Approvals should have limits to change with the times

Approvals should have limits
to change with the times

IIn 1986 the members of the Old Bridge Planning Board approved a general development plan submitted by the Brunetti Organization. The approval gave the green light to a development with 1,734 residential units, including single-family homes, townhomes and apartments, a golf course and commercial buildings.

However, Brunetti waited to build the development because of several economic recessions the country experienced.

Now, in the year 2000, Brunetti is again before the Planning Board with plans for the Route 9 development, known as the Oaks at Glenwood.

The problem, according to one board member G. Kevin Calogera, is that the current board is not happy that it has to live with a decision it did not make.

However, Brunetti is working with the board. The organization has submitted amended general development plans which call for less residential units and the commercial buildings to be located along Route 9 instead of scattered through the development. In addition, the golf course will no longer be part of the development and it will be replaced with areas of passive recreation and open space.

Still, Calogera argues that the township’s population and infrastructure have changed, Because things do change over time, he wants the state Legislature to allow Planning Boards the opportunity to vacate older approvals or to mandate them to conform to any density zoning changes made since the original approval.

And he is right. Members of the Old Bridge Planning Board in 1986 may not have foreseen the suburban sprawl the township and other Middlesex County towns have experienced over the past decade.

If Brunetti had built the development in 1986, township residents and officials would have no choice now but to live with 1,734 additional residential units.

However, the state can give municipal boards some control so that its members can change what has not yet been set in stone — literally.