even worse.
"You (already) can't get out of that parking lot," said planning board member Bill Benfer, who said he sat in the lot for more than an hour on Jan. 3, after the height of the holiday season. "That's a terribly designed area."
Benfer said he waited in line so long that his young granddaughter had to get out of the car and use the restroom at a restaurant. Benfer said his granddaughter had to wait in line with 13 other traffic-trapped children who had the same idea.
He said navigating the congested parking lots there was like "trying to put a 25-pound fish in a two-pound bag."
Nassau Park Pavilion, along with its neighbor Nassau Park, which is home to Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Home Depot and others, comprise more than 1 million square feet of shopping space.
Traffic from the two centers has long been a problem in the area, culminating at Christmas when delays of more than an hour were endured by shoppers trying to exit the parking lot of the Route 1 center.
The traffic was so bad the week before Christmas that West Windsor police were called out to try to alleviate the problem.
"The primary impact is at Thanksgiving and Christmas. During that time period, traffic is pretty much at a standstill," said West Windsor Police Chief Joe Pica. "From our perspective there is a problem, but I'm not a traffic engineer. I'll leave it up to the professionals to come up with a solution."
-- -- --Consultants to the developer presented their site plan to the planning board Wednesday, including ideas to relieve the traffic congestion such as widening roads to add left- and right-turn lanes and altering the timing of the traffic light at Nassau Park Boulevard and Quaker Bridge Road to allow more cars through before it changes.
In addition, the developer's traffic consultant, Karl Pehnke of Schoor, DePalma Inc., told the planning board the state Department of Transportation was giving serious consideration to removing the signal at the intersection of Route 1 and Nassau Park Boulevard and building an overpass to funnel cars onto the highway.
Pehnke said he expected the work to be completed sometime in 2005.
Anna Farnesky, a spokeswoman for the DOT, said the agency was looking at a solution for the area but could not say what, if anything, had been proposed.
The public hearing was continued until Feb. 12, when the planning board and its consultants will question the developer's experts.
The board is expected to require the developer to come up with several ways to alleviate the traffic bottleneck before the site plan is approved.
"We are very much concerned about the existing traffic conditions, and we need to alleviate the congestion that exists there during the peak shopping season," said planning board Chairman Marvin Gardner.
-- -- --West Windsor Mayor Shing-fu Hsueh, who sits on the planning board, said the township needs to see some serious attention paid to traffic before approval is granted.
Hsueh said he wants the developer to think regionally about options to eliminate the long lines of traffic since a proposed development on the former American Cyanamid property nearby also will add to the area's traffic woes.
"We are going to take the opportunity to see if they will contribute the rights of way for the Bus Rapid Transit system," said Hsueh. The BRT is a proposed bus system that would take passengers from residential areas to commercial shopping centers and local NJ Transit train stations.
Hsueh is a strong proponent of the BRT as a way to lessen traffic along the Route 1 corridor.
Residents from the neighboring Port Mercer community came to the meeting to express their concerns about the additional shopping space.
"None of the parking lots work," said Marion Gordon Gerecke, who lives in the closest house to the proposed addition. "It often takes me a half-hour to get to the mall, and I live there."
Gerecke said she knew the addition was inevitable, but she wanted the developer to be aware she and her neighbors should be considered.
"It's going to come. We just want to make it as livable as possible," she said.
Gerecke and her husband, Donald, told the board the fence in front of her house on Quaker Bridge Road had been knocked down several times by cars that had been unable to turn right onto Nassau Park Boulevard because of the congestion and were turning around to try again.
"Our fence has been knocked down three times, and our lawn has track marks on it," said Gerecke.
She also asked for additional police officers to be assigned to the site to patrol the center, which she called the highest crime area in the town.
As part of the original agreement with the township, the developer promised to add recreational space, including a skating rink, boardwalk, tables, chairs and a stage. Planning board members brought up that agreement last night and said the original terms had never been met.
Gardner said that while the skating rink had been scrapped, the completion of a stage that included chairs and a sound system would likely be a condition of the site plan approval.
The hearing was continued to Feb. 12, when the public may make comments on the proposal.
Copyright 2003 The Times.
A better method for managing growth
Editorial for Tuesday, Jan. 8
Wednesday, January 08, 2003
Plainsboro, a fast-growing Middlesex County township of more than 20,000 people, has its sprawling housing developments and strip malls. Farmland has disappeared. Quiet country roads have become commuter chutes.
But a visit from state officials about five years ago promoting something called the "state plan" helped change minds in Plainsboro, even though the township received no cash aid. It simply made sense to cluster development where there already was development, to protect open space and to more efficiently use resources like roads and water lines and sewers.
So a 16-acre site near the municipal complex will become a village area, with stores, housing and recreation clustered together. People will walk to jobs, shops and the library.
The State Development and Redevelopment Plan, now in place, says an estimated 1 million new residents in the next 20 years should be channeled to already developed cities and suburbs and to new centers like Plainsboro's.
The state plan as it is, however, assumes a level of unselfish cooperation that is rare in the world most of us live in. It is not mandatory, not binding, even on state agencies.
This can be suicidal for an already congested place like New Jersey. We face a future of overgrowth, where the state is essentially paved over with no traffic moving across the paving. Our plan has to have teeth. Otherwise, nobody will like the result, not local officials, not builders, not members of the Sierra Club. This is an issue that involves our life and its quality. It will not matter whether we think of ourselves as urban, rural or suburban.
For every wise local planning decision, there are dozens that aggravate traffic and pollution and make open space disappear. New Jersey has no way to ensure that planning in any community meets any reasonable common goal.
We must develop a better method, one that rises above the parochial interests that come with 566 municipal borders, because what happens in one town affects many others.
A recent "sprawl summit" called by Gov. James E. McGreevey offered new approaches that could make a difference: one-stop approval procedures for builders who develop in former industrial sites, or "brownfields"; withholding of state assistance like water, sewer and highways in areas where further growth is discouraged; subsidies in growth areas, and the upgrading of the state plan map to incorporate environmental concerns.
New Jersey can have a system that works by rewarding everyone, both in areas targeted for growth and in zones designated for preservation. Here are our recommendations, made as the governor prepares for next week's State of the State address:
Financial aid for areas where growth has been deemed a good idea. That money will pay for streets, water lines and sewers. Quick, painless permitting for builders in those areas.
Tax sharing or impact fee pools to end the property tax revenue chase in towns desperate for the money that new commercial construction provides.
Transfer of development rights for cash to compensate owners of property designated to remain open space.
Regional planning. Planning boards that have jurisdiction broad enough to reach across a number of towns. Developers should know their projects cannot be blocked on mere whim.
Of all the items above, the idea of regional planning may be the toughest sell in New Jersey, where home rule reigns supreme.
A system of regional boards, developed along common geographic or other characteristics, could do the job. That is the design behind the Pinelands and the Meadowlands and underlies the proposal to coordinate development in the Highlands. There is no reason the system would not work as well on land destined to be more heavily developed than those areas.
But rather than shoot for more big boards, let's ask the Legislature to expand the power of county planning boards, giving them greater say over sewer, road or other decisions that affect more than one municipality.
County boards now have little say except over projects that abut directly on county highways. Even there, they cannot consider a project's potential effect on a broad area. Something similar is true for municipalities, which cannot consider a project's far-reaching traffic impact.
That is not good enough. A planning body needs flexibility to look across borders at transportation, environmental and other consequences of major construction.
County-based planning would be effective only if counties cooperate so one would not dump congestion-causing development right on its border. Beefed-up professional staffs would be needed for detailed project studies. More powerful planning boards would have to be insulated from patronage and lobbying.
And the oversight process would have to take place simultaneously with municipal review -- not after it. We cannot create another layer of red tape that makes the approval process even more drawn out than it is now. Unless we create some wider planning vision, there won't be enough new jobs, new homes or new ways to get from Point A to Point B.
Developers can benefit from clearer rules about where to build and how, eliminating the expense and waste of buying a property only to face years of argument and litigation over construction. Local officials can be part of a process that preserves more open space while better handling the growth that is coming, the growth that can keep our economy strong.
No matter what the precise structure and authority of the planning groups, the state should back up its growth vision with the money and resources to make it happen.
We cannot ask some municipalities to take more residents without helping them to build sufficient roads, sewer plants, schools and other infrastructure to handle a burgeoning population. The state must perform studies of water, transportation and other resources in each area to ensure that areas targeted for growth can handle it and to determine what additional support may be needed.
Fairness requires recognizing the financial burdens that will come with focusing development. A town targeted for more residential growth will have more school-age children, greater police costs and a resulting larger tax burden.
A municipality that is to receive more stores and offices may reap far more new tax revenue than it needs to pay for schools or policing or residential services. It thus benefits from chasing commercial development and its tax ratables, but neighboring towns will be affected by traffic and strain on schools and other services. We need a system of tax sharing in which affected towns outside the one in which commercial development is located share the tax revenue in some proportion. It has long been used in the Meadowlands area and in the area of the Mall of America in Minnesota. It can reduce the burden and spread the benefits.
Developers can be assessed impact fees to reflect the cost of their projects to government. These can be distributed, depending on the project -- locally, regionally or statewide to cushion the impact on towns and their neighbors. There is another group paying a price for limiting development, the people who own the land to be preserved. We cannot ask farmers and landowners whose property is their equivalent of a retirement fund to give up their futures for the greater environmental good of the state. Preserving their land provides clean water, open space and other benefits to the population at large. A system like the one in the Pinelands that allows them to sell their development rights, which can then be used by developers in growth zones, can provide these landholders with a fair return.
How to get from our current balkanized planning system to a more coordinated future?
As all participants in a recent Star-Ledger roundtable pointed out, this is a job that will require a remarkable level of political will. We do not advocate replacing our property tax-based local tax system with broad-based, statewide taxes, only because the resulting political battle would obliterate the point of fighting sprawl. Given our state's history of following the "home rule" slogan over a cliff, county planning boards will be a heavy enough lift.
McGreevey is dedicated to the ideas embodied in the state plan. He already has taken significant first steps toward reform, strengthening water protection regulations and pushing for new grants, loans and other programs to jump-start redevelopment on the "brownfields" of our cities and older suburbs.
The governor has ordered that storm water, septic and other environmental regulations be coordinated with the state plan map, helping to direct development to the places where it makes the most sense. Transportation spending, including stringent review of projects seeking permits for driveways into the road network, also will be better aligned with our growth goals.
McGreevey's state planning office and commissioners of environmental protection, transportation and community affairs have the staff and resources to study and recommend a regional planning system with the tools to make the state plan real.
The Legislature can help by holding public hearings, with input and advice from local and county officials, business and industry, environmental groups and, most of all, ordinary citizens. We, after all, will live with the results.
Better planning should not be oversold as a miracle cure for the challenges that come with being a small state with a large population.
We will always have traffic congestion. We will still need to conserve water while expanding water supplies and doing a better job of moving water from the regions that have plenty to those that need more. Not every piece of open fields or woods can be preserved, nor can every village remain small. Change will accompany the growth that is coming.
But better planning offers the hope of keeping the traffic jams, water shortages and other pressures of growth from getting far worse. It can while protecting clean water and our most important open spaces and providing green belts for recreation and public enjoyment.
Now is the time to move forward.
Copyright 2003 The Star-Ledger.
New Jersey Governor Enlists Himself in 'War on Sprawl'
By ANDREW JACOBS
It was a raid made for prime time.
Last October, a strike force of 70 environmental inspectors descended on Camden in search of leaky underground oil tanks, open barrels of toxic goo and renegade smokestacks suspected of fouling one of the state's poorest and most polluted cities.
The State Department of Environmental Protection's weeklong blitzkrieg hit more than 700 sites, yielding 100 violations, a burst of favorable news coverage and the fury of business leaders, who gave the agency the nickname of the Green Gestapo.
Gov. James E. McGreevey took the appellation as a compliment and soldiered on. In his first year in office, he temporarily halted new home construction in three fast-growing water-starved counties; scrapped an emissions credit trading program beloved by industry; and granted special protection to 15 streams and reservoirs, making new development along their banks all but impossible.
But beyond the assault on environmental scofflaws, Mr. McGreevey, a Democrat, has pledged to reshape the conventional image of New Jersey as an overpopulated bastion of metastasizing subdivisions, clogged highways and oozing Superfund sites. Soon after his inauguration last January, the governor formed a Smart Growth Policy Council, which seeks to enlist nearly every state agency in what he calls "the war on sprawl." In his state of the state speech this month, he is expected to make overdevelopment a central theme of his administration.
To be sure, with "smart growth" the current slogan, most Northeastern governors have at least paid lip service to environmental causes, and Mr. McGreevey, so far, has delivered more promises than policy. But in contrast to the more laissez-faire environmental stance of his Republican predecessor, Christie Whitman, and a Bush administration that has eased federal environmental rules nationwide, New Jersey's governor is emerging as something of a green guerrilla, at least in the eyes of Trenton's building and business lobbies, who say he is favoring environmental protection over economic development.
"Right now there's a lot of bad feeling and apprehension out there," said Richard Goldberg, president of the Commerce and Industry Association of New Jersey, which represents 800 companies. "Considering that he just hit businesses with a $1.8 billion tax hike and tens of millions in increased fees, some of these new rules are like rubbing salt in an open wound."
Mr. McGreevey, who spoke repeatedly about sprawl during his campaign, says he is not antidevelopment. He just views unregulated growth as a root of New Jersey's woes, leading to incorrigible traffic jams, spiraling property taxes and some of the worst air quality in the nation.
"The reason many families live in New Jersey is because we have a relatively high quality of life," he said in an interview. "What we're witnessing right now is the decimation of that quality of life. The status quo is simply not working."
Although they are awaiting measurable change in the status quo, environmental advocates, who regularly clashed with Mrs. Whitman (author of the slogan "New Jersey is open for business"), have already embraced the governor as a savior. "It's like Bizarro World from the Superman comics," said Jeff Tittel, president of the Sierra Club in New Jersey. "It's the mirror image of the Whitman days, when we spent all our time fighting the loosening of regulations."
During her two terms in office, Mrs. Whitman, now administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, made open space preservation and coastline protection the hallmarks of her administration. But even members of her own party criticized the cuts she made in environmental programs, including the elimination of the offices of environmental prosecutor and public advocate.
When it came to air and water pollution, Mrs. Whitman favored a more cooperative approach with industry, eliminating rules that she said were hurting businesses. Critics often cite the 80 percent drop in environmental fines levied during her tenure, but supporters say that such figures obscure that compliance actually increased.
Mr. McGreevey's environmental commissioner, Bradley M. Campbell, a Washington lawyer who served in the Clinton White House, has already made it clear that self-policing is out. Besides the sweep in Camden, his agency fined Ramapo College for building a dormitory on wetlands, and reversed a Whitman administration decision that allowed a prominent cranberry grower to expand his operations in the fragile Pine Barrens.
As the mayor of suburban Woodbridge and a former pharmaceutical industry lobbyist, Mr. McGreevey had a limited environmental record before his inauguration last January. But even if his environmental credentials are thin, he long ago realized that green is a winning color in New Jersey politics. One telling sign is that despite the state's grievous budget woes and the anger over soaring taxes, New Jersey voters continue to support open space referendums that bill the public for land acquisition. Last June, the McGreevey administration agreed to pay $7.1 million to preserve the top of Hamburg Mountain, the site of the Mountain Creek ski area in Vernon.
James E. Hughes, dean of the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University, said that New Jersey residents, among the most affluent and educated in the country, have come to appreciate the downsides of freewheeling growth, among them worsening traffic congestion, the loss of bucolic landscapes and the higher municipal taxes that follow a surge in school-age children.
"It's like in New York City, where you have a predominance of renters, supporting rent control is a very positive political virtue," Mr. Hughes said. "The same goes in New Jersey, where most people own their own homes. There are a lot of votes in limiting sprawl."
In a state with 2.5 million homeowners and an average of 25,000 new homes built each year, the cards would seem to be stacked against the building industry. With the help of several proposed new rules and state agencies that spend millions of dollars on infrastructure, Mr. McGreevey says he wants to coax new construction away from rural areas and into the state's neglected cities and older suburbs.
Following in the footsteps of Parris Glendening, the Maryland governor nationally known as a smart-growth pioneer, Mr. McGreevey says he would withhold water permits for environmentally fragile areas, limit the construction of new highway access ramps and develop "super incentives" to lure developers to depopulated cities like Camden, Newark and Paterson. He has already directed his Department of Transportation, which once spent 20 percent of its budget on new roads, to stop new construction altogether. "We have to get out of the business of subsidizing sprawl," he said.
To ease the potential burden on developers, the state would create a "big map," with red, yellow and green shading to show builders where new rules and incentives encourage construction, or make it nearly impossible. But such a map - and the power behind it - would require the cooperation of more than 500 municipalities, a tall order in a state that jealously guards the perks of home rule.
"The biggest challenge for McGreevey will be living up to his promises," said David Pringle, executive director of the New Jersey Environmental Federation. "It can be done, it's just a matter of exercising the political will and political skill to make it a reality."
The home construction industry, already unnerved by the proliferation of antigrowth zoning ordinances across the state, is not embracing Mr. McGreevey's vision, which it says is unworkable in a state without any mechanisms for regional planning. Nancy Wittenberg, environmental affairs director for the New Jersey Builders Association, said that she and others were suspicious that the new rules would simply choke off development.
"If smart growth would accommodate growth in places where people want to live, that would be smart," she said. "You can put it all in Newark, but frankly not a lot of people are going to move there unless something is done about other problems, like the schools."
Business groups have so far been wary of the new leadership in Trenton. Although they praised Mr. Campbell, the environmental commissioner, for encouraging debate on matters of enforcement, they are unhappy with some of his agency's more aggressive tactics, including the sweep in Camden and another incident, in which the drug company Pfizer was fined $538,000 after officials voluntarily reported an improper discharge of wastewater into a municipal sewer system.
"There is a lot of apprehension out there," said Edward Hogan, an environmental lawyer who leads a business round-table group. "Early on, there was a feeling that Campbell had allied himself very closely with radical environmental groups, but at least he's listening."
Mr. Campbell and his boss stand by their record so far, saying that the administration will work hard to streamline the state's environmental bureaucracy, but maintain an iron fist when it comes to rule-breakers.
"Governor McGreevey has become the national leader in terms of aggressive environmental protection," he said. "After eight dismal years, I think we've restored the public's faith. They know that the environmental cop is back on the beat."
PU's growth plan: thinking outside the century
By: Jeff Milgram , Staff Writer 12/31/2002
Real estate development horizon extends to the east
With an endowment of more than $8 billion, Princeton University can afford to take the long-term view of things like real estate.
"The university has a long-time horizon," Thomas Wright, the university's vice president and secretary of the board of trustees, told the Princeton Regional Planning Board in October 2000. "Like the community, we think in long time lines. ... We like to think in terms of hundreds of years."
Mr. Wright was part of a contingent that appeared before the Planning Board to discuss the university's master plan.
But Princeton isn't the only municipality that gets a chance to review the university's building plans. Princeton University owns land not only in Princeton Borough and Princeton Township, but in West Windsor, Plainsboro and South Brunswick as well.
Economically speaking, Princeton is the proverbial 800-pound gorilla. With a workforce of more than 12,000, the university is the largest private employer in Mercer County and one of the largest in Central Jersey.
The university estimates that it pumps more than $1.1 billion into the economy a year, based on its $697 million in total expenditures, the expenditures of the 500,000 visitors to campus events and the expenditures of students and employees.
Included in this figure is the $23 million that McCarter Theatre contributes to the economy.
While its historical campus is in Princeton Borough, the university has been involved with the Forrestal Center in Plainsboro and South Brunswick, the home of the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, for 50 years.
With an assessed value of $940 million, the Forrestal Center combines 2,034 acres of academic, office, retail and residential space.
Not all of the space is owned by the university. The university developed 630 acres, but then sold it.
Nearly 463 acres of the original Forrestal land on the east side of Route 1 in Plainsboro have been preserved as permanent open space.
The university also is working to preserve a significant amount of its land on the west side of Route 1 in Plainsboro and South Brunswick as open space.
And, the university has promised to keep development at least 1,000 feet from the Delaware & Raritan Canal.
In the concept stage, but not yet on the drawing board, is a plan to build a campus on both sides of Washington Road between Lake Carnegie and Route 1 in West Windsor. The concept calls for a mix of academic classrooms, science labs, research facilities and office space. It also would contain some retail space.
"We don't know exactly when it will develop," Jon Hlafter, the university's director of planning, told the Planning Board in October 2000.
"It's not a reality," Pam Hersh, the university's director of community and state relations, said Friday. Ms. Hersh said there are no plans to build the West Windsor campus until the road formerly known as the Millstone Bypass is built and a station on the Dinky rail line services that area.
When the university came before the Princeton Regional Planning Board two years ago, it ran into criticism from Princeton Borough Mayor Marvin Reed because the university had no plans to build a connecting road linking Harrison Street, Washington Road and Alexander Road.
A West Windsor campus would cause increased traffic congestion, which could be eased by the connecting road, Mayor Reed said.
"I think the university has been very shortsighted," he said at the time.
The university doesn't see it that way. "We don't want a road going through the campus," Ms. Hersh said.
In August, the West Windsor Planning Board approved the subdivision of Sarnoff Corp.'s 250.9-acre property on Route 1, paving the way for the university to buy 81.6 acres of the land along Route 1 and the Millstone River.
Sarnoff and Princeton struck a tentative deal for the sale in October 2001. The deal was contingent on the West Windsor Planning Board's approval of Sarnoff's general development plan for a 3 million-square-foot technology campus. The approval came in June.
Ms. Hersh said Princeton has no immediate plans for the Sarnoff land.
"We have no plans to do anything with it in the near future," she said.
Any development of the land would be for academic purposes, she said.
In December 2000, the Plainsboro Planning Board approved the university's plans to build 220 apartments on 56 acres off Mapleton Road and Seminary Drive that once belonged to Princeton Nurseries.
The university also wants to build a 2 million-square-foot office and retail complex there, and has pledged that 30 acres between Mapleton Road and the D&R Canal will be left as open space.
The approval, 7-0, was given despite opposition from a group called Friends of Princeton Nursery Lands, which claimed the development would increase traffic and adversely affect nearby historic sites.
©Packet Online 2002
Hullfish North settlement is high priority for borough
By: Jennifer Potash , Staff Writer 12/30/2002
Palmer Square may be close to an agreement with council on townhouse project
A mere six months ago, Princeton Borough and Palmer Square seemed headed to court over an ongoing dispute regarding affordable housing. Now the two sides may be close to signing an agreement.
In delineating his goals for 2003, Mayor Marvin Reed said he expected a resolution that would allow Palmer Square to get a building permit to begin construction of 97 luxury townhouses on its Hulfish North tract bounded by Witherspoon, Hulfish and Chambers streets and Paul Robeson Place.
"I am hopeful within the first couple of months we will settle the Palmer Square dispute," Mayor Reed said. He declined to discuss specifics but noted that progress had been made.
Palmer Square and Princeton Borough are deadlocked over the developer's contribution to the borough's affordable-housing programs. The municipality denied the developer a foundation permit in May in part due to the conflict.
The borough contends Palmer Square must make an affordable-housing contribution based on a 1986 zoning ordinance. Palmer Square counters that the Hulfish North Project is exempt from the affordable-housing obligation because the development originally was approved in 1983, three years prior to adoption of the zoning ordinance. A revised Hulfish North plan was granted approval in 1990.
Council President Mildred Trotman said that while residents may be used to council members saying every year a deal is likely, like the mayor, she believes the matter will be settled in 2003.
"Uppermost on my list for 2003 is Palmer Square," she said.
Representatives from Palmer Square could not be reached for comment.
Two projects in West Windsor will be followed with great interest by the borough in the coming year, Mayor Reed said.
First, a final alignment for the project known as the Millstone Bypass, at Route 1 and Washington Road, should be released by April, the mayor said.
"My feeling is Route 1 will be taken under Washington Road," Mayor Reed said.
Second, the mayor will keep a watchful eye on proposals for the Wyeth-Rouse property in West Windsor, plans for which are likely to include an upscale shopping center.
Given the current congestion on Route 1, mass transit such as a light rail or bus rapid transit system may be necessary to prevent complete gridlock, Mayor Reed said.
While the downtown development, including a parking garage, plaza, apartments and food market, is under way, the Borough Council will stay on top of the project to ensure a December 2003 opening for the parking structure, Mrs. Trotman said.
Councilman David Goldfarb said he would like to revisit the issue of creating a Special Improvement District, or SID, for the downtown. A SID would allow a tax on the downtown businesses to generate funds for marketing, beautifying and redeveloping the area, "so the merchants can advertise and bring all the people back downtown," Mr. Goldfarb said.
He also wants the council to develop a plan to deal with downtown employee parking. Since the major decisions involving the garage project are done, the council members also can work on other items on the legislative to-do list, he said.
Councilwoman Peggy Karcher, who serves as liaison to the Princeton Regional Health Commission, said the commission will go before the council early next year to urge the borough's participation in an automatic telephone call system that can notify residents of vital information during an emergency.
When Princeton Township contracted for an automated service two years ago, the borough opted not to, citing the cost, Ms. Karcher said.
"There are new prices that make it more attractive to us," she said.©Packet Online 2002
Plainsboro fights sprawl with new urban-style development
Sunday, December 15, 2002
BY ALEXANDER LANE
Star-Ledger StaffResidents of a soon-to-be-built development in Plainsboro will have an option that few others in the sprawling Middlesex County suburb enjoy.
They'll be able to walk to a store.
The new Village Center, likely to get the final nod of approval from the town planning board tomorrow, will have shops and restaurants topped with apartments. Townhouses and a handful of single-family homes will be clustered nearby. In the center of the neighborhood will be a square park with a fountain.
Simple as it sounds, the development is fairly radical in the context of post-World War II suburban construction in the United States. Tastes and zoning laws of these past several decades have created subdivisions devoid of commerce, with sprawling malls a car ride away.
Village Center's design is true to the principles of New Urbanism, a school of planning that eschews this strict separation of living and shopping in favor of old-style, walkable neighborhoods.
"You're going to start seeing more and more of this," said architect Richard Bubnowski of the Princeton firm Looney Ricks Kiss Architects Inc., which designed Village Center. "You're starting to see this huge movement really taking hold in the past half-dozen years or so."
The most notable New Jersey example of the New Urbanism is Washington Town Center, a cluster of stores, offices and 700 housing units of various kinds in Washington Township, Mercer County. Seaside, Fla., the dense, pedestrian-friendly community immortalized in the movie "The Truman Show," was the first major New Urbanist project, dating to the mid-1980s. Celebration, Fla., Disney's idea of an ideal town, is another example of a so-called traditional neighborhood design.
All the key players in Village Center are New Urbanists to the core. Looney Ricks Kiss has worked on Washington Town Center and designed some of the residences in Celebration, where the firm has an office. Village Center's developer, Sharbell Development Corp. of Robbinsville, built Washington Town Center as well, and the firm's senior vice president, Tom Troy, is a member of the national advocacy group Congress for New Urbanism.
"It's a mixed-use, pedestrian-friendly, non-automobile subservient concept," Troy said of Village Center. He said the goal was to build a miniature version of downtown Westfield, Red Bank or Metuchen.
A cartoon tacked on a bulletin board amid the Village Center plans in the municipal building gives an indication of town planner Michael La Place's take on things. It shows a snow-covered, unpassable street, with carefully plowed sidewalks on either side. "If pedestrians had clout," reads the caption.
"Village Center is sort of the antithesis of a strip shopping center," La Place said, referring to the unwalkable suburban behemoths otherwise known as strip malls.
There will be 85,000 square feet of retail and office space, topped by eight residential apartments. A couple blocks away will be 12 townhouses and five single-family homes. Market Square, a grassy park with a fountain and benches, will be in the center.
It's all going on an empty 16-acre field smack in the geographic center of Plainsboro, within walking distance of an elementary school, the police station, the library, the post office and three churches. It's next to one of the former farming town's oldest residential areas, a neighborhood known as Plainsboro Village.
"We wanted it to look like this is how the village developed over time," La Place said.
Some nearby residents aren't happy to see yet another field giving way to new construction, New Urbanist or not. A line of homes on Plainsboro Road borders the Cooper Tract, as the future site of the Village Center is known, and several residents there, like Cindy Baxter, are opposed to the development.
"Our favorite thing to do is sit up in that screen porch and look out at this open field," said Baxter, 44, pointing to the screen porch at the rear of her home.
Officials counter that some development is inevitable. Dense, mixed-use developments like Village Center minimize suburban sprawl, they say.
Suburbs began sprawling out in the 1950s and '60s, as Americans preferred low-crime neighborhoods with big houses and large yards to bustling city neighborhoods. In the '70s, department stores followed, leaving cities like Newark, New Brunswick and Asbury Park for the malls mushrooming in suburbia. Corporations also followed, heading to office parks.
"All the corporate headquarters were moving out to the suburbs and so were the retail hubs," Bubnowski said.
Town officials wrote zoning laws that institutionalized the new tastes. Commerce was restricted to one part of town, residential construction to another. Front-yard setbacks of 100 feet were mandated in many places, making small-scale, urban-style neighborhoods unbuildable. Retail construction was limited to one floor in many places, making store builders build out rather than up, and essentially creating the strip mall.
Plainsboro rezoned two years ago, throwing out the old restrictions after a three-year study by New Urbanists at the consulting firm Killinger Alberto, making denser, mixed-use developments like Village Center possible. Longtime Mayor Peter Cantu, another believer in New Urbanism, strongly backed the rezoning.
Many other towns will likely follow Plainsboro's lead, experts say.
"What needs to go into place is rezoning and updating of zoning laws that went in 20 years ago," Bubnowski said. "You had poor planning for so many years. In a lot of cases they just didn't know any better."
Alexander Lane works in the Middlesex County bureau. He may be reached at alane@starledger.com or (732) 634-1236.
Copyright 2002 The Star-Ledger.
NJ Future Facts
December 13, 2002 Edition** Some 130 New Jersey communities sit in a "trouble zone" of fiscal distress according to experts at Rutgers University, caused by property tax rates higher than can be sustained without a decline of services and quality of life (effective tax rates of $3 or more per $100 of property value).
** Mercer County has three such communities (East Windsor, Hightstown and Trenton), bordering or within 10 miles of West Windsor, which has grown at four times the state rate in the past decade.
** Now West Windsor is considering development of a parcel of land roughly the size of the city of Hoboken as a high-end shopping center. The present corporate campus, once the home of American Cyanamid, sits at the intersection of Route 1 and Quakerbridge Road, where three major shopping centers already exist.
** Tax-sharing would allow the fiscal benefits of such development to benefit the entire region, including financially strapped communities struggling to escape the trouble zone. And it would reduce the incentives to pump more development and traffic into communities already overwhelmed by rampant growth.
TAX-SHARING CAN EASE FISCAL DISTRESS
An idea launched in New Jersey's Meadowlands in 1972, if extended to other regions in the state, could ease the fiscal distress experienced by a growing number of New Jersey communities, and help all communities make better development decisions.Tax sharing means communities share the tax benefits of new development with their neighbors - just as they already share the negative spillover effects of development, including increased traffic, pollution and loss of open land. In the Meadowlands, 14 towns contribute 40 percent of the local tax revenue generated by growth into an inter-municipal account shared by participating
communities based on the type of growth and development they're experiencing, and how much tax base each municipality has lost to public acquisitions, such as preserving open land.A tax-sharing system in Minnesota means that suburbs, small towns and cities in the St. Paul-Minneapolis region all share the financial benefits of the world's second largest mall, the Mall of America, which is located in the small city of Bloomington and has a total annual economic impact of $1.5 billion.
Tax sharing can help bring greater cooperation and coordination among local communities, especially in terms of economic development decisions. It means land use decisions can be made in the best interests of a region, rather than on a town-by-town basis. Tax sharing provides a more equitable distribution of New Jersey's property tax revenues, and at the same time reduces the need for local communities to chase inappropriate or undesirable new development.
Tax sharing is not a panacea for today's local fiscal distress, but it is a step in the right direction.
New Jersey Future's "Future Facts" is published twice monthly by njfuture@njfuture.org. Comments and questions can be directed to Sue Burrows, NJF Communications Director,
sburrows@njfuture.org. New Jersey Future is the state's oldest and largest smart growth group and a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization.
Wednesday, December 11, 2002
By DARRYL R. ISHERWOOD
WEST WINDSOR - The developer responsible for the South Street Seaport in New York City and Boston's Faneuil Hall unveiled a plan last night to bring its trademark shopping community to West Windsor.
The Rouse Co. held a community session to showcase preliminary plans for a mixed-use development that could include upscale shopping, office space, senior housing, a hotel and community green space on the 653-acre Wyeth Corp. site off Route 1, the former American Cyanamid property.
Wyeth has hired the developer, famous for its quaint, upscale shopping sites, to develop the site that has been dormant since 2000.
The new center could mean as much as $28 million in tax revenues for the township, money that many say is sorely needed to stem the tide of rising property taxes.
Warren Wilson, Rouse vice president and director of new business, stressed that the plan was in very preliminary stages and the presentation represented only an idea of what could be done with the site.
"This is step 1 in the process. This is a voluntary effort on the part of the Rouse Co. to say this is who we are and this is what we are about," said Wilson.
The plan includes several components, including retail shopping with stores such as Nordstrom's to anchor the development and specialty retail stores like Banana Republic to draw affluent shoppers.
Included also is a plan for an age-restricted housing development that might become the most controversial part of the plan.
"From a tax perspective, I think age-restricted housing is a positive," said Councilwoman and planning board member Alison Miller. "But from a social perspective, having a mass of age- restricted housing is not positive."
Many of those who came to the presentation were seniors who live in age-restricted communities and several said they are all for more senior housing.
"I'd like to see adult housing," said Jerry Spielman, who lives in Windsor Grande, an age-restricted community in West Windsor. "I think we're saturated with regular housing. In the adult housing, we pay our taxes, but we don't use the schools."
Rising school taxes have been an issue in the town over the past few years, and residents like Spielman expressed concern that new housing would mean more children and higher taxes.
Despite concerns about the number and types of housing, several residents who came out to see the presentation said they were in favor of the new shopping area.
"From what I've seen and what I've heard, I think they do a wonderful job putting up shopping centers. I think when they do something, they do a first- class job," said Bob Cooper, also a Windsor Grande resident.
William Kelly, assistant vice president of corporate real estate for Wyeth, said Rouse was chosen because of its track record in other parts of the country and because of its community approach to doing business.
"I think we appreciate their strategy of seeking community input and staying with the property after it's developed," said Kelly.
Miller is not sure that the area is ripe for new shopping and she said she would want to know how the developer plans to stay viable when other centers could not.
"They have to come before the township and explain why this project will be successful when Forrestal Village was a failure," she said.
The development is far from a done deal and only the first steps have been taken. Wilson would not offer a timetable, saying there were still too many stages left in the process, including re-zoning of the property, which is now zoned for office space.
Mayor Shing-fu Hsueh is pleased with the preliminary ideas and that the developer is seeking comment from the community.
"I'm happy that Rouse and Wyeth are going through the public review process before they start talking about the master plan," Hsueh said.
Copyright 2002 The Times
Transportation Forum asked to design road to Smart Growth
By: David Campbell , Staff Writer 12/06/2002
Governor wants ideas on how the state can have more impact on regional planning.
Gov. James E. McGreevey on Thursday charged members of the Central Jersey Transportation Forum with devising a model for regional Smart Growth that can be applied statewide.
"The status quo is not working," Gov. McGreevey said. "Our goal is to move Smart Growth planning to the next level with as much consensus as possible. I think we need strong leadership on this now."
The forum, which met Thursday at Sarnoff Corp. in West Windsor, is made up of state and community officials and public-policy advocates in central New Jersey, and seeks solutions to transportation issues in light of current and planned growth, primarily along the Route 1 corridor and in the surrounding region.
The governor said his administration is "strongly and irrevocably" in support of Smart Growth, which he said is seeking to end the subsidizing of sprawl, to promote redevelopment, and to encourage growth where it is wanted and discourage it where it is not.
But Gov. McGreevey said local planning, in which each municipality has the power to zone as it pleases, makes statewide implementation difficult, and that a "paradigm" change was needed.
The governor asked the forum to submit a formal recommendation, model or planning methodology to address this problem statewide.
"Fundamentally, our system of municipal zoning and planning cannot further Smart Growth by virtue of design," the governor said. "How do we move to the next level? From this group we would like to see your ideas on how New Jersey can provide more impact on regional planning."
Plainsboro Mayor Peter Cantu, a forum member, indicated that municipalities may be more flexible on the matter of "home rule" than some think, and said towns support Smart Growth and the State Development and Redevelopment Plan.
Changes in local planning procedures are called for, but an understanding of the process for change is needed first, Mayor Cantu said.
Princeton Borough Mayor and forum member Marvin Reed said transportation is critical in determining land-use patterns, and that the state Department of Transportation needs greater bargaining power when dealing with municipalities that approve developments that are incompatible with transportation infrastructure.
West Windsor Councilwoman Alison Miller said the property tax is the "third leg," noting that the current tax structure "is pushing municipalities toward land-use planning that neighboring municipalities may not consider Smart Growth."
The transportation forum appointed its Legislative Committee to take up the matter of the governor's request.
"Governor, we are up to your challenge," said John Coscia, executive director of the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission, which moderates the forum.
In other business Thursday, the forum unanimously agreed to establish a committee to oversee and advance a bus rapid transit system in the region.
But Mayor Reed called a plan devised for the forum by NJ Transit "defective" because he doubted that land-use changes needed to make the system feasible would actually happen.
While the plan would permit Princeton residents to commute from downtown to elsewhere, it was not good for bringing commuters in outlying areas into Princeton, Mayor Reed said.
Bus rapid transit operates on exclusive fixed guideways, two-way thoroughfares reserved for the buses to ensure fast and reliable service, but like regular buses also can travel on regular roadways. The mass-transit system offers amenities such as reduced travel times, quieter and sleeker vehicles and convenient "smart card" fare collection.
In August, NJ Transit issued a study indicating that a bus rapid transit line along the Route 1 corridor would meet minimum ridership requirements to be economically feasible.
But the study indicated it would not be feasible without a shift in housing and employment patterns that concentrates 26,000 jobs and 2,600 housing units in areas with enhanced transit service.
©Packet Online 2002
For open space, another landslide at the ballot box
N.J. voters go green in big way
Monday, November 11, 2002
BY STEVE CHAMBERS
Star-Ledger StaffOver the last year, the stock market staggered, consumer confidence nose-dived and state budget cuts forced local property taxes upward. But the grass-roots crusade to buy up open space rolled on.
New Jersey voters last week approved 25 of 31 local initiatives to raise money for land preservation, according to the Trust for Public Land. That 81 percent passage rate maintained the popularity that land measures have enjoyed in the state for decades.
The approvals also continued a green revolution that has swept New Jersey since 1998, when voters concerned by sprawling development approved a 10-year effort designed to save 1 million acres. That program, which made available more than $1 billion, has spurred unprecedented interest by local jurisdictions bent on competing for those dollars by raising matching funds.
Tuesday's voting added eight more towns to the 177 that already had such funds. Fifteen towns and two counties voted to increase funds already in place.
"People know there is a finite supply of land, and they know the time is now," said Andy McLeod, director of conservation finance for the Trust for Public Land, which has monitored open-space measures nationwide for the past two years. "They and their elected officials are willing to borrow to protect it."
Nationally, voters in 22 states approved measures worth $2.6 billion, with 80 percent of all measures passing. The largest were statewide initiatives in California, Nevada and Virginia.
New Jersey has been a leader in such measures for decades, passing the first Green Acres bond initiative in 1961, and voters were not deterred by admonitions from anti-sprawl activists that land purchases alone won't change development patterns.
That argument, which is generally accepted by most preservationists, makes a case for aggressive zoning changes, such as increases in lot sizes, cluster development and other moves that stress dense development while leaving more land untouched.
"In some towns, people think buying land is still better than zoning, because zoning can change," said Jeff Tittel, director of the state's Sierra Club chapter. "There also is a sense that until you give them something stronger, they'll do this."
Tittel said continued support for open-space initiatives should send a strong signal to government that it has a mandate to deal with sprawl.
Some builders have voiced concern that the state's aggressive open-space purchases -- which total 260,000 acres in the past four years -- will drive up land costs, pricing many people out of the housing market.
Peter Buchsbaum, a land-use lawyer in Middlesex County who often represents developer interests, said towns too often use the club of land purchase to belatedly kill projects that become controversial. Still, he said, there is no disputing the popularity of such measures.
"Everyone says they hate taxes, but they are willing to tax themselves for this," he said. "I think that is remarkable."
Even in towns where the measures went down this year, it wasn't always a clear backlash against open-space preservation.
"It's sort of an enigma," said Mayor Dalyn Currey of East Greenwich in Gloucester County, where a measure to tax citizens 3 cents per $100 of assessed value failed by 18 votes. "Frankly, I expected it to pass quite handily."
Currey lost his own race, he believes, for supporting a cluster zoning ordinance. He estimated it would have saved 1,800 acres of open space, but it was criticized for permitting dense development.
"When you're the sitting mayor and there is a lot of development in your community ... well, people just don't like growth," he said.
Steve Chambers covers land-use issues. He may be reached at schambers@starledger.com or (973) 392-1674.
Copyright 2002 The Star-Ledger
After the sprawl: N.J. reinvents
Thursday, October 31, 2002
By KAREN GREEN ALEXANDER
MONROE - Current demographics have created a "unique potential to reshape New Jersey" from the suburban sprawl that has dominated development in the state so many years, James W. Hughes, dean of the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers, told a conference group yesterday.
The theme of the meeting, the 23rd annual N.J. State Data Conference, at the Holiday Inn on Forsgate Drive, was "smart growth in New Jersey."
"There is a finite amount of space, and we have to plan well" how and where New Jersey will grow "so we won't choke to death," Adam Zellner, executive director of the state's Office of Smart Growth, told the group.
Changing lifestyles of New Jersey's population have the potential to lead to higher density development, Hughes said. If so, the state's undeveloped land might get a breather from the heavy sprawl of recent years.
Hughes, keynote speaker, outlined post-World War II New Jersey demographic and development trends, which led to suburban sprawl. He said "forces propelling sprawl may have reached their limit."
There were decades of suburban residential building that began with small, boxy houses such as the Levittown developments, Hughes said. They led to garden apartments, to town houses and large-scale, single-family homes, Hughes said.
Retail expansion followed the housing development, and then the office-service industry came, Hughes said.
An expansion that started in 1992 and peaked in 2001 created a transportation crisis with maturing baby boomer commuters in "suburban assault vehicles," and "suburbia stretched to breaking points," said Hughes.
Now, New Jersey's demographics are more favorable for concentrated development than they have been in the past 50 years, Hughes said.
That's because a larger proportion of the population will likely want or need higher density housing, he said.
Born between 1946 and 1964, baby boomers in New Jersey number 2.8 million - larger than any other age group, Hughes said.
Baby boomers have dominated every housing era and have been the driving force in the economy and sprawl, Hughes said.
The 1980s and 1990s were peak years for baby boomers to trade up their housing, Hughes said.
Now their "era of empty nesterhood is almost upon us," Hughes said.
As they become empty nesters, they won't need big houses, Hughes said.
The "baby bust" generation, also known as Generation X, born between 1965 and 1976, are at the prime age for buying single-family homes, are fewer in number than baby boomers were during that stage in their lives.
And the baby boomer echo generation, some now in their 20s, born between 1977 and 1995, can't afford single-family houses now, Hughes said.
Another demographic segment, foreign born residents, who immigrated after 1965, would also be another group possibly favoring denser development, Hughes said.
A critical question for New Jersey's future growth is what baby boomers, who are "reinventing middle age," will do and what housing will be created to meet their needs, Hughes said.
"Demographics are destiny," said Hughes.
A new development protocol will have to be developed, Hughes said.
Martin Bierbaum, deputy director of Gov. Jim McGreevey's policy office, also at the conference, said "meaningful alternatives" must be laid out in a "nonpolitical way," so suburban sprawl can be stopped and urban areas redeveloped. "It's a balancing act of competing interests," which can be done by various departments working together, said Albert G. Kroll, Department of Labor commissioner.
A challenge to smart growth, Zellner noted, is a "huge disconnect." Fifty percent of mayors are unaware of what their town's master plans say, he said.
Brent Barnes, director of business planning for NJ Transit, said the state must overcome a disconnect between transportation planning and municipal land use planning.
"We have 80 years of a highway policy we have to turn around" and municipal land use law that goes back to the 1920s almost without change, he said.
"Data integration is key. We need to bring data bases together to begin to see where it is appropriate to have development and where not," Barnes said.
Mayors and municipal staff will have to gain technical expertise in areas such as redevelopment of contaminated lands, known as brownfields, Zellner said.
The state has old industrial land, and sometimes a brownfield space may be the last remaining open parcel, he said.
As the state embarks on major school construction, planning will also have to include computer rooms, pools and other facilities that can be used by the community during nonschool hours, Zellner said.
Copyright 2002 The Times
Rt. 1 corporate developers vie for tenants
Wednesday, October 30, 2002
By TONY HAGEN
WEST WINDSOR - As office space remains difficult to fill, commercial property developers are competing to sign up tenants for the next big project. A "plethora" of office space approved for construction exists in the Route 1 corridor, according to corporate real estate broker Jerry Fennelly, of NAI Fennelly of Hamilton.
Advance Realty Group of Bedminster has begun marketing a planned 140,000-square-foot office building at Canal Pointe Boulevard on a 7-acre parcel it recently acquired just north of the AmeriSuites Hotel.
The office project will include a parking garage and gymnasium reserved for the use of building tenants, officials said. The five-story building will have "panoramic" views of the Princeton area skyline, they said.
"In this climate we're going to try to secure a tenant for at least a portion of the building before we go ahead and construct it," said Jonathan Meisel, senior director of Cushman & Wakefield of New York, which is marketing the office space for Advance.
"It will be one of the closest Route 1 buildings to Princeton. That will make it more marketable. We're planning on playing up to that," Meisel said.
In that immediate area, they'll have to compete with Boston Properties, which has development rights to build an almost adjacent structure with an equal amount of office space.
"Everybody wants to put their spin on their location," said Micky Landis, vice president and regional manager of Boston Properties of Carnegie Center. The Boston Properties building would be highly visible from Route 1. "If a major user wanted to put their name on the building it would be seen by 60,000 cars a day on our building," Landis says.
Tenants of both prospective buildings would enjoy numerous shops and restaurants within walking distance of their offices. The MarketFair mall is nearby. In addition, a Marriott Residence Inn is planned for the same area.
Neither Advance nor Boston Properties has lifted a shovel of dirt so far to begin construction. The days of building on spec, or in anticipation of a healthy flow of seriously interested prospective tenants, are over, for the time being.
Advance officials say they want at least 40 percent of the space in their new building spoken for before they think about building, and the search for such a space-hungry tenant could stretch well into 2003.
But they feel confident about the future as evidenced by their willingness to plunk down serious money: They would not disclose how much they paid for the tract, bought from Alan Landis, developer of Carnegie Center, but township records show a 1999 sale to the Berk-Cohen Association for $7.6 million, well above the 1990 assessment of $5.8 million.
"The Princeton market compared to other major New Jersey markets is the healthiest and most stable rentwise," said Dean Lundahl, senior vice president and regional director for Advance.
Lundahl said the supply of vacant Class A office space in the Princeton area represents 14 percent of the total. Fennelly puts the vacancy rate closer to 17 percent.
"We're seeing rates as high as 25-30 percent in some of the northern New Jersey markets, where they've been affected by corporate consolidations," Lundahl said.
In the Mercer County area, corporate tenants are in the competition to find occupants for office space. Lundahl said Merrill Lynch, RCN Corp. and Washington Group have offered space for sublease. FleetBoston has offered to lease the former 130,000-square-foot Summit Bank headquarters on Route 1 in West Windsor.
While Advance and Boston Properties are among developers looking for occupants for their planned facilities on the west side of Route 1, Advance is gearing up for an even bigger sales push for the Sarnoff Corp. campus expansion - an 800,000-square-foot-project.
Advance hopes to draw crowds for a May "roll-out" of first-phase plans for enlarging the West Windsor facility off Route 1. It is at that point that Advance expects that all final development approvals from West Windsor will be in hand.
In West Windsor, the total of approved and unapproved building plans measures over 7.5 million square feet, according to a June Fennelly report. In Plainsboro and South Brunswick the totals are 870,000 square feet and 1.17 million square feet, respectively. In Lawrenceville, the total is 1.75 million square feet. In Ewing and Hamilton the totals are 1.7 million and 1.8 million, respectively.
Copyright 2002 The Times.
Mostly Sprawling and Warmer
By KIRK JOHNSONEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. - Scientists who study climate change can sometimes sound as if they have their heads in the clouds, with all the talk of invisible gases and nefarious hydrocarbons. Here, the search for atmospheric explanation is more down to earth.
A team of scientists at Rutgers University is looking at the land in New Jersey - the transition from farms and forests to strip malls and subdivisions - for clues about the state's weather in the past, and how future development could affect the climate 100 years from now.
"How would our local weather be different with a different land use?" said Alan Robock, a professor of meteorology who is leading the multidisciplinary team of urban planners, historians and biologists. "That's the question."
It's certainly not news that what's on the ground has an impact on what's in the sky. Deforestation in the Amazon has been studied for years in South America. Scientists have also shown how cities can often generate their own weather, creating so-called heat islands that spawn storms or change the paths of storms that come along. A parking lot absorbs heat differently, and channels water runoff differently, than a golf course.
But researchers say that the Rutgers study is one of the most ambitious attempts in the nation to pull all those strings together into one regional model. Half of the project looks back at how population growth and the sprawl of development over the last century have made for a different weather pattern. (An astonishingly detailed 17-foot-long map of New Jersey created in the 1880's figures in that part of the story, along with a hard-working graduate student.) The project's other half looks forward, at how the state's communities and residents could be affected by long-term climate change as a result of local land-use decisions in years to come.
The idea is not that New Jersey is an island, the researchers say, making its own little weather in splendid isolation, or that the global atmospheric system doesn't matter, but rather that in the end, weather and climate is like politics: it's all local. People and climate connect not in equations or theories, but on the ground.
"Say you build a new 100-acre development and then you get 10 inches less precipitation than normal - what will be the effect of that?" said Ying Fan Reinfelder, an assistant professor of geology who is working on the water-flow portion of the climate model. "What's the effect on ground water, and on stream flow? One side of this is climate; the other are man-made changes. We want to link them."
The Rutgers project, which is partly financed by the state's Department of Environmental Protection, has huge potential implications for the debate about open space and suburban sprawl, state officials and environmentalists say. If a housing development or a new shopping center can be scientifically linked to regionwide effects on water supply or weather, for example, then the battles over development and zoning that now seem purely local will be transformed. Regulators and courts will have a powerful new scientific tool, they say, as global warming becomes an aspect of urban planning becomes an aspect of politics.
"We've long known that better land-use practices reduce the costs of cleaning up our water and cleaning up our air," said Bradley M. Campbell, New Jersey's commissioner of environmental protection. "This work makes clear that good land-use policy is essential to stabilizing our long-term climate, as well."
Environmentalists say that the interconnections are the key, because the model is expected to show how residents many miles from a proposed development project can be affected by something they had perhaps never even heard of.
[Gov. James E. McGreevey struck a similar note on Tuesday, when he told a conference on so-called smart growth that state government - from transportation to economic development - would coordinate to fight the sprawl that he said threatened New Jersey's future.]
"A study like this can really change the way we think about land use in New Jersey," said Barbara L. Lawrence, executive director of New Jersey Future, a research and planning organization that focuses on development issues. "To the extent that science can document changes that go way beyond the border of a municipality, you can build a case for more regional planning."
Scientists who are leading the project say that their ultimate goal is to produce a kind of scientific tool kit that planners could use to envision, through the grinding out of a few hundred million equations, multiple versions of the state's future based on land-use and climate trends.
"Once we get our tools working, we can say, `What if the future of New Jersey 100 years from now is this, or what if it's this other plan - how will that affect the climate?' " Professor Robock said. "We'll be able to do those experiments in the next couple years and maybe that can give information to policy makers that will actually help them decide what the future development will be like."
But there are historical puzzles to be pondered, as well, and that's where the old map and the graduate student figure in.
In the 1880's, Prof. George H. Cook, who later had a college at Rutgers named after him - which, in the fullness of time, came to employ Dr. Robock, among others - led a team of topographers who crisscrossed New Jersey, recording and measuring as they went. In the annals of Victorian-era science, it was an amazing feat that few other states apparently ever attempted or completed. The Cook map - really multiple maps created over nine years - is 17 feet long when fully assembled and only a bit less accurate than a photograph taken from space.
Paul Stuart Wichansky's Ph.D. dissertation is aimed at figuring out how the changes since Professor Cook's time have altered the state's climate. More to the point, he'll be running the same weather through the two very different New Jerseys, really: the current state, captured by satellite, and the version Dr. Cook saw in the 1880's, when farms dominated the landscape.
The computer, stocked with all that science knows about how land conditions can alter wind and water evaporation and runoff and albedo (how different surfaces reflect or retain heat), will replay history.
Mr. Wichansky spent a year in the Rutgers Library creating a digital version of the Cook map that could be fed into the school's climate modeling program. The huge map was divided into 3,774 individual cells, each of which had to be put into the computer one by one. He has just started his computer runs.
"I feel like Prof. George H. Cook is speaking to me through his maps," Mr. Wichansky said.
At the backdrop of the climate work here is the unavoidable reality that a record-breaking warm trend - short-term or long-term, no one can say - is under way. The 12 months through the end of September, in particular, was the warmest in New Jersey since the 1890's. Mr. Wichansky said that part of what he was looking for in his results were clues about how much of that warming effect was a result of atmospheric changes, and how much came from the ground.
"The land cover change project may enable us to quantify how much of this warming may actually be due to changes in the land surface itself as a result of human modifications," he said.
Some New Jersey environmental officials say they think that the results of the Rutgers project will be illuminating about how land and climate fit together, but that information, in the end, might still be problematic.
"It's one thing for the state to say you have to control this amount of polluted runoff," one senior state official said. "It's another to say you have to maintain this forest cover or this result will occur far away. That's not the traditional bailiwick of environmental regulation. We'll have to evolve ourselves to get to that point."
copyright 2002 The New York TImes Company
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/24/nyregion/24RUTG.html
Governor promises reforms for sprawl
Warns Cabinet it will be held accountable
Wednesday, October 23, 2002
BY STEVE CHAMBERS
Star-Ledger StaffIn his most forceful statements on overdevelopment since he took office in January, Gov. James E. McGreevey vowed yesterday to put an end to state programs and spending that encourage sprawl.
"The state of New Jersey is getting out of the business of subsidizing sprawl," he told 200 leaders from all sides in the sprawl debate, adding that a new pattern of smarter development will be encouraged. "This will not be easy. It will not come quickly. I'm irrevocably committed to getting this done."
Anti-sprawl activists were heartened by the Governor's forceful words, spoken at an unprecedented summit on "smart growth." But builders, also invited guests at the table, said they were gratified by McGreevey's pledge to make it easier to develop in places the state deems appropriate.
"We are not going to let the developer be belittled or bedraggled by the incompetence or unethical behavior of certain local officials," McGreevey said in one pointed reference to the development wars that have raged for decades.
Yesterday's summit at the College of New Jersey in Ewing Township featured seven Cabinet members, who in similarly forceful tones pledged to ferret out programs and policies from their departments that have encouraged bad development. Transportation Commissioner Jamie Fox, whose department is a frequent target of anti-sprawl activists who argue new roads, bypasses and expansions have fueled booming residential growth, pledged a new attitude.
As an example, Fox said he had ordered his engineers back to the drawing board on a controversial Somerset County bypass around busy Route 206 near Somerville, which would have included three interchanges. He said the interchanges would have provided "fertilizer for sprawl."
But he cautioned, "Developers are not the enemy. The answer to sprawl cannot be a building moratorium."
This spirit of conciliation was the order of the day, with builders and environmentalists alike finding supportive statements they could latch onto.
"He wants to make everyone happy," said Jeff Tittel, director of the state's Sierra Club chapter. "I don't think you can tackle the problem of sprawl in New Jersey without making someone unhappy. The problems are too severe."
But Tittel and other environmentalists said they were pleased that McGreevey focused his attention on an intractable problem and vowed to hold Cabinet members accountable if they stray from the stated goals.
"I'm feeling extremely good," said George Hawkins, who chairs a state consortium of watershed associations. "He used words like irrevocable and unequivocal in the presence of his Cabinet. The marching orders from the top were crystal clear."
Builders were similarly enthusiastic but said there were key unanswered questions, chief among them whether the state will be able to lobby some towns to accept much more growth in order to keep other areas pristine. The U.S. Census estimates another 1 million residents will move into New Jersey in the next 20 years.
"We are very supportive of the redevelopment slice of the program," said Joe Riggs, northeast regional president of K. Hovnanian Cos., the state's largest residential builder. "It's so much the right thing that it's apple pie. The 'but' is that we don't believe it is the only answer."
The summit followed a five-part series in The Star-Ledger, "The View from Schley Mountain," which ran in June and explored the state's land-use history.
During the summit, Cabinet members unveiled an array of programs designed to fit the Governor's focus on "smart growth," development that stresses pedestrians over automobiles and puts more people closer to mass transportation. They included:
* A proposal by the Board of Public Utilities to force developers to pay the full expense of utility expansions into rural or otherwise environmentally sensitive areas. That expense is currently negotiated with utilities, and ratepayers often end up picking up the tab. In some cases, the state has even paid the expense of sewer lines that environmentalists argue promote more sprawling development.
* A pilot program that will attempt to use new schools as anchors for urban redevelopment. Dubbed Renaissance Zones, the program will provide tax breaks and other incentives to draw private residential development in areas around new schools as part of the state's $8.6 billion capital construction project.
* A proposal for the Legislature to tap $82 million in unused environmental funds for cleanup of urban industrial sites. Vacant "brownfields" represent the best hope for new residential properties in some decaying cities.
McGreevey repeated his support for the state Development and Redevelopment Plan, which attempts to steer future growth into cities, existing suburbs and newly defined rural centers. The plan has been largely ineffective, supporters say, because it has received little more than lip service from the state.
McGreevey asked his Cabinet and the audience if anyone could envision a time when the precepts of the plan became mandatory. Susan Bass Levin, commissioner of the Department of Community Affairs, ventured that towns could be steered in that direction if environmental regulations and highway funds pushed them that way.
McGreevey referred to it as the "next great policy debate," but the state's League of Municipalities said home rule wasn't the bad guy it was portrayed to be at the summit.
Many sprawl activists have criticized local officials for failing to take steps to curb bad development, but the league faulted the summit yesterday for failing to explore the vital step of reforming the property tax system. The league also has attacked the state Supreme Court's series of affordable housing cases, another subject that got short shrift at the summit.
"We have the builders on one side and environmentalists on the other pointing fingers at us," said Michael Cerra, a legislative analyst for the league. "It's misguided."
Frank Banisch, a planning consultant to 22 towns, including leaders in the movement to "downsize" properties to restrict development, said the state must be clear that it is "inviting towns to partner with the state. This can't be top down."
Bass Levin, a former mayor of Cherry Hill, seemed to extend that olive branch, saying the newly formed Office of Smart Growth will concentrate on providing expertise to towns that want to plan better. And McGreevey repeated his pledge to throw the weight of the Attorney General's Office behind towns that face lawsuits from builders, if they have followed the guidance of the state plan.
"This ought to be a win-win proposition for everyone," McGreevey said. "This cannot be one of us against the other. If we fail, all of our interests will lose."
Jim Gilbert, the state's first Planning Commission chairman, said McGreevey demonstrated himself to be more articulate on the issue of sprawl than any of his predecessors. But he said that won't necessarily get the job done.
"He knows he has to do more on this issue," Gilbert said. "The question is whether he is willing to expend the political capital."
Steve Chambers covers land-use issues. He can be reached at schambers@starledger.com or (973) 392-1674. Jeanette Rundquist and Katie Wang also contributed to this report.
Copyright 2002 The Star-Ledger
A good start at the sprawl summit
Editorial, Wednesday, October 23, 2002
Gov. James E. McGree vey issued a challenge yesterday to more than 200 government officials, environmentalists, builders and others: Work together to make New Jersey grow more intelli gently in the coming decades or risk losing the quality of life that makes the state an attractive place in which to live and do business.
It is that simple, and it is a serious challenge for all of us. New Jerseyans do not want sprawl, but we don't like den sity either. We want solid economic growth and pristine water and air. The battle over sprawl is a battle of complicated competing interests that will not be easy to balance.
The Governor made it clear he was ready to provide the leadership to bring significant change to our system of planning, regulation and development. He also used his "sprawl summit" at the College of New Jersey to set out a framework of promising initiatives to help. Among the major proposals are some old and new ideas:
Redevelopment of long- abandoned industrial and residential parcels in our cities and older suburbs will be jump- started, with $82 million shifted from unneeded, unused environmental funds to aid cleanups of tainted properties. A new $10 million loan program will provide developers who choose these sites with "gap" loans to bring construction projects to market.
The Department of Environmental Protection and other agencies will reform their issuing of permits and other regulations to encourage development where we want it -- in cities and older suburbs -- and discourage it in rural and environmentally sensitive areas. The state will also screen proposals for new roads, sewers and other infrastructure to make sure they promote wise development, not sprawl.
The Department of Transportation will push for more say in what development projects can tie into state and other highways and where. This would offer the state a chance to head off congestion, instead of trying to catch up after the latest giant store or residential development has tied a stretch of road in knots. A plan for the Hillsborough Bypass, a road proposed to get around chronic traffic jams on Route 206 in Somerset County, will be sent back to the drawing board for a new plan that will not dump additional traffic on local roads and encourage more sprawl.
"Renaissance" school zones will be created that combine neighborhood rehabilitation and redevelopment with school construction projects in cities and older suburbs. Hous ing, parks and stores will all be part of the mix in five pilot projects, with more to come.
These are solid proposals. Some require the cooperation of the Legislature, while others can be accomplished by the DEP and other state agencies without any new legal authority.
The details, where the devil always resides, are still to come on these and many other ideas unveiled by McGreevey and his cabinet yesterday. Some will be controversial, such as a Board of Public Utilities idea to have developers pay the expenses for extending water, sewer, electric and other utilities to outlying areas that are not targeted for growth.
McGreevey also properly identified a crucial question to be answered if New Jersey is to rein in sprawl: How do we get the state's 566 municipalities, all jealous of their home-rule powers, to coordinate their 566 zoning plans to coordinate with the state's master plan to guide development to already-built areas and new centers?
The Governor offered no answers. But he is right about the question. Reforming the way New Jersey grows will take a common vision, shared by the state, the counties and the municipalities. As the development community has noted, we cannot accommodate all our future growth just by rebuilding our cities. We will need to make tough choices to expand rural centers and create new ones.
Eventually, our anti-sprawl efforts will have to include reducing the overreliance on property taxes to support schools and local governments. The current system encourages towns to chase commercial and other ratables that can provide new tax revenue but that also can undermine wise planning.
McGreevey believes we must set the common vision for where we develop and where we maintain open space before we tackle tax reform. That is not unreasonable so long as everyone recognizes that onerous property taxes ultimately will have to be addressed. And it does not eliminate the need for a constitutional convention to debate the alternatives and develop a consensus for a solu tion.
The Governor's sprawl summit did not provide a magical cure for the traffic congestion and other challenges of our traditional way of growing. But it laid out an agenda that, with cooperation, debate and effort by all the involved groups, can take us a long way.
McGreevey told the summit attendees that we control our destiny when it comes to the quality of life we leave for our children and grandchildren. It is time to get to work.
Copyright 2002 The Star-Ledger
What's Up for Sarnoff? Questions for a New CEO
This article by Kathleen McGinn Spring was prepared for the October 23, 2002 edition of U.S. 1 Newspaper.
Satyam Cherukuri took the reins at the Sarnoff Corporation less than five months ago, at a time when the harsh economy just kept getting worse. In addition to operating in a time of uncertainty and austerity, Cherukuri inherited a contentious dispute over his organization's plan for a major expansion.
So, how is he coping? And where is Sarnoff, which has had to downsize its staff, heading? Which projects are underway? Which are waiting in the queue for funding? How are the tech innovator's spin-offs doing?
Cherukuri talks about Sarnoff's future on Monday, October 28, at 5 p.m. at "The Edison Innovators: An Evening at Sarnoff" sponsored by the New Jersey Technology Council at Sarnoff. Cost: $100, including dinner. Call 856-787-9700.
On Monday, October 21, just ahead of Cherukuri's talk, Sarnoff announced progress on two initiatives -- both defense-related -- which indicate a timely niche for the company. In the first, Sarnoff joins United Defense Industries in demonstrating its See-Through Turret Visualization (STTV) system. SSTV is a palm-sized vision system that provides soldiers with a 360-degree view of the battlefield under closed hatches. The device consists of eight cameras fixed on the exterior of the vehicle. Video images from the cameras are blended by an on-board computer to create a seamless panoramic view of the surrounding area.
In the second initiative, Rosettex Technology & Ventures Group -- a joint venture of SRI International and Sarnoff Corporation -- has been awarded a five-year contract from the U.S. Army Communications-Electronics Comman at Fort Monmouth to develop and prototype advanced technologies and systems in military communications, command and control, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance applications. The agreement has a potential value of $24 million.
Initial development projects include satellite-on-the-move communications, mobile ad hoc wireless networking, and visualization technology.
The country's increased emphasis on internal security, along with the possibility of war -- and maybe more than one war -- plays to Sarnoff's strength in developing surveillance, communication, and identification technologies. With venture capitalists clutching their purses with a determination reminiscent of a Depression mentality, technologies of the sort that government and the military look for could help lift Sarnoff fortunes, which dipped along with the tech bust.
It is up to Cherukuri to lead the proud innovator -- involved in tech since before anyone thought to call it that -- into its future, whatever that may be. In an interview with U.S. 1's Barbara Fox last spring, Cherukuri, who succeeded James Carnes, talked about his life, his family, and his vision for Sarnoff. Here are excerpts from that interview.
"What Jim Carnes accomplished was to take a bunch of researchers, in many respects arrogant and self-absorbed, coming from a captive
research lab where they didn't have to worry about the money of clients, and transformed that organization into one that worried about the money of clients and one that worked in a context created by somebody else."Cherukuri has taken these lessons to heart. "Where the context was created by our clients, we have succeeded," he says. "Where the context was created by ourselves, we have not succeeded. If we are chasing 100 different business activities, 15 will be based on context created by our clients, and 85 will be based on what we think is the right thing for them to do. Those 85 will fail, but they will help us understand the context a little better next time. By understanding where we succeeded, we want to move that balance to 50-50."
Cherukuri also says that Sarnoff has tried to be thrifty with its funds: "Fail early, fail cheap," has been a useful mantra. And "most of our learning came from mistakes, from not succeeding," he points out. "We have done a good job where we have failed early and cheaply."
Early successes lured Cherukuri into thinking he did not need to heed that "fail early" dictum, and he admits to an expensive mistake. At one point he and his team spent two years and a quantity of resources on a project they were passionate about. "We were not creating in the context of a client's vested interest -- we conjured up the context ourselves. We were absorbed with the idea that, someday, someone would come to their senses and see the real value in our work."
"The first client, a Fortune 100 company, turned it down. We thought, the client doesn't get it. The second client turned it down. They still didn't get it," says Cherukuri. "Then the third client rejected it. And we had to make a decision to hang it up. It was painful, and we felt terrible. It was a very harsh lesson."
That a couple of researchers refused to admit defeat and tried to continue work surreptitiously was another bitter lesson in "when to hold and when to fold." Cherukuri attributes such misplaced persistence to standard business folklore about individuals who keep on going and, despite all odds, achieve spectacular success. "In a business context we use those anecdotes to misguide us," he says. "There is so much of this `conventional wisdom' that it is hard to break through it."
Fifteen years ago Sarnoff was launched with almost no cash, and now Sarnoff has little cash. But Cherukuri, undaunted, looks forward to continuing "innovation." "We learned many things, and we are going to build on what we learned. It has been a tremendous success in many respects. We have products that changed the quality of our lives and will continue to do so."
"What we did for the last 15 years and what we will continue to do for the next 15 years is to keep getting better at the process of innovation," says Cherukuri.
Innovation is not the same as R&D. R&D is subjective, he says, and innovation is not. "Inventing something does not mean we have `innovated' or proven its usefulness. The market and the client tells us whether we have been innovative. The result of innovation is the introduction of a new product or service into the market."
Introducing a new product requires many steps: conceptualizing what will make an impact in the marketplace, making it in small quantities, taking it to third-party manufacturing, distributing it, and marketing it. Sarnoff can work on most of these steps: feasibility studies, R&D, engineering, tech transfer, and manufacturing. "We can help with any or all stages of it," says Cherukuri. "There are not that many companies that can do that."
A good example is Songbird Hearing, the hearing aid spinoff. Cherukuri tells how Sarnoff's clients, venture capitalists, had identified the hearing aid market as likely to boom with aging of the baby boomers, but Siemens already had a big share of the market for traditional hearing aids. "The question was, how do you position them? Should we compete with Siemens to make a better $2,000 hearing aid?"
The solution that Sarnoff came up with was not what the VCs had imagined: Sarnoff was able to tap its own patent portfolio to invent a disposable hearing aid. "The positioning answer is not obvious if you are looking only at market forces. You have to look at technology forces," says Cherukuri. "If you bring us the market information, we add our element that isn't obvious to others. We consider the dynamics that come from invention."
The potential market for innovation, he claims, is $300 billion a year, the amount that Sarnoff's competitors and its potential clients invest to come up with new products. This client/competitor pool includes inhouse departments of corporations, the federal government, and academe. "It is a huge market, larger than pharmaceuticals, a $300 billion market where there are no clear winners, no companies that have a market share." Someone will be the world leader, says Cherukuri, and he plans for it to be Sarnoff. "Innovation is a horizontal market, much like financial services and management consulting. And it is our core competency."
Early in life, Cherukuri learned to propel himself over amazingly difficult obstacles. He grew up in Andhra, a small village in South India where the Telugu language is spoken. He was the youngest of two brothers, and his parents were farmers; his father and grandfather were literate, and they provided his early schooling, because the village had no school.
But if, as experts now say, effective learning depends on emotional intelligence, the village gave him a excellent start. In an environment where children are highly valued and everyone is related to everyone else, the phrase "it takes a village" takes on renewed meaning. "Growing up in a village is an amazing thing," says Cherukuri. "We were materially really poor by any standard, but I never felt that. It was a very warm atmosphere. And my father and my grandparents had an appreciation for education and learning."
Cherukuri had to learn quickly. At age eight he started school in a nearby village -- at the sixth grade level, because that is where that village's school began. Then, by doing well on a national examination, he was admitted to Banaras Hindu University, where he earned a bachelor's degree in ceramic engineering in 1978. Why that subject? "I thought it sounded cool."
When he came to the United States for graduate study, the obvious choice was Alfred University, the college in upstate New York that receives much of its funding from Corning and is a hotbed for ceramics and glass research. He earned a doctorate in glass science, then did post-doctoral work at Siemens in Cherry Hill and Germany. (Two years ago he and his wife moved from Cranbury to Hopewell, where they live with their eight-year-old daughter and their newborn son.)
"My first real job was at Olin, where I developed expertise in electronic packaging and silicon devices," he says. "But after five years I was bored. In 1989 Sarnoff was looking for an individual to help start its packaging thrust. It intrigued me to check it out."
He taught himself the basics,and became managing director of the Life Sciences and Biotechnology business unit at Sarnoff. His study and energy paid off, most notably with four spinoffs. A bioinformatics company, Locus Discovery, was successfully sold and has moved to Philadelphia. Delsys Pharmaceutical, with electrostatic deposition technology for making and delivering drugs, was sold to Elan and is operating at Princeton Corporate Plaza. Orchid BioComputer has gone public and is operating at Route 1 North and Forrestal Drive. Songbird Hearing, at Cedar Brook Corporate Center, is manufacturing and shipping inexpensive, replaceable hearing aids.
Because he is only too ready to speak out, Cherukuri has been, as he describes himself, a difficult employee. "I joined here as a staff member and have always aggravated my supervisor about the tone and direction of where we have to go," he says. "It helps if you turn out to be right."
Carmen Catanese, his boss most of the time, was an early mentor. "I learned some things from him that were not obvious to me -- how to create value for the client. Earlier than others, he learned the art of listening to a client, to piece together the `ecosystem' of the client." The ecosystem, he explains, is how the client works with the dynamic of the market, including its competition, and how the client responds to the environment that shapes individual decisions.
"What we have been doing in the last 15 years," says Cherukuri, "and especially in the last seven years with our spinoffs, has given me the conviction that we are one of few companies in the world that can claim innovation as core competency and take that to the next level of sophistication. As as I look at my own experience and that of my peers, that is the most compelling lesson: If we are creating in the context of the client we are 85 percent successful. Otherwise, success is almost nonexistent."
At the time of the U.S. 1 interview last spring, Cherukuri predicted that Sarnoff would be a "billion dollar company in eight years, and we will achieve that growth by homing in on the practice of innovation. We will still use the genius of individuals, but in the context of the client. For most companies, client context is still an abstract notion. If there is one leverage point for us to go the next level, it is that leverage point. The genius is always there."
Whether or not the past six months of continued hard times has changed that timetable is another matter -- and perhaps a question to be asked at the October 28 dinner.
Copyright U.S. 1 Newspaper 2002.
http://www.princetoninfo.com/200210/21023s04.html
Sprawl for dummiesExplaining New Jersey's growing problem
Sunday, October 20, 2002
New Jersey is at a crowded crossroads. We already are struggling to cope with congested highways, dwindling water supplies and the loss of open space. Yet we are likely to become home to almost one million additional residents over the next 20 years.
How will the Garden State handle the growth?
Gov. James E. McGreevey is hosting a summit of officials, builders, environmentalists and others on Tuesday outside Trenton to begin answering that question.
The summit will offer a public debate over the choices that lie ahead and an opportunity for action. The debate over sprawl can often be a debate over competing values. The public and policymakers alike face tough choices.
Here's a guide to the issues that will be discussed at the summit:
What is sprawl?
Some people see sprawl as McMansions on five-acre lots. To others, it is strip malls or the new development next door.But nearly everyone sees chronically congested roads, increasingly polluted streams and rivers and rapidly disappearing open spaces as the unwelcome consequences of poorly planned growth.
What is the state doing to limit sprawl?
New Jersey has a State Development and Redevelopment Plan that calls for channeling growth to cities, inner suburbs and new rural centers. The idea is to focus development in areas that have existing roads, sewers and other infrastructure, while preserving open space and environmentally sensitive lands elsewhere.Why isn't the plan working?
The state plan is voluntary, and it has been largely ignored as New Jersey grew over the past decade. The plan has little support from local officials, jealous of their home rule powers and vying with one another for tax ratables. Builders, justifiably, complain the state has emphasized preserving rural space but has done little to encourage development in the areas targeted for growth.What should we do about sprawl?
There is no general agreement about a solution. Other states have turned to strict growth boundaries, mandates for clustered development that preserves surrounding open space and restricting state funding for roads, schools, sewers and other infrastructure built outside designated growth areas. All these approaches are variations on what is called "smart growth."The guiding principles, embraced by New Jersey's state plan, are to offer a range of housing choices and prices, and to provide opportunities for walking and mass transit rather than requiring driving everywhere. Examples are redevelopment of the Hoboken waterfront and cluster zoning for new dwellings in East Amwell in Hunterdon County.
Has anything worked to con trol sprawl in other places?
Portland, Ore., has limited development outside its growth boundary, but critics say that has resulted in worse congestion and far higher housing prices in the development area. Maryland has tied road, school and other funding to designated growth areas, but much development is still taking place on open spaces which many would like to preserve.If we limit new construction, will businesses find it more difficult to expand and create jobs? Will families find it more difficult to find a new home?
Environmentalists say no. They believe new construction using smart-growth principles can handle the needs of a growing population while preserving remaining open space.Builders and others worry about these impacts. They fear smart growth is a way to block all building, particularly in rural areas. Builders believe there will always be some demand for low- density housing from people who want a more rural lifestyle.
Voters agreed in 1998 to buy up one million acres of open space, about half of the open land remaining. Won't that solve the sprawl problem?
No. We may not have enough money to meet that ambitious goal. Also, too often towns try to preserve land only after it is pegged for development, creating a bidding war with developers that raises costs to taxpayers. Builders, meanwhile, properly complain this denies them the certainty they need to pursue projects, even where zoning allows them.The danger is this will create a hodgepodge of preserved open space, with little or no connection between parcels and minimal benefit to wildlife or the ecology.
We are the most densely pop ulated state in the nation. Isn't that the real problem?
Population growth has a definite effect. But even in areas of the country where the population level has been stagnant or declined -- portions of upstate New York and the Detroit metropolitan area, for instance -- development has continued to sprawl outward from older centers.Are we doing enough to en courage development in our cit ies and older suburbs?
No. New Jersey's cities and older suburbs have large amounts of vacant or abandoned property, much of it formerly the site of factories and other industry. Many of these properties are heavily polluted, and extremely expensive to clean up. Governmental and other programs so far have largely failed to make redevelopment economically feasible. This will be a major topic at the sprawl summit.How does sprawl affect New Jersey's rivers, streams and other water supplies?
Some estimates link runoff from lawns, parking lots, farms and other development to more than half the contamination in state waterways. Runoff due to pavement and development also are believed to worsen flooding. And the more development, the more drinking water is needed for homes, offices, stores and industry.The water pollution and supply challenges will remain to one degree or another whether future development follows smart- growth strategies or traditional development patterns.
A Star-Ledger/ Eagleton-Rutgers Poll recently found that New Jerseyans are concerned about overdevelopment. But they also are leery of changes that could hurt the economy or limit their right to move to an area they like.
Balancing the competing values won't be easy. The summit is a place to start.
Copyright 2002 The Star-Ledger.
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Friday, August 02, 2002
By KAREN AYRES
The New Jersey Supreme Court dealt a blow to towns across the state yesterday as it reaffirmed a powerful legal tool that town leaders say is used by builders to force massive development under the guise of providing housing for low- and moderate-income families.
In its first review of the state's Mount Laurel housing guidelines in more than a decade, the court said the so-called "builder's remedy" is a necessary tool to ensure towns provide enough affordable housing.
The decision came in a case between West Windsor and Toll Brothers developers.
"Experience demonstrates that absent adequate enforcement, the Mount Laurel doctrine can deliver little more than a vague and hollow promise that a reasonable opportunity for the development of affordable housing will be provided," Chief Justice Deborah Poritz wrote in the majority opinion.
Builders hailed the decision as a victory for poor residents in need of housing, while local government leaders said it would put a snag in their ability to control their own destiny.
"It's an unmitigated disaster," said Charles Morgan, West Windsor Township Council president. "The courts have helped Toll come in and build a development that will overwhelm our streets and the neighborhood and when it's done, they will leave town and leave us with a mess."
In essence, the majority of the court ruled that Toll was entitled to the builder's remedy it received for a 1,165-unit housing development after lower courts determined West Windsor had not provided its "fair share" of affordable units as dictated by state law.
"The decision works for us in every way," said Henry Hill, Toll's lawyer. "The Mount Laurel doctrine is alive and well and will be enforced by the state's highest court."
A court can grant a builder's remedy to allow developers to bypass local zoning if the developer can prove the township hasn't maintained its fair share of affordable housing as determined by the state's Council on Affordable Housing (COAH).
A town can avoid a builder's remedy lawsuit by submitting an affordable housing plan to COAH to prove it is in compliance. As of June 30, 2001, 271 of 521 municipalities, or about 52 percent, have filed plans with COAH, according to the ruling.
The state certified an affordable housing plan for West Windsor in 1985, but it expired in 1991.
Toll first sued for the builder's remedy in 1993, and since West Windsor had not applied for interim certification, it was open to a builder's remedy lawsuit, according to the ruling.
The New Jersey State League of Municipalities asked the Supreme Court during November hearings to eliminate the builder's remedy, saying it is a tool used by builders to force towns to accept massive developments.
The law requires only 15 percent of the proposed units be affordable for a developer to be granted a builder's remedy.
-- -- --
The majority opinion issued yesterday said it is a town's responsibility to avoid a builder's remedy lawsuit.
"If municipalities believe, as the League of Municipalities contends, that the builder's remedy has become a developer's weapon, it is the municipalities that possess the shield of COAH-afforded protection to ward off builder's remedy litigation," the ruling states.
Ed Schmierer, a League lawyer, said he thinks more towns will submit affordable housing plans to COAH after yesterday's ruling.
"We're not surprised by the decision, but I think we're somewhat disappointed," Schmierer said.
Gov. James E. McGreevey called the builder's remedy an "ill-suited and unfortunate aspect of state law" after the ruling and said the state Legislature should restructure the Mount Laurel guidelines.
"Affordable housing ought to be designed from the outset of the planning process and not merely as a tactical weapon used by the development community to coerce the municipality to build more unneeded and unwanted housing," McGreevey said.
"The builder's remedy is not about affordable housing. It is about a builder using as a last resort a legal weapon," he said.
But Patrick O'Keefe, who sits at the helm of the New Jersey Builders Association, said yesterday's decision shows how important the builder's remedy is to enforcing the guidelines and denied it was used as a weapon.
"It's a victory for the housing rights of the state's citizens," O'Keefe said. "It was a decision about implementation, not about doctrinal interpretation."
-- -- --
The ruling issued by the majority of the court largely did not address several problems associated with the guidelines that were highlighted by 10 other groups during testimony - most notably claims that the regulations don't help the state's poorest residents.
"Although we appreciate the importance of the concerns raised, those issues are not before the court and will not be considered in this case," the ruling states.
"We would be reluctant to review matters of such consequence in any case where a record had not been fully developed by the parties in the trial courts, and where COAH, the agency whose regulatory policies are implicated, was not a participant."
Justice Gary Stein, who is retiring at the end of the month, wrote a partially dissenting opinion, stating the court should review claims from the NAACP and others that the guidelines aren't helping people who earn less than 40 percent of the state median income.
He called the NAACP argument "persuasive and disturbing."
Peter O'Connor, an NAACP lawyer, said yesterday he was pleased by Stein's dissent and planned to continue arguing his case to the remaining members of the Supreme Court at another time.
"We're disappointed that the majority opinion didn't deal with it, but we're also pleased that they gave us an invitation," O'Connor said. "It has to do basically with race and politics. They are stumbling blocks to the implementation."
Members of several other groups that testified during the November hearing said yesterday they also took Poritz's comments in the ruling as an opportunity to pursue affordable housing reform in the near future.
-- -- --
John Payne, a Rutgers University law professor, represented several groups, including the Coalition for Affordable Housing and the Environment, the Regional Planning Partnership and New Jersey Future in their attempts to convince members of the court that affordable housing doesn't contribute to suburban sprawl.
The ruling supported that notion, noting that affordable units comprise only a small percentage of the residential and commercial development that has been built in the last few decades.
Paul Chrystie of the Coalition for Affordable Housing and the Environment said he was pleased the ruling touched on the need for planning and environmental protection when reviewing Mount Laurel cases.
"All this court had to do was uphold that and I think they did that strongly," Chrystie said.
But West Windsor Mayor Shing-Fu Hsueh, who is in Korea, said in a prepared statement issued from the township that yesterday's decision will contribute to sprawl.
"Unfortunately this decision is a victory for suburban sprawl and will only encourage speculative developers to usurp decisions about how a community determines its future, not on the basis of the environment and sound land use planning, but on the grounds of profit," Hsueh stated.
In regard to the West Windsor issue, the Supreme Court ruled that lower courts were correct to give Toll a builder's remedy after determining West Windsor had not met its fair-share obligation.
The central point was whether the courts should have considered market demands when determining whether a reasonable opportunity for housing was provided.
The Supreme Court supported lower court decisions and ruled that the town wasn't compliant because it designated sections for multifamily houses that were unlikely to be built because of a poor real estate market for that type of housing.
"Zoning for affordable housing that cannot or will not be built by private developers does not satisfy a municipality's Mount Laurel obligation," the ruling states. "The colloquial phrase `if you build it, they will come' does not translate well to the building of homes."
-- -- --
Michael Herbert, West Windsor's lawyer, said yesterday's decision sends a strong and unfair message to other towns that market demands will be considered when COAH decides whether a town has met its obligation.
"The basic premise of the decision is that a developer should determine how much a municipality should zone its land rather than (letting) the elected representatives (decide)," Herbert said.
The ruling also stated that the township maintained expensive sewer policies to discourage construction of affordable housing. West Windsor leaders have repeatedly denied that any policies are aimed at restricting affordable housing.
West Windsor Township Council members Jackie Alberts and Rae Roeder said the court's decision was not based on an accurate record of the town's affordable housing levels.
Roeder said the court was swayed by developers.
"It's only what the developer wants," Roeder said. "It's disgusting that West Windsor should not be rewarded for its efforts at providing all of the affordable housing that it does provide."
The Supreme Court also denied the township's accusation that Toll had not acted in good faith by heading to the courts for a builder's remedy instead of pursuing variances from the planning board.
-- -- --
The Toll case first went to lower courts back in 1993. As of two years ago, the township had spent more than $900,000 fighting Toll, according to records obtained by The Times.
Herbert said yesterday his services cost the township $125 an hour and he believes the township has spent between $30,000 and $40,000 on the case each year since he took over as the township's lawyer in 1997.
Morgan said he wasn't surprised by yesterday's ruling, but he felt the case was necessary to pursue once it began, despite the cost.
"Once you get into a lawsuit, it's like dancing with a bear," Morgan said. "Once you start dancing with a bear, you don't stop until the bear lets you go."
The high court's decision is the end of the legal road in New Jersey for West Windsor, but it might not be the end of the battle. Herbert said the township council could pursue the case in federal court if it determines there are federal issues involved.
"I can't say right now whether that step would be taken," Herbert said.
Hill said Toll executives were slated to meet today to decide when to start working on the site.
"The housing market in West Windsor is very exciting, and there is a great deal of housing demand," Hill said. "They're anxious to build it as soon as they can."
The Toll development is slated to hold 175 of the town's mandated 929 affordable housing units. It will have 400 single-family homes, 630 apartments and 135 town houses.
Construction can begin once the company obtains approval now being sought from the state Department of Environmental Protection.
Staff writer Mark Perkiss contributed to this report.
Copyright 2002 The Times.
Trenton Court Upholds Law on Moderately Priced Housing
By MARIA NEWMAN
August 2, 2002
he New Jersey Supreme Court yesterday upheld a pioneering law that allows developers to circumvent local zoning restrictions and build more houses if they agree to provide housing for low- to moderate-income families.
The court said a lower court was correct in allowing Toll Brothers Inc. to build 1,165 homes in West Windsor, including 175 moderately priced units, even though the township had said the development violated its local rules. While the testimony made numerous references to sewer hookups and traffic patterns, advocates for the poor said the case was really about the broader issues of housing and segregation in New Jersey.
In a unanimous ruling, the Supreme Court found that West Windsor Township did not provide developers a realistic opportunity to build moderately priced housing. It affirmed a 1983 ruling, known as the Mount Laurel decision, that directs the state's 566 municipalities to provide opportunities for such housing.
It was the first time in 16 years that the state's highest court heard a case on the Mount Laurel doctrine, which was created as a result of a 1975 Supreme Court ruling that outlawed discriminatory zoning. During those years, the policy of allowing developers to circumvent zoning rules to build low-cost housing has been criticized by people on all sides of the issue: representatives of housing groups who say New Jersey still remains a segregated state and municipalities that say it effectively gives developers carte blanche.
Advocates for the poor lauded the ruling because it reinforced the concept of affordable housing, even though the justices did not detail how towns ought to provide such housing.
"I think it's going to send a message to other towns, not just West Windsor, that the court is taking the Mount Laurel doctrine seriously," said Diane Sterner, executive director of the Housing and Community Development Network of New Jersey, which filed a supporting brief on the case. "This is something that is tested every few years."
Gov. James E. McGreevey urged the State Legislature to re-examine the law, saying builders could use it to coerce towns to allow them to build poorly planned developments in the name of low-cost housing.
"I have great respect for the court decision based upon the law, but the court is ill suited and ought not be used as a remedy or arbiter to determine what constitutes appropriate planning," Mr. McGreevey said.
Officials from West Windsor said they probably had no recourse but to go along with it.
Mayor Shing-Fu Hsueh said the decision was a victory for suburban sprawl and would "only encourage speculative developers to usurp decisions about how a community determines its future, not on the basis of the environment and sound land-use planning, but on the grounds of profit."
The mayor pointed out that West Windsor, which has been fighting the Toll Brothers for years, already ranked 14th among the state's municipalities in providing moderately priced housing.
Developers were generally happy with yesterday's decision.
The New Jersey Builders Association pointed out that one million New Jersey families lived in substandard, over-crowded housing.
"If today's decision brings an end to municipal exclusionary housing policies, it will be a crucial step toward addressing the state's housing crisis," officials said in a statement.
Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company
August 1, 2002
CONTACT:
Joseph R. Sicree
jsicree@tollbrothersinc.com
(215) 938-8045
Frederick N. Cooper
fcooper@tollbrothersinc.com
(215) 938-8312Toll Brothers Receives N.J. Supreme Court Approval to Proceed with Construction of Estates at Princeton Junction
Community to Generate Revenues in Excess of $225 MillionHuntingdon Valley, PA, August 1, 2002 -- Toll Brothers, Inc. (NYSE:TOL), the nation's leading builder of luxury homes, today announced that it had received New Jersey Supreme Court approval to proceed with the Estates at Princeton Junction, a 1,165 home community of single-family homes, carriage homes and rental apartments in the Princeton, New Jersey market.
On August 1, 2002, the New Jersey Supreme Court unanimously affirmed both the Trial Court and Appellate Division's rulings granting Toll Brothers the right to proceed with the community. This victory was the culmination of a lawsuit filed by Toll Brothers in May, 1993 against the Township of West Windsor.
Robert I. Toll, chairman and chief executive officer, stated, "The Princeton area is one of the nation's best housing markets and our exceptional site is located within walking distance of the Princeton Junction train station, a primary commuter stop on the New York to Philadelphia rail corridor. With a waiting list of over 3,000 interested prospects, we expect the Estates at Princeton Junction will be one of the premier communities in the State of New Jersey."
"The length of time and cost of gaining approvals for this community, although extraordinary, highlight the difficulty in bringing new lots to market in many parts of the U.S. The reality is that only the largest builders with the expertise, capital and stamina to persevere can bring projects of this scale to fruition. The result is a shortage of available home sites, despite rising demand, which translates into rising home prices."
The Estates at Princeton Junction will consist of 400 single-family detached homes; 130 carriage homes; and 635 apartments. The 290-acre wooded site will include amenities such as a clubhouse with fitness center, swimming pools, tennis courts, neighborhood parks, bike paths and over 80 acres of preserved open space. The Company expects to break ground on the community by year-end 2002 and open for sale in early 2003.
The Estates at Princeton Junction will feature four product lines for move-up and empty-nester home buyers ranging from elegant carriage homes to luxurious estate homes. The community is set in a serene environment among woodlands and meadows. Residents will enjoy the area's nationally recognized schools as well as access to Routes 206, I-95 and I-295 for easy commuting to major business centers.
Toll Brothers, Inc. is the nation's leading builder of luxury homes. The Company generated $2.2 billion in revenues and $213 million in earnings in fiscal 2001. Toll Brothers has produced over 20% compound average annual growth in revenues and earnings for the last one, three, five, seven and ten year periods.
Toll Brothers began business in 1967 and became a public company in 1986. Its common stock is listed on the New York Stock Exchange and the Pacific Exchange under the symbol "TOL". The Company serves move-up, empty-nester and active-adult home buyers and operates in 22 states: Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maryland, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia.
Toll Brothers builds luxury single-family and attached home communities and master-planned luxury multi-product residential golf course communities principally on land it develops and improves. The Company operates its own architectural, engineering, mortgage, title, land development and land sale, golf course development and management, home security, landscape, cable T.V. and broadband Internet delivery subsidiaries. The Company also operates its own lumber distribution, and house component assembly and manufacturing operations.
Toll Brothers is the only publicly traded national home builder to have won all three of the industry's highest honors: America's Best Builder from the National Association of Home Builders, the National Housing Quality Award and Builder of the Year. For more information visit www.tollbrothers.com.
Certain information included herein and in other Company reports, SEC filings, statements and presentations is forward-looking within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including, but not limited to, statements concerning anticipated operating results, financial resources, changes in revenues, changes in profitability, interest expense, growth and expansion, the ability to acquire land, the ability to sell homes and properties, the ability to deliver homes from backlog, the ability to secure materials and subcontractors, and stock market valuations. Such forward-looking information involves important risks and uncertainties that could significantly affect actual results and cause them to differ materially from expectations expressed herein and in other Company reports, SEC filings, statements and presentations. These risks and uncertainties include local, regional and national economic conditions, domestic and international political events, the effects of governmental regulation, the competitive environment in which the Company operates, fluctuations in interest rates, changes in home prices, the availability and cost of land for future growth, the availability of capital, uncertainties and fluctuations in capital and securities markets, the availability and cost of labor and materials, and weather.
More obstacles for West Windsor master plan
Wednesday, July 31, 2002
By KAREN AYRES
WEST WINDSOR - The township council may never fully implement all of the zoning changes in the newly adopted master plan because of the high price of drafting ordinances and ongoing debate over several elements of the plan, local leaders say.
Although the planning board approved some 80 changes to the master plan draft in late June after more than a year of debate, none of the changes can go into effect unless the township council adopts ordinances to put the new guidelines into law.
And township council members say drafting ordinances can cost between $200 and $30,000 apiece depending on the number of consultants used and the number of versions created before final approval.
"It's going to take forever and it will never be finished," said Charles Morgan, township council president. "We don't have the money. It's a huge task and there is only so much in the way of time and resources. It's going to dribble out."
The planning board slashed allowable levels of development on some township properties and cut plans to widen several roadways in a series of controversial decisions during master plan deliberations.
Morgan wants the administration to start drafting ordinances that correspond with changes recently made to the master plan by starting with the least controversial items.
Several township council members said they agree with that plan because it would be a waste of money and time to draft ordinances that have no support from council members.
An ordinance must be approved by at least three council members and Mayor Shing-Fu Hsueh or four council members if the mayor doesn't support the measure for it to pass.
"It doesn't mean it shouldn't come to public debate," said Kristin Appelget, a township council member. "But we should get consensus on where to move forward."
Jackie Alberts, another township council member, said the planning board should start to study growth levels on properties along Route 1 and Route 571 before the township council approves any changes in those areas.
Plans for that study were included in the planning board's approval of the master plan at the end of June.
"We have to figure out whether we are permitting a higher density than our roads can handle," Alberts said.
Both Alberts and fellow township council member Alison Miller say residents deserve another public hearing on the master plan document.
"I don't believe people had time to address some of the less controversial issues because of the storm over the truly controversial issues," Miller said. "The council is going to have to deal with any rezoning proposal that comes from the planning board and we will just deal with it one piece at a time."
Planning Board Chairman Marvin Gardner said the planning board has no plans to hold another public hearing on the master plan. Right now, the only way a change to the master plan will be drafted as an ordinance is if a developer makes an application that would require the change and is willing to pay the cost of drafting the measure, he said.
"At this point, we don't intend to draft any ordinances to be consistent with the master plan unless a developer is willing to pay money for it so there would not be a cost to the township," Gardner said. "But I'm willing to sit down with members of council and representatives of the mayor to look at the situation and determine if some items should be given priority."
The township council is required to hold a public hearing on any ordinance adopted from the master plan changes.
Copyright 2002 The Times.
TRENTON RECEIVED $45K BROWNFIELDS GRANT
EPA AWARDS $405,000 TO COMMUNITIES AROUND THE COUNTRY TO SUPPORT
BROWNFIELDS REVITALIZATION AND SMART GROWTHJuly 24, 2002
U. S. EPA Deputy Administrator Linda Fisher today announced $405,000 in grants to nine communities around the country under the "Smart Growth: Saving Open Space, Revitalizing Brownfields" program. Each community will receive $45,000 to incorporate smart growth approaches into the redevelopment of properties where reuse is complicated by real or perceived contamination.
Commenting on the announcement, EPA Administrator Christie Whitman said: "With hundreds of thousands of Brownfields needing attention across the country, it is clear that we must choose areas with real redevelopment potential. These communities have demonstrated a readiness to make the most of their redevelopments by embracing a smart growth approach."
"These nine award winners will pave the way for other communities by demonstrating the environmental and economic benefits that can be gained by incorporating smart growth into their Brownfields revitalization efforts. All of you will continue to provide examples of creative, innovative approaches to dealing with the difficult challenges you face in converting your local eyesores into community assets," said Deputy Administrator Fisher, who announced the grants in a speech today in Washington to the Brownfields Showcase Community Summit.
For more information about the grant program and awardees, or the Administrator's initiative, go to
http://www.epa.gov/smartgrowth/brownfields.htm
Governor names director of new Office of Smart Growth
By: David Campbell , Staff Writer 07/16/2002
Local environmental leaders hope Zellner's political clout helps.Gov. James E. McGreevey and Department of Community Affairs Commissioner Susan Bass Levin on Thursday announced the appointment of Adam J. Zellner as the Office of Smart Growth executive director.
Local smart-growth advocates said Monday Mr. Zellner has no background in smart growth issues, but that his political clout could aid implementation of the State Development and Redevelopment Plan, the state's blueprint for growth and conservation.
Carlos Rodrigues, who is chairman of the Princeton Township Zoning Board of Adjustment, has served as interim director since Herb Simmens was fired earlier this year as executive director of the Office of State Planning.
In January, the governor fired most of the office's staffers as part of a mass state layoff to plug a multi-billion-dollar budget gap. The office was renamed the Office of Smart Growth after the governor established the Smart Growth Policy Council.
The council was created to ensure that various state agencies adhere to the anti-sprawl objectives under the State Plan.
Mr. Zellner, 33, is currently chief of staff to Congressman Steven R. Rothman (D-9), where he has served as environmental coordinator.
"Adam Zellner will provide the leadership required to promote and direct smart growth," Gov. McGreevey said. "He will work with the State Cabinet ... to ensure a sound constructive balance between preserving needed open space and targeting economic development opportunities."
Ms. Levin said Mr. Zellner "understands the need to stop sprawl in New Jersey.
"He is a strong environmentalist and a result-oriented leader," Ms. Levin said. "Adam will be instrumental in implementing Gov. McGreevey's vision to take the State Plan from paper to reality."
According to Barbara Lawrence, executive director of New Jersey Future, Mr. Zellner is "an unknown quantity" with little experience in smart-growth related issues.
"There are three things we were looking for in a director of the Office of Smart Growth: a strong, substantive background, good communication skills, and the understanding that this takes place in a political environment," Ms. Lawrence said. "We think those are essential to succeed in the job. We don't know Mr. Zellner, so we will be watchful."
Ms. Lawrence called the governor's smart growth goals "ambitious" and said New Jersey Future expects to work with Mr. Zellner to achieve them.
"We'd be very happy to be of help to him," she said. "Communication is everything, and we will be communicating."
Dianne Brake, president of The Regional Planning Partnership, said she knew nothing about Mr. Zellner's background, but said that if his political ties to the governor's office are strong, he could effectively advance the State Plan agenda.
"When it comes to it, we have a good State Plan now," Ms. Brake said. "Now it's a matter of implementation. If he has good contacts and access to the right ear, and assuming they don't change direction, then this is not necessarily a bad thing."
George Hawkins, executive director of the Stony Brook-Millstone Watershed Association, said Mr. Zellner's could be a "very smart appointment.
"What this movement needs is implementation, and that is now a political question," Mr. Hawkins said. "Having someone who's aware, closely tied to the McGreevey administration, and has the powers to negotiate could be tremendously beneficial."
Mr. Zellner thanked the McGreevey administration and Ms. Levin for their confidence in him.
"For too many years, our state has stood by while thousands of acres of our last remaining open space have disappeared," he said.
"Because of inaction, New Jersey suffers from sprawl and its detrimental impacts - traffic, congestion, pollution, water and power shortages - we need a change," he said.
©Packet Online 2002
Planners, neighbors take issue with office park proposal
By: Gwen Runkle , Staff Writer 07/12/2002
Concept plan calls for 15 buildings on a 35-acre property at the corner of Route 571 and Rabbit Hill Road in West Windsor.
WEST WINDSOR - A concept plan for a 15-building office park on a 35-acre property currently zoned residential on the corner of Route 571 and Rabbit Hill Road did not get a welcome response Wednesday before the township Planning Board.Nearly a dozen neighboring residents and several Planning Board members spoke out strongly against the plan, which was submitted for an informal review by property owner Bryce Thompson of Princeton Research Lands Inc.
The concept plan proposed building about 212,000 square feet of general and medical offices, as well as some retail, with a floor-area ratio of 14 percent. The 15 buildings proposed were to be one, two or three stories with a prairie-style design and would be clustered around courtyards.
But residents and board members alike pointed out problems with the safety of neighboring roadways, environmental sensitivity of the site and size of the proposed development.
Board member Bill Benfer asked how traffic generated by the site would affect the already dangerous intersection of Route 571 and Rabbit Hill Road and the development's proposed shared entryway with a day care center on Rabbit Hill Road.
"It is inconceivable to me how cars are going to get in and out of there at rush hour without a calamity," he said.
Alison Miller, Township Council liaison to the board, said a proposed entryway on Route 571 might not work, either.
"I don't see that working without a light and given what our professionals have said a light is not possible given the proximity to the two other lights at Rabbit Hill Road and Community Park," she said.
In addition, given the amount of wetlands and floodplain on the property, associated with the Big Bear Brook on its northern border and significant woodland on the site, board members and township consultants said the proposed development would be too intense.
Dan Dobromilsky, township landscape architect, suggested the plan's floor-area ratio be reduced from 14 percent to 10.5 percent to decrease the number of buildings and parking areas.
But no matter what the size of the development, neighboring residents stressed they'd rather look out their windows and see homes instead of an office park.
"My house backs onto Route 571," said Debbie Schwartz, a Cartwright Drive resident. "I would be terribly disappointed if the zoning were changed so I would have a vista of one-, two- and three-story office buildings and expansive parking lots."
The township's draft Master Plan, recently approved by the Planning Board, suggests the property be rezoned for professional office or assisted-living/nursing home use. The Township Council would have to pass an ordinance in order for a zoning change to occur.
In response to the concerns voiced, attorney Archibald Reed, representing Mr. Thompson and Princeton Research Lands Inc., said a traffic study would be conducted and the property owner would be glad to meet with neighboring residents before coming back to the board with any further plans.
In other business, four board members were sworn in to new terms during the board's reorganization Wednesday.
Anthony Vinci and Heidi Kleiman replaced former board members Gretchen Farenbruch and Larry Hollander. Their terms expired June 30.
Simon Pankove, who will serve a two-year term, replaced alternate Pat Greber. Steve Decter, whose one-year term also expired at the end of June, was sworn in for another one-year term.
In addition, Marvin Gardner was unanimously selected to replace Ed Steele as board chairman and Steve Jany was selected to replace Mr. Benfer as vice chairman.
Mr. Decter, Ms. Miller and Mr. Benfer were chosen to serve on the board's ordinance review subcommittee and Ms. Kleiman and Mr. Jany were picked to represent the board on the township's Site Plan Review Advisory Board.
Board member Chuck Chang will represent the board on the township's Affordable Housing Committee.
©Packet Online 2002
Sunday, July 07, 2002
BY EDITORIAL
Rapid and unfocused growth in the suburbs - commonly known as sprawl - brings with it a multitude problems. New developments almost always are finished before the necessary water and sewer systems, roads and schools are in place to accommodate them. And the cost of the expanded services and infrastructure routinely exceeds the tax revenues that the developments produce, which leads to property tax increases. Thus, established residents and businesses subsidize the new development, while the developer takes large financial benefits from the community.
Fair solutions to these problems have been proposed in the Legislature for several years, only to be defeated by the powerful builders' lobby. Now their advocates, led by the New Jersey State League of Municipalities, plan to push for them again when the lawmakers return from their summer recess. The effort deserves to be successful. The specific proposals are:
Timed Growth. In 1994, West Windsor adopted an ordinance that would require a phase-in of development in conjunction with expansion of infrastructure under the municipality's capital improvement plan. Although widely hailed as a constructive and innovative approach, the ordinance was struck down in 1997 by Superior Court Judge Linda R. Feinberg on grounds that such laws hadn't been authorized by the Legislature. Her ruling was affirmed two years later by the Appellate Division. Bills that would provide the needed authorization are: A-296, sponsored by Assemblyman Reed Gusciora, D-Princeton Borough, and Assemblywoman Bonnie Watson-Coleman, D-Ewing; S-435, sponsored by Sen. Shirley Turner, D-Lawrence; and S-634, sponsored by Sen. Peter Inverso, R-Hamilton. Their enactment into law would give municipalities a useful tool to mitigate the worst effects of sprawl.
Impact Fees. Studies have shown that for every $1 collected in property taxes from new residential development, local governments must spend from $1.04 to $1.67 to provide services for their occupants. However, the courts have interpreted the Municipal Land Use Law as blocking counties, towns and school districts from recouping these extra costs from the developers whose activities produce them. This barrier would be removed by enactment of A-594, sponsored by Assemblyman Gusciora, and S-556, sponsored by Sens. Leonard Lance, R-Flemington, and Richard Bagger, R-Westfield.
Copyright 2002 The Times.
Saturday, June 29, 2002
By ANDREW D. SMITH
TRENTON - A local program designed to help hatchling businesses grow to become powerful revenue and job makers is among a series of economic tools facing an uncertain future this weekend as state legislators have turned an eye toward slashing technology funding.
They will vote on money-saving budget initiatives tomorrow that would eliminate the administrative structure of the New Jersey Commission on Science and Technology, which helps fund the Trenton Business and Technology Center on South Broad Street, a business incubator, and many others like it.
The commission's functions would be performed instead by the state Economic Development Authority. The fate of programs funded and administered by the commission was unclear yesterday.
Commission supporters have rallied to defend the agency, which spends about $14 million a year to support academic research, small business incubators and individual companies. Its beneficiaries have gone on to create thousands of jobs and millions in annual tax revenues for the state, supporters say.
As proposed, the new state budget would not include the $632,000 needed to support the commission's nine-member staff.
The EDA would be charged with the task of administering the commission's grant and loan pool, much of which has been frozen - more than $3 million in loans from the commission's Springboard program.
Such moves are designed to help the state overcome the worst budget shortfall in its history. Estimates of the gap between planned spending and projected revenues range as high as $9 billion. State officials have been plugging the hole with a combination of tax increases and program cuts to meet a $23.4 billion budget expected to be approved tomorrow, just hours before the deadline.
Officials from the EDA declined to comment yesterday on grounds they had learned of the budget provision only hours earlier. Commission officials also refused to speak.
One source close to the matter found it unlikely the EDA could administer and distribute the funds effectively - if the state maintains the flow of funds currently earmarked for that purpose.
"They're going to get rid of people who have been doing this for close to 20 years and then give the money to a bunch of people who don't understand these particular programs and who presumably already have as much work as they can handle," said the source, who spoke anonymously.
"Either the EDA is going to have to hire more people, which would eliminate the cost savings, or they will have to administer the money short-staffed, which will reduce effectiveness and slow the distribution, which may be what they want to do."
Many officials in the technology sector consider the proposed cut foolish and hope the Legislature will amend the plan.
"Considering that the commission helps the state by attracting and enlarging tax-paying employers, the decision to eliminate it seems short sighted," said Al Spiewak, director of the Trenton Business and Technology Center. "Everyone acknowledges the need to cut programs and eliminate the deficit, but they shouldn't choose programs that ultimately help the state's economy and increase the tax base."
The commission provides $75,000 per year for the Trenton incubator, which rents small spaces to startup companies at low prices and provides them with numerous services.
Founded in 1996, the incubator houses 18 companies with roughly 30 employees at its 13,000-square-foot facility at the corner of South Broad and Front streets. The facility is 80 percent full. The $75,000 from the commission makes up a third of the facility's operating budget.
"Starting a business is tough. But by doing what we do, we make it easier for entrepreneurs to get going and to succeed. And that is a valuable service," Spiewak said. "But honestly, I don't know what we could do to close the hole in our budget if we lose that $75,000."
There are seven other incubators across the state, including one in Mount Laurel that is affiliated with Burlington County College. Earlier this week, the commission celebrated the expansion of an incubator in North Brunswick.
In addition to funding incubators, the commission provides grants and loans directly to technology companies.
One local recipient who went on to do well was Greg Olsen. In 1984, he founded a company called Epitaxx in Ewing. In 1992, he founded Sensors Unlimited of West Windsor.
"I was a scientist at Sarnoff Corp. when I read about this new state agency that was trying to help startup technology companies," Olsen said. "I went down to Trenton and asked them how to start a company. They walked me through the whole process and then when I started the company they lent me money."
Epitaxx proved a success, as did Sensors, which also received commission loans.
In 1990, Olsen and his fellow investors sold Epitaxx to Nippon Sheet Glass for $12 million. Nine years later the company was sold to JDS Uniphase for $400 million. A year after that, Olsen and his fellow investors sold Sensors to Finisar for $700 million.
At their height, the two companies employed more than 1,100 people. Since then, troubles in the telecommunications industry have hurt both firms, which now employ about 500 people between them.
"The decision to give several small loans to these companies provided a big boost to the state's economy," Olsen said. "I don't know if I could have built those businesses without that help but it sure would have been much harder. I don't understand why anyone would want to eliminate an agency that has so much expertise in finding and supporting promising companies."
Rich Lee, a spokesman for the governor's office, said the issue of funding the commission remains up in the air. The money might be restored, he said.
Joseph Donnelly, a spokesman for the Assembly Majority Office, thinks it unlikely the budget will be amended again before the vote expected tomorrow.
"All the changes that anyone expects were made Thursday evening and (yesterday) morning," he said.
News of the commission's possible demise has upset officials at the New Jersey Technology Council, an industry organization with roughly 1,200 members.
"The Commission on Science and Technology is a well-run organization that has a tremendous impact on the state's technology community," said Paul Frank, TCNJ's director of membership. "Eliminating it sends the wrong sort of message about the state's commitment to supporting technology. It's particularly troubling that New Jersey would do this when so many other states offer companies so many more incentives."
Copyright 2002 The Times.
Friday, June 28, 2002
By KAREN AYRES
WEST WINDSOR - The planning board officially approved the township's master plan this week after more than a year of deliberation that produced some 80 changes to zoning and traffic proposals in the document.
The board, in response to residents' complaints, cut several plans to widen roadways and reduced the amount of allowable development on some properties in the final plan, which was unanimously approved by the board on Wednesday night.
Planning board members noted in their approval that they plan to study growth levels on properties along Route 1 and Route 571 in the near future.
"The master plan is not perfect, but we have just come to a certain point," Mayor Shing-Fu Hsueh said. "Once we have the new planning board take over, we'll be setting out priorities to try to resolve some of the issues we didn't resolve."
The planning board began deliberations on the master plan, which provides an outline for future growth, last May. Several new planning board members are expected to assume office on July 1.
During the last year, hordes of township residents have filed into planning board meetings to protest elements of the plan with varying levels of success.
The proposal to rebuild the Alexander Road bridge at one of four locations pitted several neighborhoods against each other a few months ago until finally the board chose to rebuild it at its current spot.
The debate over what level of growth to allow on several massive commercial sites and even smaller residential properties pitted residents eager for tax revenue against those more focused on limiting traffic.
Plans to widen parts of Alexander and Clarksville roads angered people who live on those streets but were endorsed by many residents annoyed by snarled traffic during rush hour.
In the end, the bridge will stay where it is, commercial growth was reduced to a level found acceptable by many landowners and the roads won't be widened despite predictions of growing traffic in coming years.
"They'll have to deal with the traffic issues as they arise or the planning board will have to look at it again," said Sam Surtees, the township's zoning officer.
Plans for the proposed Millstone Bypass remain in the master plan, but longtime plans for a bypass in the Edinburgh section of town were scrapped, angering many residents from that area.
"What we have identified with this vote is what is done and what is yet to be done," said Jackie Alberts, township council liaison to the planning board. "We've gotten a long way after a year."
Hsueh said he realizes many residents aren't going to be happy with the final product, but he believes all the town's citizens had their fair chance to voice their opinions.
"I wish we could have done more," Hsueh said. "But at this point, I'm pretty sure we all learned from the residents. Regardless of the way you do it there are always people who feel their issues are not being addressed."
Copyright 2002 The Times.
Tuesday, June 25, 2002
By KAREN AYRES
WEST WINDSOR - Sarnoff Corp. is one step closer to building a massive "technology campus" after the planning board approved a general development plan for the project that outlines a 20-year phasing schedule.
The planning board unanimously approved the basic outline for the 3 million-square-foot campus with about 70 conditions last week after several days of testimony about the tax contributions, open space preservation and traffic conditions.
But company and township officials say progress on construction will depend on the real estate demand for office and research facilities along Route 1.
"For a development to go forward there has to be a market for it," said Walter Schmidlin, Sarnoff's director of facilities management. "We're probably at this point going to start marketing and see what develops."
The township has approved a series of proposals for more than 3 million square feet of office space elsewhere along Route 1 in the last several years that have not been built because of a presumed lack of demand, according to Sam Surtees, the township's zoning officer.
"There are a lot of approvals out there with frontages on Route 1 that aren't being built," Surtees said. "And they're all farther ahead than Sarnoff in the approval process."
Most of the conditions included in the planning board's approval doled out on Wednesday clarified the phasing schedule and other minor building requirements. The approval stipulated that 103 acres of the property be preserved as greenbelt. It also nixed plans to install a traffic light on Route 571 and a cul-de-sac on Fisher Place.
Sarnoff will need to go back to the planning board for preliminary and final approval for each of the four phases of the campus.
The general development plan calls for the company's structure to be expanded from 600,000 to 750,000 square feet. That phase, called phase zero, can occur at any time.
The first phase of the project, which can also occur at any time, calls for up to 450,000 square feet of research or office space to be built.
The second phase, which cannot occur until the Millstone Bypass or a functional equivalent is built, calls for between 750,000 and 800,000 square feet of space.
The third phase, which is more than a decade away, calls for another 600,000 square feet.
"The phasing plan was very important to West Windsor," said Jackie Alberts, a planning board member. "This is timing our growth for our infrastructure."
Schmidlin said the company will investigate ways to build its own road if the state does not approve the plan for the bypass, which is now under review by a group compiling an Environmental Impact Statement ordered by the state.
Schmidlin disputed residents who claim the planning board's Wednesday decision will ensure that the state will approve the road to keep Sarnoff in business and the additional tax revenue flowing to the town and Mercer County.
"The (bypass) is needed for the region with or without us," Schmidlin said. "They're unrelated."
The general development plan calls for 90 acres of the 300-plus acre property to be subdivided and given to Princeton University, which will hold the rights to build on 900,000 square feet on the site.
Princeton University officials have said they have no plans to build on the site in the next 10 years, but Surtees said he expects to see the formal plans for the subdivision come before the planning board by August.
"It's a technicality," he said.
Copyright 2002 The Times.
Sunday, June 23, 2002
By ANDREW D. SMITH
WEST WINDSOR - A steady stream of world-altering innovation has won Sarnoff Corp. a reputation for being one of the world's greatest brain trusts.
But to some degree, the company's scientific renown has also hindered its ability to turn genius into profits.
"I don't like to use the word `arrogant.' But some of our clients probably would," said Satyam Cherukuri, new chief executive at the company, which does research in many different fields for corporations and the government.
"Whatever you want to call it, there were certainly times, though not many, when people hired us to develop something and we delivered what we thought they should have rather than what they actually requested," he continued. "More frequently, we just haven't given the level of client-focused service that we are capable of."
Also, as the technology boom has died away and the near-term outlook for increased spending by the private sector is uncertain, Sarnoff has seen its commercial revenues sharply decline, forcing the West Windsor company to restructure operations and lay off employees.
Now, after a long climb that took him from a boyhood in a rural village in southern India to the head of the world-famous research lab, Cherukuri is taking Sarnoff's helm as it revamps its business plan to deal with a new business climate and expectations.
And as former Sarnoff CEO James Carnes prepares for his retirement party later this week, Cherukuri is drafting new designs for the company's future as a research powerhouse.
In an interview at the company's spacious campus off Route 1, where nearly all of its operations are based, Cherukuri said he wants to combine the company's traditional nuts-and-bolts know-how with a new focus on marketing and people skills that he hopes will bring in more business and improve the bottom line.
Cherukuri also has plans to de-emphasize Carnes' famous strategy for creating new technology companies, a strategy that has yet to pay big dividends for money-losing Sarnoff but remains a potential boon.
"Our basic business will remain the same," Cherukuri said. "But we will work harder than ever to become partners with our corporate clients rather than fee-for-service researchers. And although we will continue working with private investors to generate new companies, we will be more selective about which opportunities we pursue."
Founded in 1942, Sarnoff began life as an in-house laboratory for RCA Corp. But a year after GE's 1986 purchase of RCA, the company decided to spin off Sarnoff and its employees.
Although technically a subsidiary of SRI International, a California-based research organization, Sarnoff effectively became an independent firm that stayed in business by selling research services to private companies and the government.
Nine years ago, the company developed its famous spinoff strategy - a plan whereby Sarnoff retained the rights to some of its discoveries, transferred the intellectual property into new companies and found private investors willing to finance those new companies in exchange for partial ownership.
Sarnoff officials expected big returns when the spinoff companies went public. And their novel strategy received a lot of attention in the business world. But with only one spinoff going public so far (Orchid BioSciences of South Brunswick), contract research has remained Sarnoff's only consistent source of revenue.
Given that fact, Cherukuri plans to change Sarnoff's focus somewhat, spending less time developing spinoffs and more time focusing on the needs of its research clients.
That's where the marketing and people skills come in.
"When we were cut loose from RCA, there weren't many models for how we could make money. The basic ideas we came up with were very strong. But obviously we have learned a lot over the past 15 years and we are always trying to incorporate that into how we do business," Cherukuri said.
In the past, companies typically came to Sarnoff and asked the company to develop some product in exchange for a flat fee. The company set its scientists to work. And they solved the technical problem without ever learning much about their client or the industry it works in, Cherukuri said.
In the future, Sarnoff will start by learning about its clients, their industries and what products will likely be profitable. Then, using that knowledge, company scientists will work with their clients to design proper goals and create profitable innovations.
Rather than taking fee-for-service payments, Sarnoff will work to create contracts with royalty payments or other devices that make them partners with their clients and reward them for making valuable products.
At least, that's the ideal.
"If a client doesn't want any of the extra services, then we're not going to walk away from the deal," Cherukuri said. "But we have learned a lot about getting value from technology in the past 15 years. And we have some of the most brilliant people in the world here. We can offer our clients much more than we have been providing. And we think these extra services will benefit everyone."
As for the spinoffs, Sarnoff will use its experience to modify business practices there as well.
"We've spun off more than 20 new companies. Some have done well. Some are dead. But all of them have helped us understand the market better," Cherukuri said. "We've developed a pretty good idea of what sorts of technology work well in a spinoff and what doesn't. And that's going to make our spinoff activity much more focused and much more consistently successful in future."
One lesson that Sarnoff has learned since beginning its spinoff strategy is the difficulty of creating demand for new products.
"There is a defunct spinoff called LifeClips that had a really interesting technology which allowed people to transfer material from VHS tapes to DVDs and actually enhance the picture quality during the transfer," Sarnoff spokesman Tom Lento said.
"It was a really great technical achievement," he continued. "And the price point was pretty good. But the market reacted with extreme indifference. It seems like people don't want to save their old tapes."
From now on, Lento said, Sarnoff will likely make sure people want a product before creating a spinoff to make that product. Sarnoff is abandoning the old way of hoping that people can be convinced to want something once it is on the market.
"Considering that video tapes degrade quickly and DVDs last a lifetime, we thought our product would sell," Lento said. "But we learned not to assume."
The broad economic downturn over the past couple years has taken a brutal toll on Sarnoff.
Two years ago, the company got 60 percent of its business from private sector companies and 40 percent from the government. But since then, nearly half of the private sector business has evaporated.
Sarnoff has responded by working harder to win government contracts. And over the same period of time, the company has increased its public sector revenue by 40 percent.
Still, revenues fell from a high of $120 million in 1999 to $115 million in 2001. And the company responded by cutting costs and shrinking employment rolls here from a high of 775 to around 600 now.
Cherukuri doesn't anticipate any more layoffs. But he doesn't make any guarantees.
"We built up staff in 1999 in anticipation of rapid growth. But with the recession we actually saw revenues go down and we found ourselves with far too many people," Cherukuri said. "It's hard to lay people off, obviously. But we couldn't have kept the business staffed the way it was."
Sarnoff has been losing money for the past couple of years, Cherukuri said. And even with the layoffs, the company has yet to start making profits, although Cherukuri hopes to reach the break-even point by year's end.
"If I can't do that," he said. "Then I won't be here too long."
Cherukuri grew up far away from the cutting edge of technology.
He spent his childhood in a small farming village in the southern Indian state of Andhra.
His parents taught him at home until he was ready for sixth grade, when he started attending a small school that served several surrounding villages.
His performance earned a national scholarship and a spot at prestigious Banaras Hindu University in the northeastern Indian city of Varanasi.
"I got into science and engineering toward the end of high school," Cherukuri said. "The way they do it there, you take a test when you're in 11th grade and that pretty much determines the entire future of your education.
"If the test says you should do science," he continued, "you do science. If it says math, you do math. It's not like America where there are all sorts of opportunities to go back and change your course. It's pretty rigid."
At that time, in the early 1970s, less than 35 percent of India's population could read or write. And although the nation's constitution guarantees education for children up to age 14, only 21 percent of children 15 to 17 remained in school. Only 3 percent attended college.
In other words, just making it to Banaras was a major accomplishment that demonstrated Cherukuri's place among the nation's elite. But he wasn't done there.
After completing his undergraduate work in 1978, he came to America, where he got a doctorate in engineering at Alfred University in western New York.
"For people in India who can manage it, coming to America is the thing to do," Cherukuri said. "Not only are the facilities better here, there's just an aura of success and opportunity that proves a very powerful draw."
Cherukuri landed his first major job at Siemens, where he continued work he began in college concerning the structure of glass and ceramics.
He then moved on to Olin, a chemical company that wanted to get into the electronic materials business.
As one of the first people to be hired for the new unit, Cherukuri has a lot of freedom and a lot of responsibility.
He responded by designing a low-cost package for computer chips.
He came to Sarnoff in 1989 and started working at the company's electronic materials department. He made phosphorus for television picture tubes and other products that helped various Sarnoff gizmos work.
Eventually, he became the head of the materials team.
But when he did, he found that the group wasn't getting enough work to keep everyone busy. So he started casting around in different directions, expanding the team's expertise into areas like medicine and biology.
From Cherukuri's team emerged the technology at the heart of many Sarnoff spinoffs: Orchid BioSciences, Songbird Hearing, Locus Discovery and Lamina Ceramics.
Lamina is particularly dear to Cherukuri's heart because its work, making casings for computer chips, bears strong relation to the work Cherukuri did earlier in his career.
Cherukuri credits his ultimate promotion to his success during these years. Not only did he help get Sarnoff involved in a totally new field. He made the new unit one of the most productive idea generators in the entire company.
Now he hopes he can do just as well in his new position.
"With the talent we have here and the experience we have gained over the past 15 years, I really believe we can put it all together and really thrive," Cherukuri said. "I really believe Sarnoff can be a billion-dollar company with thousands of employees in the not-so-distant future."
Copyright 2002 The Times.
Sarnoff Labs, Where Television Was Born, Takes a Hard Look at Itself
By Beth Pinsker
The New York Times, June 2, 2002, Section 14, Pages 1 and 8
Photo caption:
The Sarnoff Laboratories in Princeton -where Nitin Desai, an associate on the technical staff, examines his work under a microscope -is turning from its historical research and-development mode to a more client- and consumer-friendly company.FROM its gilded perch on Route 1 in Princeton, the Sarnoff Corporation looks essentially the same as it has since 1942, when its legendary founder, David Sarnoff-who changed the world with the invention of ~ the television - broke ground on a campus for his engineers.
But the venerable company that perfected the television and developed myriad other gee-whiz innovations of the 20th century like the liquid crystal display and the electron microscope is poised to reinvent itself as it moves through the 21st century-phasing out its long history of doing research and development on contract for others.
What this will mean for Sarnoff-or at least its executives hope - is greater efficiencies and more revenue. What it portends for New Jersey, and more specifically a Route 1 dotted with high-tech businesses, is more ominous. Many of the state's pharmaceutical, communications and consumer electronics companies depend on Sarnoff to develop components for their own products. In addition, for the last few years Sarnoff has also been attracting a lot of venture capital and spending a good deal of its own money on spinoff ventures-most of which will be quieted under the new plan.
To help push through a 10-year plan to refurbish and transform Sarnoff's 600 square-foot headquarters into a 3.5-million-square-foot technology campus, the company has named a new chief executive, Satyam Cherakuri, who has been with the company 13 years. Taking over for James E. Carnes, who announced his retirement in April after 33 years with the company, Mr. Cherukuri has announced a plan to restructure the company, which had an average revenue of $120 million over the past three years and employs 650 people.
Neither the old way of research and development on contract or the new way of creating spinoff companies was bringing in sufficient revenue to keep the operation humming. So Mr. Cherukuri has been given a mandate to lead the company to greater profits.
For one thing, Mr. Cherukuri said in a recent interview, he planned to move the company from its historical research-and-development mode and turn it into a more ,client-and consumer-friendly entity-and then apply to everyday products its innovations in bioscience, communications technology and home electronics.
"We have experimented with different business models over the years, especially in the late 90's as the tech market was superheating," said the 44-year-old Mr. Cherukuri. "Essentially, what we're trying ,to achieve here is to figure out how we can bring technology to address real needs, and how do we identify those needs better."
Until now, Sarnoff has been divided into research divisions based on such areas of technology as semiconductors, communications and biotechnology-each with its own subdivisions for marketing and each with a plan to spin off companies to manufacture the products developed.
Through the 1990's, Sarnoff created two such companies, like Orchid BioScience, a genetic analysis company just down the road, which went public in May 2000. Most of the other companies-like Diva, which markets video-on-demand systems to cable companies, and e-Vue, which specializes in MPEG encoding for multimedia streaming-are still privately held. It even sold a few ventures, like Delsys Pharmaceutical and Agilevision, to other investors.
But under Mr. Cherukuri's plan, all the technology divisions at Sarnoff will be merged into one unit, and all marketing and sales-which will become the primary focus of the company-will be bundled under another unit.
To be sure, the proposed expansion- which encompasses several new buildings as well as parking garages clustered on 89 acres in the middle of the 336-acre property , must still overcome several hurdles. It has already drawn its share of raves for the jobs it can generate and criticism for the , disruption in the quality of life it may cause when lumped with other projects planned along the Route 1 corridor.
As now envisioned, the technology campus is to comprise as many as 22 buildings with laboratories, offices and hotels as well as services like a day care center and health club. Its anchor is to be a 750,000-square-foot headquarters for Sarnoff, including space for some spinoffs as they are developed. There are also plans for satellite campuses of Stevens Institute of Technology and the New Jersey Institute of Technology.
"It's more management, less technology," said Mr. Cherukuri, who sees his company initiating "innovation services. consulting"-something akin to management consulting in the financial sector.
Simply put, more Merrill Lynch, less Texas Instruments.
"Sarnoff is a critical organization in the state because of the major research it does, and for what it has done the past couple of years of incubating companies," said Caren Franzini, the executive director of the New Jersey Economic Development Authority, which provides money and assistance to high-tech companies.
Ms. Franzini said she saw the future in terms of partnerships between big companies like Sarnoff and small, new companies that might never raise the capital needed to get a larger company off the ground.
But Maxine Ballen, head of the New Jersey Technology Council, a trade association for high-tech companies (of which Sarnoff is a member), said she hoped for a return to the investment of the past few years.
"I understand the need for caution is born out of the times," Ms. Ballen said. "But I hope Sarnoff will continue that mission to incubate as many new ideas as possible and still operate with an entrepreneurial bent."
That may not be so easy, given that research laboratories are costly to operate, and the returns so uncertain. When Mr. Sarnoff started his research division in the 1930's, it was part of the Radio Corporation of America, since he he also ran RCA, the David Sarnoff Research Center essentially received unlimited funds from the company.
At that time, Mr. Sarnoff wanted to develop a system for broadcast television, and he was going to spend whatever it took to do that. Over the last century, that is the way most of the country's consumer electronics research labs have operated and the way the few left-like Lucent Technologies, Bell Labs or IBM's Watson Lab-still do.
But after General Electric bought RCA in, 1987, the new company cut the Sarnoff Corporation loose. SRI International, a nonprofit organization in California that was a research arm for Stanford University until1970, decided to pick up the tab and make Sarnoff a wholly owned subsidiary. As a result, Sarnoff, with all of its employees, is now designated as a for-profit division, and they have to find a way to make that profit to stay afloat.
The tricky part is this: Sarnoff's profits can be limited because the company itself it is not a manufacturer. Rather, its bread and butter is contract research for the government, developing such things as lasers and satellite communications. It gets a fee for
this work, and also gets to develop consumer applications of whatever it invents, but
Sarnoff does not just come up with products and make them on its own.When Sarnoff develops products and solves technology glitches for commercial ventures like DirecTV and Motorola, it is paid a flat fee while the other companies usually retain the patents. For instance, although Sarnoff helped develop the system for HDTV, companies like Sony and Panasonic actually produce the sets and reaps the revenue.
During the l990s, with many start-up companies posing increasing competition, the kind of structure under which Sarnoff was operating was by its very nature deny it the kind of profits it could have been reaping-particularly for the kind of Internet and biotech products on which the company was working. Suddenly, the marketplace was amassing huge amounts of venture capital, not funds for research and development. Anyone with a seemingly good idea could raise a great deal of a capital through a public offering, and then figure out how to make a product to sell.
Sarnoff had always worked the other way -coming up with the actual products and then seeing what the company, or others, could do with them. Sarnoff had to come up with a new way to get its piece of the action, and to attract skilled workers in the age of stock options.
But as soon as Sarnoff caught on to the new economy, the rules changed again because the high-tech economy fell apart made worse in the aftermath of the tragedy of Sept.11. Not only was there no venture capital, there was far less money for research and development.
"This was especially dire in New Jersey, said Michael Mufson, the executive vice president of Commerce Capital Markets, "because there was little investment by state and local companies. That hurt the New Jersey technology corridor."
Mr. Mufson said that while money was starting to flow again, it was now going in a different direction.
"Venture capitalists are really looking at product development and marketing, and looking very little at the research," he said. "This is a very practical approach in an environment that is constrained."
It is at this crucial juncture that Cherukuri is starting the company on yet a new path, one that he says follows in the spirit of the legendary Mr. Sarnoff, who had the vision to see how important television would be long before anyone else.
"The Internet bubble hurt us," said Mr. Cherukuri. "The companies we founded and continue to found are solid companies, fulfilling lasting unmet needs. But the bubble confused everyone, and you couldn't separate the wheat from chaff."
And the chase for money continues. "We have been primarily a techno-snob organization," he said. "Technology was in the driver's seat at all times. Going forward, we'll still have technology as our niche and entree into markets, but we want to be driven by clients and the marketplace."
Copyright The New York Times
Effective conservation policies begin with master plan
By: David Campbell , Staff Writer 05/28/2002
Watershed Association offers four-part lecture series to advise towns on taking command of their own futures.
Effective conservation policies begin with an articulate master plan, according to speakers in a four-part lecture series currently being run by the Stony Brook-Millstone Watershed Association.
"The series is designed to engage towns in the idea that you have command of the future of your town," said Watershed Executive Director George Hawkins.
Mr. Hawkins said the Watershed often finds itself dealing with "car wrecks" of unwanted development being fought by municipalities who didn't have conservation zoning in place to begin with. "That's not where we want to be," he said.
A municipality wishing to make zoning changes but wary of litigation by developers can build a foundation for its own defense with amendments to the master plan, which is the primary theme of the master-plan workshop being held by the association through its Natural Lands Network.
The network was started in 1998 to promote the sharing of information and ideas among area advocacy groups, municipal leaders and the Watershed.
The first two sessions of the workshop dealt with the basics of master planning and the importance and conservation of water resources. The third session, held Wednesday at the Watershed's Buttinger Nature Center on its lands off Titus Mill Road in Hopewell Township, highlighted the importance of wetland conservation in master planning and the use of Geographic Information Systems in inventorying a municipality's natural resources.
Ted Stiles, a biology professor at Rutgers University and a trustee of the Watershed, said the first step in creating a legal foundation for future zoning changes is to identify resources "to build a case for the municipality to support the laws that it, in fact, wants to create."
Robert Tucker, the Watershed's director of research, noted that only relatively recently have communities begun to recognize the importance of conserving wetlands to recharge streams and ground water, as a protection from floods, to improve water quality through natural filtration and to provide critical animal and plant habitats.
"Because of sprawl development, we continue to lose wetlands," Mr. Tucker said.
According to a study released in March by the state Department of Environmental Protection, New Jersey lost approximately 1,755 acres of wetlands a year between 1986 and 1995, before the Freshwater Wetlands Protection Act became fully operative. Even after that period, the report indicates, the new legislation has allowed for the disturbance of around 150 acres of freshwater wetlands a year.
The DEP also found that wetland mitigation regulations, which require developers to match 2 acres for every acre of wetlands filled in for construction, have resulted in an average of less than an acre of wetlands-per-lost acre actually being built - and of those, only about half had the potential to function as natural wetlands.
In keeping with the message of the workshop, Mr. Tucker advised municipal and public advocacy representatives to promote master plan amendments that inventory existing wetlands and plant and animal species in them.
The fourth installment of the workshop, "Implementing and Defending Your Master Plan," will feature a talk by land-use attorney Howard Cohen and Frank Banisch, a planner with East Amwell, who will discuss East Amwell's legal battle to defend changes it has made to its master plan.
"The master plan represents the vision a community has for its future and it has a tremendous influence in making this happen," Mr. Hawkins said. "It gives a community the tools to build a future that's a balance between the economy and the environment."
The meeting is scheduled for June 12 at the Watershed's Buttinger Nature Center.
©Packet Online 2002
Sarnoff anticipates positive tax impact
By: Gwen Runkle , Staff Writer 05/24/2002
The technology campus would add approximately $274 million in assessed value to West Windsor's ratable base and employ about 7,450.
WEST WINDSOR - With notification problems resolved, Sarnoff Corp. resumed a presentation before the Planning Board of its general development plan for a 3 million-square-foot technology campus Wednesday night, presenting a financial analysis that promised substantial new tax revenue.
Members of the public packed the meeting to hear Sarnoff representatives summarize previous testimony, then move on to new topics.
In rehashing its traffic analysis, Sarnoff did note one change. In response to residents' request, a proposed parallel road to Fairview Avenue was stricken from the plan.
As for its fiscal analysis, Sarnoff's development is expected to have an overall positive fiscal impact on the municipality and the regional school district, according to David Listokin, a research consultant for Sarnoff with Burchell-Listokin & Associates.
The technology campus would add approximately $274 million in assessed value to the township's assessed ratable base of roughly $2.5 billion and is expected to generate about 7,450 permanent workers at full build-out, he said.
The annual public cost of the development at full build-out was estimated at $1.7 million, while about $8.1 million is expected in revenues for both the municipality and school district through property taxes for an overall surplus of about $6.4 million, he said.
Breaking down those numbers, the municipality could incur a loss because it bears the full service responsibility for the development and reaps a smaller share of the revenue than the regional school district, Mr. Listokin added.
"But remember overall the fiscal impact is a positive one," he stressed.
To get a better sense of the timing of the benefits and deficits he cited, the Planning Board asked Mr. Listokin to develop a phase-by-phase fiscal analysis for the project.
Councilwoman Rae Roeder, speaking as a neighbor of the project, also asked if Mr. Listokin could look into how the new jobs created by Sarnoff would affect the township's affordable-housing requirement.
"The more jobs created, the greater share of affordable housing we will have, and the more houses we have the more children we'll have in the schools," she said. "There might be more of a cost here than you think."
Factors such as the amount of undeveloped land and open space preserved in a township are also considered by the Council on Affordable Housing when determining a municipality's affordable-housing requirement, said Sam Surtees, township land use director.
Ms. Roeder also asked if increasing the township's ratable base would increase the portion the township pays in taxes for the regional school district. Currently, West Windsor pays about 60 percent and Plainsboro pays 40 percent for the district.
Mr. Listokin is expected to answer these questions at the Planning Board's meeting June 19. At that meeting Sarnoff is expected to finish its general development plan presentation with information on the economic conditions of the area and engineering plans for the proposed technology campus.
The 3 million-square-foot technology campus would be built on just under 21 percent of Sarnoff's 332.5-acre property.
The development consists of two campuses - one surrounding Sarnoff's existing facility and another east of Little Bear Brook. They are expected to be built in three phases over a 20-year period with additions and renovation of Sarnoff's existing facility being carried out over the entire time frame.
©Packet Online 2002
Friday, May 17, 2002
By TONY HAGEN
WEST WINDSOR - Battered by a devil's triangle of economic forces that has a choke hold on the availability of work, research company Sarnoff Corp. is further shrinking its staff, bringing to 25 percent the employee reductions since October.
A spokesman for the company said Sarnoff this week cut 50 to 55 jobs from its payroll through a mixture of layoffs and early retirement packages. That leaves the company with about 575 workers.
Last October the company had about 800 workers, mostly based at the company's sprawling campus off Route 1 in West Windsor. More than 200 workers have left since then.
Tom Lento, spokesman for Sarnoff, said the cutbacks are mainly a result of sharply diminished contracts for commercial research activities.
But two other factors also have been key to the company's recent problems.
Sarnoff has suffered along with many other companies in the high-technology development business as venture capital markets have virtually dried up, making it difficult, if not impossible, to find money for operations and growth.
"Venture capital funding is virtually impossible to get right now, so that option is pretty limited for us," Lento said.
In addition, many of Sarnoff's spinoff companies that were created to exploit patents developed at the West Windsor laboratories have not been able to go public with stock sales on the open markets.
That has choked off another potential source of funding for the parent company, which has equity stock in the spinoffs that it would otherwise be able to sell to fresh investors.
Sarnoff has formed 20 spinoff companies over the past nine years. The only one to go public is Orchid BioSciences, a genetics company based in Plainsboro. Orchid, however, also has laid off employees lately to stretch its limited cash reserves as it strives for profitability.
And Sarnoff last year sold a large chunk of stock in Orchid to raise capital.
"We hope that the (other) venture companies eventually go public, but today's initial public offering market is basically closed. That keeps (Sarnoff and) our companies from doing more tech development, or us from being able to cash in some of our stock in those companies," Lento said.
In the past, Sarnoff has been successful in developing television technology for commercial applications, such as high-definition television. Satellite technology has been another lucrative field of research. But both of those mainstays are now almost history for Sarnoff as its development contracts have come to an end without a strong flow of new ones to serve as replacements.
"There isn't much left for us to do there," Lento said.
On a smaller scale, the company also has trimmed activities in electronics, biomedical and information technology research.
The company now is regrouping its workers to focus on security, surveillance and digital cinema.
Sarnoff has encountered some good fortune lately in the form of increased government contracts. Traditionally, the company relied on the commercial side for 60 percent of its work and government for 40 percent. That ratio now is reversed, Lento said. Government work has grown by roughly 30 percent over the past year.
Even so, the company has been forced to slim down. "That gives you an idea of how steep the fall-off is in commercial," Lento said.
Sarnoff's government plate is heaped mainly with work from defense-related agencies, including the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. The National Institute for Standards and Technology also is a client.
Sarnoff's revenues for contract research have averaged $120 million annually over the past three years, Lento said. "We were profitable in 2000. Last year we may have broken even or slightly less than even."
For now, the company is treading water in hope of riding out the slump in technology spending.
"There are encouraging signs, but it isn't back. You can't put encouraging signs in the bank," Lento said.
The wrenching task of trimming the work force at Sarnoff has been shared with incoming CEO Satyam Cherukuri, who is taking over from James Carnes as he enters semiretirement. Carnes had a distinguished career with Sarnoff and before that RCA, which established the lab. The research center opened in 1942.
"Obviously, since (Cherukuri's) the CEO designate, he had a strong say in shaping the new organization, because it's the organization he will have to run, but the decision about the layoffs was a management and board decision," Lento said.
Severance packages were generous, he said.
Copyright 2002 The Times
'Innovation' key to N.J. prosperity
Wednesday, May 08, 2002
By ROBERT STERN
PRINCETON BOROUGH - New Jersey's economy outperformed most other states during the 1990s, based on factors such as average wages and worker productivity, but the state risks losing ground unless industries here strive for constant innovation, a leading Harvard University economist said yesterday.
New Jersey will maintain or improve its economic advantage over other states by focusing on fostering increased innovation across a broad range of industries in the state, from pharmaceuticals to banking to transportation, said Michael Porter, a university professor at Harvard Business School.
"We can't just make the same old products and services more efficiently," said Porter, addressing the board of trustees of Prosperity New Jersey during the nonprofit organization's annual reorganization meeting at Princeton University yesterday.
"The only way this state is going to be able to prosper and continue to prosper is through innovation," Porter said.
"A place like New Jersey is not going to compete by being the cheapest place to do business, it's going to compete by being the most productive place," he said.
He asserted that, while New Jersey is "very prosperous, with a high level of innovative output," its rate of economic improvement "is perhaps a little slower than what it should be."
For example, Porter presented research data yesterday that show New Jersey ranks sixth among the states in the number of patents issued per 10,000 employees but lagged behind 26 other states between 1990 and 1998 in the rate of growth in the number of patents issued.
Prosperity New Jersey is a public-private nonprofit partnership established in the mid-1990s by former Gov. Christie Whitman to promote economic development in the state.
In March, Gov. James E. McGreevey appointed as chairmen of the group Princeton University President Shirley Tilghman, Sarnoff Corp. President and CEO James Carnes and the Rev. William Watley, secretary of the state Commerce and Economic Growth Commission.
A crucial charge for the group, McGreevey said yesterday, will be to foster closer ties between government, the private sector and universities to encourage economic growth in the state.
Copyright 2002 The Times.
Back to the board room for Sarnoff
Tuesday, May 07, 2002
By KAREN AYRES
WEST WINDSOR - Sarnoff Corp. officials will start over and present their entire "Technology Campus" proposal to the planning board again since the company failed to notify several residents - some of whom have voiced loud objection to the plans - about a hearing last week on the project.
Planning board attorney Gerald Muller said he determined the company had not notified all of the residents who live within 200 feet of locations slated for development as required by law. Nearby residents complained about the lack of notification last week.
The nearly one dozen homes that didn't receive notification sit either on or close to Fairview Avenue, where Sarnoff had proposed building another access road to the campus.
"I have to question the motivation of Sarnoff," said Rae Roeder, a township council member who lives nearby on Route 571 and didn't get notification. "Isn't it unusual that the property owners most yelling are the ones that didn't get noticed? That's an awful strange coincidence."
Sarnoff lawyer Kevin Moore said although the company will issue new notices at the township's request, he maintains the company did nothing wrong when it submitted a list of lots to the township several weeks ago that was used to determine who should receive notification.
The company didn't submit the Fairview Avenue lot on the list because it was going to be used for an "off-site traffic improvement" and was not part of the main campus, Moore said. Therefore, those residents who live on Fairview Avenue within 200 feet of that lot weren't notified.
"There's no conspiracy," Moore said. "We feel fairly confidently that the notice we did was correct. Sarnoff, despite what the neighbors think, is an extremely good corporate citizen."
Muller said the company should have included the Fairview Avenue lot in the list of lots on the rest of the site because it was part of the campus proposal.
"The appropriate way of looking at the application is to include the new roadway," Muller said. "They didn't give the right information to the town."
Moore said even though the company eliminated the proposal to build another access road after hearing loud objections from residents last Wednesday, it will still notify those residents who live on Fairview Avenue about the next hearing on May 22.
"We're being extra cautious," Moore said.
Township employees and lawyers say they're also being cautious by asking for the additional notification for fear that someone might take the case over the 3 million-square-foot proposed "Technology Campus" to court.
"It's better to redo it and play it safe and notify everybody so there isn't a case in the future because we don't know how the courts will rule," said Sam Surtees, the township's zoning officer.
"It's a difference of legal opinion. But the Sarnoff people were willing to chalk up last week's meeting as a precursor to the next one."
Susan Parris, who lives on the corner of Route 571 and Fairview Avenue, said she wasn't notified about the hearing and neither was her mother, who lives next door on Fairview Avenue. Parris has hired a lawyer.
"This is a pretty basic concept - when you come before a planning board you have to notify people," Parris said. "I'm not sure this planning board is going to act for our interests. We need to have someone looking out for the interests of the neighborhood."
Moore said the company would have sent out additional notices anyway because of the decision to eliminate the roadway from the proposal.
Moore said the next presentation will likely be a bit shorter than the first one last Wednesday.
"Some of the stuff that we presented on Wednesday wasn't critical to the development application," Moore said. "We're reviewing it to some extent to make the presentation a little more streamlined."
Muller said the company won't be penalized for the discrepancy and Surtees said the hearing won't cost taxpayers any money because all the fees are paid for by the developer.
The company didn't finish presenting the development application last Wednesday and was expected to continue this week. Now, the next hearing will be on May 22 to give the township time to send out additional notification to area residents, Surtees said.
Copyright 2002 The Times.
Sarnoff's technology campus proposal gets fiery reception
By: Gwen Runkle, Staff Writer May 03, 2002
Neighbors question 3-million-square-foot project's road improvements; company says its open to modifications.
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Aerial Map shows the proposed general development for the Sarnoff Corp. property at Route 1 and Washington Road (Route 571) in West Windsor
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WEST WINDSOR - Sparks flew as Sarnoff Corp. began presenting its general development plan for a 3 million-square-foot technology campus before the township Planning Board on Wednesday.Sarnoff officials got only halfway through their testimony before neighboring residents, including Councilwoman Rae Roeder, questioned the need for certain road improvements and even whether all affected residents were properly notified of the meeting.
"All the property owners within 200 feet of Sarnoff were not notified," Ms. Roeder said. "I live across the street within 200 feet and I was not notified."
She pointed out proper notification was made recently for the Township Council's consideration of a zoning ordinance affecting Sarnoff's property and questioned whether lack of notification for Wednesday's session was more than a simple human error by the township's Community Development Office, as Planning Board Attorney Gerald Muller suggested.
"I find it interesting that we who have most objected to Sarnoff's plans were not notified," Ms. Roeder said, referring to herself and fellow neighbor Susan Parris, who lives on the corner of Washington Road and Fairview Avenue. "I sense a conspiracy."
At Wednesday's meeting, Ms. Parris expressed fervent opposition to Sarnoff's proposal to create a parallel road to Fairview Avenue with a traffic signal on Washington Road - one of several proposals Sarnoff said it developed with community members' input to help reduce the impact of traffic from the development on the Penns Neck area.
"At the one community meeting I was invited to, none of this stuff (the parallel road or traffic signal) was mentioned," Ms. Parris said. "The message being sent is that Penns Neck is expendable in this whole process."
But Kevin Moore, Sarnoff's attorney, stressed that Sarnoff was in no way being "secretive" and would have no problem scrapping the road improvement plans if the township or residents disapprove.
"The parallel road, traffic light and eventual cul-de-sac of Fairview were in response to neighbor concerns," Mr. Moore said. "We think the light is needed, but we won't do any of it if the neighbors and township do not want us to."
And Karl Pehnke, Sarnoff's traffic engineer, said the parallel road and traffic signal would only "act as a Band-Aid" or be a temporary solution anyway. Once the Millstone Bypass is built, the original Fairview Avenue would become a cul-de-sac and the signal removed from Washington Road, he said.
Other road improvements in Sarnoff's general development plan include moving the traffic signal and jughandle at Fisher Place on Route 1 north for a new driveway into Sarnoff. Fisher Place would then become a cul-de-sac, so there could be no access from Route 1.
Mr. Moore also indicated Sarnoff would have no problem if the township corrected and expanded its resident notification list for the Planning Board's next meeting, scheduled for Wednesday.
At that meeting Sarnoff is expected to finish up its general development plan presentation with information on zoning compliance and the fiscal impact of the proposed technology campus.
The 3 million-square-foot technology campus would be built on just under 21 percent of Sarnoff's 332.5-acre property.
The development would be phased, with additions to and renovation of Sarnoff's existing facility being carried out over a 20-year period.
To expand Sarnoff's existing 600,000-square-foot facility to 750,000 square feet, 350,000 square feet will be demolished, 250,000 square feet renovated and 500,000 square feet will be new construction.
The first phase of new development consists of 450,000 square feet of research and office space to be built near the existing Sarnoff site within five years.
Phase two consists of constructing the 900,000-square-foot "east campus," east of Little Bear Brook, which includes a hotel/conference center and research and office space. This is not expected to be built until the Millstone Bypass is in place, which Sarnoff sees as being 10 years in the future.
Phase three consists of 900,000 square feet of development that is expected to be transferred to Princeton University with the sale of a 90-acre parcel of the Sarnoff property along Route 1 and the Millstone River. Sarnoff officials believe the university would not develop the property for at least 10 years.
In total there would be 19 buildings on site, three to five stories high. There would be 8,783 parking spaces, 75 percent of which would be in 212-story parking decks.
A little more than 7 acres of the site would be dedicated for use by a bus rapid transit line, 103 acres would be dedicated to the township as greenbelt and 6.95 acres would be used for athletic fields.
©Packet Online 2002
Sarnoff shows new plans for technology campus
Friday, May 03, 2002
By KAREN AYRES
WEST WINDSOR - Less than 10 days after the township council voted to change zoning on the Sarnoff Corp. site, company leaders appeared before the planning board to display a general development plan for a 3 million-square-foot "Technology Campus."
Sarnoff lawyer Kevin Moore said the company will require only two building variances and a waiver to complete the project since the town recently reduced allowable development on the Route 1 site in accordance with their plans.
"Sarnoff considers our relationship with West Windsor and the success of our plan very important," said James Carnes, the company's president. "There is more work to be done before this dream becomes a reality. Sarnoff is certainly committed to the process."
Planning board members and residents who live near the site focused most of their questions at Wednesday's hearing on traffic proposals presented by Karl Pehnke, Sarnoff's traffic engineer.
Sarnoff has proposed creating a cul-de-sac on Fisher Place to prevent cars from using the residential road to access the campus. The company has also suggested building a road parallel to Fairview Avenue and eventually closing Fairview once the Millstone Bypass, or an equivalent road, is built. A traffic light at Fairview and Route 571 has also been suggested.
Township residents objected to the traffic plans, claiming they had not been mentioned during negotiations before the town adopted new zoning for the site.
"None of us were notified of this," said Susan Parris, who lives down the street from the campus. "We were told something completely different."
Rae Roeder, a township council member who also lives not far from the campus, said community members weren't properly notified about the hearing.
"It's a conspiracy - now that they've got their ordinance," Roeder said. "We have been the biggest objectors."
Planning board attorney Gerald Muller said the town, not the company, determines who is notified about different hearings and said he would review the list with township employees.
Moore and Pehnke said the company isn't fully committed to the road changes, which are proposed to take place over the course of several years as different phases of the campus are built.
"The parallel road and the cul-de-sac were in response to (residents) concerns," Moore said. "The traffic light we feel is needed, but if they don't want it, that's it. If people aren't attached to it, we're not attached to it."
Sarnoff's proposal calls for a total of 19 buildings between three to five stories on the 300-plus acre site. A 10,000-square-foot child care center will sit on the property.
C. Ronald Ostberg, the project architect, said the buildings will have "blended architecture."
"It has the qualities of traditional architecture, but is open," Ostberg said.
Construction will occur in three phases and much of it won't progress before the Millstone Bypass, or an equivalent road, is built.
The site will maintain about seven acres for jogging paths and playing fields and will also include about seven acres preserved as a right-of-way for a bus rapid transit system.
The company is expected to continue a presentation on the general development plan on Wednesday at 8 p.m. at the municipal center.
Copyright 2002 The Times.
Sprawl equals strife, author says
Thursday, May 02, 2002
By LARRY HANOVER
PRINCETON BOROUGH - With maps and words, an expert on the problems facing America's suburbs yesterday described how the abstract concept of sprawl is a recipe for a potential tax revolt and racial strife.
Myron Orfield, author of the recently published, "American Metropolitics: The New Suburban Reality," said there are three different types of suburbs - at-risk inner-ring towns such as Hamilton and Ewing, bedroom communities wrestling with the challenges of rapid growth and affluent communities upset about losing open space.
Inner-ring suburbs in particular are seeing residents move away, forcing them to raise taxes even higher to try to maintain diminishing services, he said. Bedroom communities have high taxes yet still can't afford to build schools and roads fast enough for their booming population.
New Jersey's sky-high property tax rates are evidence of an unequal system that deepens divisions between the haves and have-nots, he said.
"You're in a situation that leads to a tax revolt," Orfield, head of the Metropolitan Area Research Corp. (MARC) and a Minnesota state senator, told an audience at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.
MARC has been hired by the New Jersey Regional Federation - a coalition of housing, environmental, planning and faith-based groups led by Isles Inc. of Trenton - to perform the same kind of study in New Jersey that he did with 25 metropolitan areas in his new book.
Orfield displayed a few of the computer-generated maps that the 48-page report will include, showing with simple color codes of red, orange and blue how poverty and wealth are distributed. The maps showed how poverty is edging out from Trenton into parts of inner-ring suburbs such as Hamilton and Ewing.
Orfield said the myth that suburbs are similar is ironic. Some at-risk suburbs are segregated, while some are older towns that are white and blue-collar.
"They're usually cheek and jowl and don't get along with each other," Orfield said.
Slowing the division of the races must be addressed through wider distribution of affordable housing among wealthy and poor towns and sharing tax revenues regionally, he said.
Each community needs a variety of housing types as well as a regional pooling of resources to build homes that are affordable to the poorest, he said. The unwillingness to provide loans to blacks and Latinos and for real-estate agents to show homes in areas considered white must also cease, he said.
"This has to become a more powerful, fundamental civil-rights issue," he said. "We have to raise hell about it."
A proposed constitutional convention on property taxes, which could lead to the kind of tax-sharing seen in Michigan, is a wise path for New Jersey, Orfield said.
So is the creation of metropolitan authorities whose planning powers trump those of local municipalities. He called their creation the equivalent of America's shift from the weak Articles of Confederation to the Constitution.
Isles President Martin Johnson said the MARC-led report, which will provide a detailed look at Central Jersey, is expected in September.
Copyright 2002 The Times.
Trenton: Sprawl Legislation Developing
Mobilizing the Region #363
Central New Jersey State Senator Peter Inverso is sponsoring three bills that seek to address development and sprawl-related problems.
One bill (S.634) would require developers to complete traffic impact studies for new developments. For any development generating 200 or more peak hour trips at the site, a traffic impact study of state highways would need to be submitted to the Department of Transportation. The agency may then require the developer to pay for mitigation projects. Developers would also pay for changes in road width, signage and traffic lights even on adjoining roads that are necessitated by the development.
A second bill (S.645) seeks to increase planning coordination between bordering municipalities. It would require municipalities to notify neighboring towns about development within 1000 feet of their borders. The adjoining municipality would review the plan and become involved if it perceives possible impacts, including traffic-related problems. The bill is poised for committee review, with a hearing in mid-May. An identical bill has been introduced in the Assembly by Assemblyman Thomas Keen
The third, S.634, would authorize municipalities to implement development moratoriums or delays to ensure that growth complies with a long-term master plan a strategy known as "timed growth." Supporters say it provides municipalities with the power to coordinate rates of growth with provision of infrastructure. Critics of timed-growth say it does not influence the character of growth, only its schedule. Another bill has been introduced that would provide for timed-growth development in the NJ Pinelands.
http://www.tstc.org/bulletin/20020429/mtr36309.htm
West Windsor settles limits at Sarnoff site
Tuesday, April 23, 2002
By KAREN AYRES
WEST WINDSOR - More than a year of negotiation over zoning rights between the township and Sarnoff Corp. ended last night when the township council voted to reduce the level of allowable development on the company's Route 1 site.
The unanimous vote set a building level of 21 percent on the property, a figure Sarnoff officials had already agreed to before last night's meeting as a result of months of talks with the planning board members who created the ordinance.
The vote did not signify any approval of specific plans, such as the 3 million-square-foot technology campus plan Sarnoff officials will likely propose to the planning board in the next few months.
``We have come up with a good ordinance,'' said Alison Miller, township council president. ``Bumpy as the process has been, it's been very useful. We can have ratables and protect neighborhoods at the same time.''
The new zoning reduces the amount of allowable development from 30 to 21 percent of the 300-plus-acre site, but it mandates at least 30 percent of the buildings be for uses such as research facilities or hotels, which generate low traffic.
Several township council members said they believe the ordinance is good for the township's finances because the Sarnoff site will generate valuable tax revenue.
``Ratables are important,'' said Councilman Charles Morgan. ``No ordinance is perfect, but this ordinance balances all the interests.''
Mayor Shing-Fu Hsueh urged council members to vote for the ordinance, saying it would foster his goal of developing the area as a research and technology hub.
``I will do whatever I can to make sure this will happen,'' Hsueh said.
Councilwoman Rae Roeder last night said she supported the 21 percent guideline.
Several months ago she proposed an ordinance that would have set the level at 18 percent, but it was rejected by other members two weeks ago. ``The 18 percent is still a better approach,'' Roeder said.
The zoning regulations adopted last night also set a level of parking spaces per square footage and mandate a ``transit-friendly'' design.
Jackie Alberts, a council member who helped create the ordinance, said the new guidelines will help reduce potential traffic by 40 percent.
``The parking ratio is the key to this ordinance,'' Alberts said. ``It allows us to have our cake and eat it, too.''
No more than 1.2 million square feet may be built until the Millstone Bypass, or a functional equivalent approved by township planners, is constructed, according to the new guidelines.
The new ordinance does not set levels of growth on the Wyeth site, formerly called the American Cyanamid property.
``I'm looking forward to the same cooperation and innovation as we look to the Wyeth property,'' said Councilwoman Kristin Appelget.
Copyright 2002 The Times.
Chances for downzoning on Route 1 improve
By: Gwen Runkle, Staff Writer April 19, 2002
Sarnoff Corp. withdraws its formal protest.
WEST WINDSOR - Now that Sarnoff Corp. has withdrawn a protest filed months ago against efforts to downzone its Route 1 property, an alternative downzoning ordinance recently introduced by the Township Council has a green light for adoption after a public hearing Monday.
With the protest's withdrawal, the council no longer needs four affirmative votes to adopt the alternative ordinance.
Last week, it was introduced by a 4-1 vote with only Councilwoman Rae Roeder dissenting, but Councilwoman Jackie Alberts, who ultimately voted in support of the alternative, was concerned it was not a comprehensive traffic-reducing solution.
She said the 640-acre property of American Home Products, now known as Wyeth Inc., should have been included in the ordinance.
But now even if she chooses to vote against adoption on Monday, as long as the other three members of council still support the ordinance, it will pass.
Sarnoff originally filed its protest in February in objection to an ordinance introduced by Ms. Roeder to reduce the amount of allowable development on the Route 1 properties of both Sarnoff and Wyeth Inc., from 30 to 18 percent.
The protest required the council to have four affirmative votes in order for the ordinance or "any similar alternative" to be adopted. Sarnoff was able to file the formal protest because it owns more than 20 percent of the land affected by the proposed zoning change.
Last week, Ms. Roeder's ordinance failed in a 3-2 vote and an alternative developed by the township Planning Board was introduced in its place.
"We were pleased the .18 ordinance was defeated and found our protest as previously lodged was no longer necessary," said Pat Murphy, Sarnoff's general council and vice president.
"So in order to clear the deck for the new ordinance we filed a letter with the township withdrawing our protest. However, the letter also replaces the previous protest with a contingent, that the ordinance not be changed from its current form," he said.
Currently, the alternative creates a research and development zone just for Sarnoff's 345-acre property with a maximum floor-area ratio of 21 percent.
To reduce traffic generated from the site, a minimum of 30 percent of that floor area must be devoted to low-traffic-generating uses, such as hotels, conference centers and research laboratories.
In addition, Sarnoff would have to implement transit-friendly designs to accommodate a bus rapid transit or light rail line and would be required to phase its development with the construction of certain road improvements, such as the proposed Millstone Bypass.
"We do not object to the .21 ordinance," Mr. Murphy said. "The way it is now is acceptable and we hope this will allow the wheels of the township to proceed smoothly."
The Township Council is expected to hold a public hearing on the alternative ordinance and consider its adoption at its meeting Monday.
©Packet Online 2002
Attempt to cut development levels fails
Tuesday, April 09, 2002
By KAREN AYRES
WEST WINDSOR - Councilwoman Rae Roeder's attempt to cut the development levels almost in half on the Sarnoff Corp. and American Cyanamid properties last night failed to win enough support.
Roeder and two others voted for an ordinance limiting both property owners to building on 18 percent of their sites. Four votes were required to pass the measure due to a protest filed by Sarnoff several months ago.
Roeder said reducing allowed development from the current 30 percent to 18 percent will help control traffic. She said encouraging development to bring in tax money will eventually lead to higher taxes.
Council members Charles Morgan and Kristin Appelget voted against, Morgan calling it ``wrong from day one.''
Several council members, including Morgan and Appelget, say they favor an ordinance introduced last night that sets development levels at 21 percent on the Sarnoff property.
The alternative ordinance requires at least 30 percent of the site to have ``low-traffic generating'' uses such as research facilities or a hotel and mandates that it be ``transit friendly'' with space allocated for mass transit.
Council President Alison Miller voted with Roeder along with Jackie Alberts, saying it was in symbolic support for reducing traffic, but ``if we want any traffic control, we should move forward with the alternative ordinance.''
Mayor Shing-Fu Hsueh wouldn't support Roeder's ordinance but gave strong support to the alternative measure. Supporters say it will cut potential traffic more than 40 percent.
The new plan might attract ``a 21st century research and technology hub,'' Hsueh said.
The Sarnoff site would yield about $13.3 million in taxes at 21 percent and about $11.4 million at 18 percent, Hsueh said.
``Eleven million - that is not something to look down upon,'' said Joe Dantone of the Village Grande senior citizens complex.
But Kelvin Werth said some residents would pay more in taxes if it meant spending less time sitting on congested roadways.
``It's unfortunate that the township has allowed so much development on Route 1 that the roads can't handle any more traffic,'' Werth said. ``If I spend my time sitting in traffic, I would rather pay the higher taxes.''
Alberts said she is concerned that the alternative doesn't include the American Cyanamid property, owned by Wyeth. ``We cannot deal with one without the other,'' she said.
Planning board members said the two sites are too different to cover in one ordinance.
A public hearing on the alternative is set for April 22.
Copyright 2002 The Times.
Statement on Issues Related to Zoning of Sarnoff and Wyeth Properties
April 8, 2002
Shing-Fu Hsueh, Mayor
West WindsorOn December 17, 2001, the Township Council introduced Ordinance 2001-26 to reduce the floor area ratio ("FAR") from .30 to .18 for the 332-acre Sarnoff tract and the 653-acre Wyeth (formerly American Home Products Corporation) site in West Windsor. The laudable goal of that legislation was an attempt to substantially reduce the amount of traffic that would be generated if both of those sites were built out to the existing .30 FAR capacity.
After considerable effort, the Planning Board considered and adopted at its meeting of March 20, 2002, an alternative to Ordinance 2001-26, which was forwarded to the Township Council the following day. As a member of the Planning Board, I enthusiastically supported that alternative because it accomplishes the objectives of limiting traffic generation, while allowing the Sarnoff to undertake a realistic expansion of its site and thereby assure its continued existence as a vital part of this community.
Tonight, I would like to set forth my reasons for urging that Council not adopt Ordinance 2001-26, but instead introduce and adopt the Planning Board alternative to that measure.
First, the Planning Board's proposal allows for the reduction of traffic in the range of 45% from that which would be generated by the development of the Sarnoff site at the .30 FAR with 100% devoted to offices. It does so through a reduction of the FAR to .21, combined with a requirement that no less than 30% of the buildable space be devoted to research and other low traffic generating uses. In addition, the carefully designed Planning Board alternative incorporates a "transit-friendly design." The plan also incorporates requirements for mass transit rights-of-way.
Second, the 30% requirement for research and other low traffic generating uses furthers the draft Master Plan goal that the Sarnoff site be classified as a "research and development zone." I have advocated the creation of a viable technology campus in the Route 1 corridor adjacent to Princeton University, similar to other major technology campuses throughout the country. The new Ordinance would help to encourage a 21st century research and technology hub that will serve the interests of West Windsor and New Jersey.
Third, it should be emphasized that Sarnoff has committed itself to supporting West Windsor in its quest for a Penns Neck Bypass. The Planning Board alternative contains a limitation of 1,200,000 square feet of space on the site unless and until that Bypass becomes a reality.
Fourth, the Planning Board alternative also mandates the dedication and design of a right-of-way for a future transit system, the phasing of its construction, and the operation of a shuttle bus system to the train station. My hope would be that such a component would serve as a model for other corporate development along Route 1 to finally address the peak-hour traffic problems, which can only be addressed with alternatives to the use of private vehicles.
Fifth, by allowing for the development of the Sarnoff site at .21 FAR with traffic reducing conditions rather than .18, West Windsor could realize approximately $13.3 million instead of $11.4 million in taxes at today's dollar values and tax rate, an incremental gain of almost $2 million. With state aid to municipalities frozen at last year's level for the foreseeable future, we can use all the help we can get to stabilize our mounting tax rate.
Sixth, the Planning Board has chosen to deal only with the Sarnoff property in drafting an alternative to Ordinance 2001-26 because Sarnoff already is in the process of submitting a development application while Wyeth is in the early phases of considering development concepts that may take it in a somewhat different direction. Unless the Council acts now on an ordinance for Sarnoff, the township will be vulnerable in considering an application on a major Route 1 property with having an ordinance in place. While the township has similar goals for the two properties, such as traffic management and the facilitation of research uses, there are many differences between them. Moreover, it is significant that Wyeth has sent a letter to the Township, in which it has committed itself to accept the same .21 FAR and the same traffic-reducing goals that were included in the proposed Sarnoff Ordinance. It asks that the Township wait until a study is completed before passing an ordinance defining limits in its use of the property. The Township and Planning Board Attorneys have assured me that the letter represents a legally binding commitment. Therefore, it is not only unnecessary to include Wyeth in the present ordinance, it is inappropriate, and I urge the Township Council not to do so.
In acting three months ago by introducing Ordinance 2001-26, the Council serves as the catalyst for action on Route zoning. We must act now to reconcile the traffic, fiscal and research development goals of the township with the need to better assure the viable development of a major commercial site.
Carnes to retire as head of Sarnoff Corp.
Wednesday, April 03, 2002
By ANDREW D. SMITH
WEST WINDSOR - The man who transformed the region's premier corporate research laboratory into an independent company that helps drive Central Jersey's economy has resigned after 12 years at the helm.
James Carnes said yesterday he will retire from the Sarnoff Corp. effective June 1 and move to the town he fell in love with during his undergraduate days - State College, Pa.
``I've been with RCA and Sarnoff for 33 years,'' said Carnes, 62. ``My wife and I decided that it's time to seek new adventures and slow the pace down a bit. I'm going to play more golf and fly more planes and take it easy.''
Yet according to observers both inside and outside the high-tech hub on Route 1, where color television was invented in the 1940s, Carnes' legacy will endure long after he departs.
Carnes, who became the company's chief executive in 1990, created a corporate culture and a revolutionary business strategy that enabled Sarnoff to survive at a time when it was struggling to transform itself from the research division of RCA into a stand-alone company.
Even now that Carnes is leaving, the culture and business strategy he devised will continue to provide the foundation for Sarnoff as it moves into the future, said Satyam Cherukuri, Sarnoff's chief operating officer and Carnes' designated successor.
In fact, Cherukuri believes that Carnes' efforts to make company researchers more practical and more business-minded will allow Sarnoff to increase revenues from the current $130 million to $1 billion.
He also believes employment, which Sarnoff trimmed by 10 percent last fall, will rebound. He said the company, which employs around 700 people now, will grow to somewhere between 1,000 and 1,500 as the business climate improves in the next five to 10 years.
What's more, Cherukuri plans to push ahead with the spinoff strategy that has won Sarnoff national attention and acclaim from local business leaders who say it has helped the entire region's economy.
The lab on Route 1, which opened in 1942, once limited its research to television and other electronics equipment for RCA. But since breaking away from its corporate parent, the company has expanded into medical devices and biotechnology as well.
``The idea Carnes developed for nurturing new technologies and then spinning them off into separate corporations provided an enormous boost for the state's high-tech industry at a vital time in the mid-'90s,'' said H. Joseph Reiser, chairman of the Biotechnology Council of New Jersey.
Carnes himself counts the development of the spinoff strategy among his top two achievements.
The idea is simple.
Sarnoff makes most of its money performing research for other companies and for government agencies.
But Sarnoff retains, as much as possible, rights to the discoveries it makes while working for others. Then, the company develops those discoveries to the point where they seem commercially promising, spins them off into separate companies and shares ownership in those companies with venture capitalists who provide the money needed to complete development and bring products to market.
When the companies go public, Sarnoff can cash in by selling its stock and reinvesting the proceeds in more research.
Carnes' role in developing that strategy has led to much praise. But when asked about his most fundamental achievement, Carnes talks about changing the culture at Sarnoff.
``When RCA operated the lab, the scientists and engineers here prided themselves in pure scientific research and spent a lot of time pursuing long-term projects that never resulted in products that the company could sell,'' Carnes said. ``The biggest problem I faced when taking over this company was getting the scientists to abandon that attitude, become very responsive to customer needs.''
``We did all sorts of training programs and other personnel development measures that were very effective,'' Carnes said. ``And of course there was the added motivation that if we didn't learn to please clients, we'd never land enough research customers to stay in business and we'd all be out of our jobs.''
Despite the accolades about Carnes' performance, he has not turned Sarnoff into a wildly profitable business.
According to company officials, Sarnoff will do little better than break even this year. And as for its spinoffs, only one of the more than 20 Sarnoff offspring, Plainsboro's Orchid BioSciences, has fulfilled its mission and found its way to the public stock markets.
Still, company officials have high hopes for several younger companies that show promise. And business community leaders have nothing but praise for the spinoff strategy, which has generated considerable economic activity in the area.
Indeed, Sarnoff's spinoffs have outgrown their corporate parent, together employing 1,000 people, mostly in the Mercer County area.
What's more, the strategy has attracted attention to Sarnoff and to the area's high-tech community.
``Jim Carnes has been a very vocal and active proponent of the state's high-tech community. He has done an excellent job making people across the nation understand that New Jersey has a vibrant high-tech community. And by doing that he has made this a more attractive place for high-tech workers and helped our economy,'' said Maxine Ballen, president of the New Jersey Technology Council, a trade group with more than 1,200 members.
Carnes never intended to be a scientist.
He only took engineering courses as an undergraduate at Penn State University to complement the training he received in the Navy ROTC and better prepare him to be a fighter pilot.
But by the time he graduated, his eyesight wasn't good enough to be a military pilot. So after four years in the Navy, Carnes decided to fall back on engineering.
While he was working toward a doctorate in solid state electronics at Princeton University, Carnes landed an internship just a few miles away at RCA's David Sarnoff Research Center. Except for a few years spent at RCA's facility in Indianapolis, he never worked anywhere else.
He is retiring on the same day that his wife, Nancy, is retiring from Princeton University, where she works as assistant to the dean of the graduate college.
At the end of the summer, the two plan to move from their house in Hopewell Township so Carnes can be near his alma mater, where he has been head of the alumni association.
Copyright 2002 The Times.
Transportation budget aims to spur smart growth
Tuesday, April 02, 2002
By MICHAEL JENNINGS
EWING - State transportation officials hailed the capital budget they unveiled yesterday as representing ``a sea change'' in attitude - less money for new and wider roads that spawn sprawl and more money to repair bridges and roads.
But environmentalists say the McGreevey administration isn't putting its money where its mouth is.
Transportation Commissioner James Fox said the $2.5 billion plan for the fiscal year that begins July 1 was prepared in concert with the Department of Environmental Protection to emphasize ``smart growth,'' such as more money to encourage urban redevelopment.
The budget reduces from $153 million to $92 million the amount to be spent on widening roads or building new ones.
``It's like turning a battleship. We have started to move in another direction, but this isn't a radical budget,'' Fox said. ``We can't stress enough that this is a sea change. It reflects this department's and this administration's philosophy.''
Environmentalists scoffed at that claim and said they hope the budget doesn't really embody the McGreevey administration's philosophy.
``The budget doesn't match their words,'' said Jeff Tittle, executive director of the Sierra Club's New Jersey chapter. ``They are trying to move in the right direction, but they aren't there yet.''
Lisa Peterson of the Tri-State Transportation Campaign said the federal government, not the state, is responsible for the additional $60 million that will be spent on bridge repairs.
``This would actually be the lowest amount of state money spent on fixing bridges in several years,'' she said. ``The increases are all due to increases in federal funds.''
Fox tiptoed around questions about the possibility of raising the state's gasoline tax, while saying there needs to be a far greater financial commitment to maintaining the state's roads and bridges.
``We never have enough money for transportation. We are going to be working with the Legislature to guarantee that the state has the resources necessary,'' Fox said.
James Redeker of NJ Transit said the rail line will be able to serve almost 5,000 more rush hour commuters bound for Manhattan later this year. A high-tech switching system is expected to come on line this fall, providing four more NJ Transit trains an hour access to Penn Station.
The system also will accept delivery of 200 new cars this year to replace antiquated units, he said. The budget calls for buying 150 double deck train cars, seating 140 passengers, which will be delivered in 2006.
Among the local road and bridge projects in the budget are:
-- In Trenton, $16 million will be spent along Route 29; $2 million will be spent to improve city streets in the hope of promoting economic development; $1 million will be spent on repairing bridges.
-- In Lawrence, $3.8 million will be spent to build a pedestrian bridge over Route 1 just south of the Interstate 95 interchange. The bridge will provide continuous access to the Delaware & Raritan Canal State Park.
-- In Washington Township, $2.75 million is earmarked for improvements to Routes 33 and 130.
-- In Princeton Township, $2.6 million will be spent to replace the Route 27 bridge over Harry's Brook.
-- In Hopewell Township, $1 million will be spent to provide access from Baldpate Mountain to the Delaware & Raritan Canal State Park.
Copyright 2002 The Times.
Land Use Articles January 1 - March 31, 2002
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