"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 liv