may become the site of senior housing
Builder razing plant
to build senior units
Gist Brocades factory
may become the site of senior housing
By vincent todaro
Staff Writer
The former Gist Brocades factory in East Brunswick is slowly being demolished by a developer who hopes to replace it with senior citizen housing.
The Main Street factory, which made yeast for beer products, is being razed by Arisa Development Co. of New York whose principal, Mordechai Lipkis, said he plans to build housing on the 30-acre site.
The building is about 60 percent demolished and should be fully gone by the end of the year, Lipkis said.
Neighbors disliked the Gist Brocades factory as they were forced to live with its malodorous effects. Before it was known as the Gist Brocades factory, Anheuser-Busch owned it.
Since the yeast factory was closed in 1997, it has become an eyesore and something of a nuisance, according to Mayor William Neary, who said it has been the site of fires and vandalism. The township has issued summonses because of the property’s condition, he said.
"That type of place doesn’t belong in a residential zone, and we’ve done all we can to make sure it gets cleaned up," Neary said.
The Township Council voted in July to change the zoning of the site to allow for senior citizen housing, a market Neary said is not sufficiently represented in the township.
"From the market point of view, it’s better to have that type of development than another industrial (property) or plain old housing," he said.
According to the ordinance adopted by the council, some of the units in a senior housing development would have to be defined as affordable housing. The ordinance requires that at least 20 percent of the multifamily units and 10 percent of the single-family units built there be affordable. It also requires 50 percent of the affordable units to be for lower-income households, and the other half for moderate-income households, although neither of those terms is defined in the ordinance.
The area that was rezoned, which is near the Spotswood border, is between Main Street and Duhernal Lake.
Neary said Arisa representatives spoke to residents in the area about the zone change, and that the feedback was mostly positive.
Leslie P. McGowan, the township’s director of planning and engineering, said the township is expecting Arisa to file a complete application in the near future.
"I expect we’re going to be entertaining (an application) sometime this winter," she said.
Lipkis said he will seek approval to build a senior housing development, which he believes will have less than 100 units.
Arisa bought the property in 1997 after the plant closed. The company had a plan around that time to build more than 100 senior housing and assisted-living units, but has since modified its concept, Neary said. In its 1998 plan, Arisa also included a small commercial area for the site, Neary said.
Not everyone has been pleased with the township’s rezoning of the site.
During a public hearing on the zone change at a July council meeting, some residents accused township officials of rezoning simply to accommodate the developer.
Resident Joseph DeFilippo, a senior citizen, called the move a "sweetheart deal" for the developer, and said the new development will indirectly raise property taxes. The problem, he said, is that seniors who currently reside in the township will move to the new housing and sell their old homes to families with children, thereby increasing school taxes.
Council President Donald Klemp said at the same meeting that seniors are leaving the township for a number of reasons, including not being able to afford the taxes, having too much space in their homes as a result of their children moving out, and wanting to capitalize on the real estate market. He argued that an age-restricted development at the site would be good because it would give seniors a place to live in East Brunswick and would not create new housing for families with children.

