Master Plan ordinances under development.
By: Scott Morgan
MILLSTONE The Township Committee has asked the township planner to write the ordinances based on the Planning Board’s Master Plan recommendations.
In November, the Planning Board presented a revised Master Plan to the Township Committee for consideration. The revised plan recommends increasing lot sizes to help curb growth, including plans to regulate commercial developments along Route 33 and Route 537.
Other minor changes were also made, including recommendations to promote more effective cluster zoning in residential areas, protection of forests and the conservation of natural resources by commercial enterprises.
Upon receiving the recommendations, the Township Committee faced three options when considering whether to accept them ignore the recommendations, adopt the recommendations, or adopt only part of the recommendations.
The committee chose to adopt the entire sheet of recommendations this week and have Township Planner Richard Cramer write the ordinances that change some of the township’s zoning sizes.
That decision, though, did not come without debate. Of the five township committeemen, only three John Pfefferkorn, Cory Wingerter and Bill Nurko voted to proceed with the Planning Board’s recommendations. Committeemen Charles Abate and Chet Halka said they wanted to send the recommendations to a subcommittee for further review.
Mr. Abate, in an interview Monday, said he wanted to see further review because he was not part of the Planning Board that devised these recommendations. Mr. Abate said he did not feel as if he knew all he should about the plan. By putting the plan up for further consideration, he said, the committee might come to a better understanding of the plan and possibly devise compromises and different options.
Mr. Abate said he would like to have studied what the Township Committee could do, financially, when large properties come to market. Perhaps, he said, the committee could weigh its bonding options and buy lands for preservation, if possible.
Mr. Pfefferkorn, however, said sending the recommendations to a subcommittee would be an unnecessary step.
"The Master Plan is being stalled," Mr. Pfefferkorn said in a Monday interview, elaborating that the longer the committee takes to approve the recommendations, the more time developers have to sway large landowners into parting with their properties.
"The scare of 6- and 10-acre zoning is forcing landowners into selling," Mr. Pfefferkorn said. He said that developers can convince farmers and other landowners into sub-dividing and selling land now, for fear that once the lot sizes increase, the land values will drop.
Mr. Pfefferkorn said that line of thought is simply not true, as land values can increase when there is more of it to sell.
A three-month study completed for the Upper Freehold Planning Board last April concluded that increasing lot sizes (in Upper Freehold’s case from 2 to 4 acres) would decrease the value of property over time. That study, performed by Lawrence-based planner Richard Carabelli, studied properties in Millstone, basing its information on real estate records over the mid-to-late 1990s.The study found that while 2-acre zones doubled in value over time, the value of 4-acre lots barely increased.
Mr. Abate said it is the large landowners who are generating the "panic" Mr. Pfefferkorn addressed, rather than reacting to pressure from developers.
The township has received at least10 applications for major and minor subdivisions since the recommendations were announced in late October. Planning Board Secretary Michelle Kelley said that is not an unusual amount of applications.
Mr. Wingerter said the recommendations should be ready for committee review by mid-March.

