Kingston ‘Village Center’ designation is expected in coming months
Guest Column
James English
I am writing to clarify the status of Kingston’s application for Village Center designation. Obtaining this official state designation — a goal endorsed unanimously by both the Franklin Township and South Brunswick Township planning boards and councils — has been an ongoing project for over three years, and some residents of our community have recently expressed confusion as to what has taken place and where things stand now.
To begin with, the attempt to secure center status for Kingston under the State Development and Redevelopment Plan is part of a broader planning initiative. Both South Brunswick and Franklin have proposed other historic villages and hamlets for future consideration as centers (six alone in South Brunswick — Dayton, Monmouth Junction, Cottageville, Deans, Fresh Ponds and Little Rocky Hill). The Joint Citizens Advisory Task Force for Kingston Village has supported the expansive goal of designating multiple centers since our inception, hoping our work in Kingston would serve as a model for efforts in our sister historic communities. We’re confident that what we’ve learned during our own center application process will aid both townships as they pursue center status for the other villages and hamlets.
Secondly, the Kingston Center application has never been denied or refused.
To the contrary, the quality of the application and the comprehensive nature of the task force’s 1997 Final Report supporting the application have won wide praise from planning officials at all levels of government.
What has happened is quite straightforward.
The Office of State Planning decided to focus its activities, first on producing the Interim State Development and Redevelopment Plan. Over the past two years, the Office of State Planning repeatedly postponed the designated center review for scores of applicants from all over the state until the new interim plan could be issued.
With that task completed, the office recently turned its attention to the various center applications that were pending, batching them for review by geographic proximity. In our area of the state, the Kingston application was grouped just this past summer with the proposed Rocky Hill Village Center and the town center proposed by Montgomery.
As part of the review of the Kingston application, Franklin and South Brunswick townships were asked to clarify the boundaries of the center and the environs (surrounding properties that help define a center and which most often consist of greenbelts of open space and park land). We also were asked to refine suggested planning area designations and to update the Planning Implementation Agenda (our concrete plan for achieving goals and objectives) and the maps associated with our application.
This is a normal review process being carried on throughout the state, and it has unfolded much as we expected it would. Since our application is highly unusual — being multijurisdictional and involving two townships and two counties — it brings with it special issues that need to be resolved, and multiple levels of interaction. But we continue to receive strong encouragement from the Office of State Planning, and we fully expect approval of our center application in the coming months.
Let me close by thanking all of the elected and appointed officials who have supported and worked hard on this application over several years.
We especially want to thank the members of the two township councils who appropriated funds this year for the planning services of Heyer, Gruel & Associates to assist in the final stages.
James English is chairman of the Village Center Designation Subcommittee of the Joint Citizens Advisory Task Force for the Village of Kingston