By: David M. Campbell
WEST WINDSOR – The Township Council has asked the Planning Board to make a case for an immense warehouse and office complex off Old Trenton Road, which got positive response from the board last week.
Board member Jacqueline Alberts has questioned the board’s unanimous vote, giving the developer the go-ahead to develop plans for preliminary review. She claimed the project goes against more than seven years of long-standing policies on regional warehouse facilities and open-space preservation in the township.
The proposed 1.06 million-square-foot facility would be built on the Baker Farm site, a 170-acre farmland parcel that had once been targeted for open-space preservation. The McMaster-Carr industrial supply company would bring 700 employees and $1.2 million in annual tax revenue to the township, according to the company.
At a concept review last week, representatives of McMaster-Carr told the Planning Board it wants to move its South Brunswick operation to West Windsor. It asked for tentative approval of a proposal to proceed with preliminary plans for the facility, which the board granted by a 9-0 vote.
The Baker property is zoned residential. A warehouse and office use would require a zoning change, which would have to be approved by the Township Council.
The zoning change may set back efforts to update the township’s Master Plan, which are under way, according to Sam Surtees, the director of the township’s Division of Land Use.
On Monday night, the council agreed it wants to hear a presentation on the project from Planning Board representatives at one of the council’s upcoming agenda sessions.
According to Ms. Alberts, the board’s endorsement is a reversal of previous Planning Board decisions rejecting proposals for regional warehouse and trucking facilities because of the negative impact such facilities would have on area roadways and property values.
Ms. Alberts also questioned why the board would support developing a parcel of land that has been a major piece of the township’s open-space preservation wish list.
"I need to understand why there has been a reversal of not one but two long-standing Planning Board decisions," Ms. Alberts said, referring to policies on warehouses and open-space preservation. "I am very supportive of a meeting on this issue."
The proposed warehouse and office complex would bring about 700 employees into the township daily, as well as truck and delivery van traffic, some of which would be operating in the late evening and early morning hours.
Council President Kristin Appelget said she is looking forward to hearing a presentation by the Planning Board.
"I’d like to see what was so compelling that the Planning Board voted unanimously to approve this," Ms. Appelget said. "I’m certainly concerned about the traffic implications, and I’d like to see what the developer has proposed and what the actual plan looks like.
"I feel that the township has made over many years the planning of the Carnegie Center area very structured and very carefully planned, and I think we need to take that same sort of care in the planning of this site, since this is the last major open space left in the town that really is not owned by the township."
Ms. Appelget said the presentation is expected at an agenda session in November.
At the Planning Board meeting last week, board member Richard Snedeker, also a member of the Open Space Task Force and of Friends of West Windsor Open Space, said Task Force and Friends members had met with the owners of the Baker tract repeatedly to buy the land, but the asking price was too high.
"It’s simply too expensive, and as attractive as it is to preserve, it is simply not practical in terms of the town’s resources," he said.
Mr. Snedeker called McMaster-Carr’s proposal to build on land that has already been cleared by farming and to preserve the existing woodland on the site "viable," adding, "This may not be satisfactory to everybody, but given the constraints we have, I think this is a practical alternative."
