Council rejects Saker offer
to rezone Howell property
By kathy baratta
Staff Writer
HOWELL — Following impassioned pleas by members of the public and the presentation of a petition from residents, the Township Council rejected a proposed zoning change for a section of Vanderveer Road.
Following questions from residents as to why the rezoning was being considered, township attorney Thomas Gannon said the proposed zoning change was part of a settlement offering from Saker Associates, which is involved in litigation with Howell that is alleging spot zoning.
Spot zoning is the practice of using zoning laws to help or hinder a particular project.
Saker Associates went to state Superior Court seeking approval for its development plans for a 55-acre parcel on the east side of Vanderveer Road.
Prior to the council’s vote, Gannon said if the governing body decided to vote to approve the request to rezone the Agricul-tural Residential Enterprise (ARE) zoning which has been in place in the area since 1994 to Special Economic Development, Saker’s litigation would "go away."
The present zoning of ARE-6 on the Saker property permits residential development of one home on 6 acres.
Saker was seeking to have the zoning prior to 1994’s change to ARE-6 reinstated in order to be able to develop some light industrial use of 55 acres of a tract of land owned by the company in the area south of the Howell and Vanderveer roads intersection, just south of the Route 33 bypass.
Donald Smith is vice chairman of the town’s environmental committee and a resident of Vanderveer Road. Before speaking at the public hearing on the proposed rezoning ordinance, Smith said he was addressing the council as the committee’s vice chairman and as a concerned citizen.
Smith said he was "very familiar with the area" being asked for rezoning and knew it to be endangered wetlands that is bisected and bounded by streams. He said development in the area could adversely affect an underground aquifer.
"Any heavy development would destroy potable wells in the area," he told the council.
He called the rezoning proposal "inconsistent with the county master plan."
Regarding the merits of the request in the face of the township’s official encouragement of farmland preservation, Smith asked, "If we’re trying to support farming why are we changing the zoning?"
As to whether roads in the area could accommodate the truck traffic an industrial park would generate, Smith said it is a fact that tractor-trailers cannot make the S-curves on Vanderveer Road in the area of the Country Meadows Estates residential development without crossing over the middle line of the road into the oncoming lane of traffic.
Smith said the proposal was in conflict with the residential zoning and development in the area.
His wife, Pauline, a former councilwoman who presently sits as chairwoman of the Planning Board, said she had lived her entire adult life on Vanderveer Road where "the outdoors is real important to those who have chosen to live there."
Speaking of the Saker acquisition of the property in question, Smith said, "Saker bought a farm with wetlands, why should he expect to develop it?"
Doug Cresson, another Vanderveer Road resident, presented the council with a petition bearing 79 signatures of residents who opposed the rezoning proposal.
"There is nothing wrong with industrial parks in the right place, like Route 9," Cresson said.
Most of the concerns voiced to the council from all of the residents who spoke — none of whom were in favor of the rezoning proposal — were about increased traffic on the nearby roads that they say are ill-equipped to handle it.
Beth Applegate, a 17-year resident of Bennett Road, said she feared the rezoning would depreciate her property’s value.
Following the public hearing, the mayor and other council members voted unanimously to defeat the rezoning measure.