Monroe Planning Committee meets to discuss their Master Plan.
By: Al Wickund
MONROE A Master Plan with 6-acre, single-family zoning for the southern part of the township was adopted by the Planning Board Monday and now will go the Township Council.
The council has the authority to adopt zoning necessary to make the Master Plan work.
Council President Irwin Nalitt said Thursday the council had a goal to deal with the Master Plan in July.
"We have a meeting Monday to set the agenda for our July 7 meeting, but I don’t know if we’ll be ready to act.
"If things are not in place for a July 7 consideration of zoning, then it’s likely that we’ll be discussing it at our July 28 agenda-setting meeting," Mr. Nalitt said.
The plan adopted by the Planning Board kept the requirement of 6-acre lots for every house in a 5,400-acre rural residential and farmland zone that runs along both sides of Federal Road from the Cranbury Township border to the Manalapan border, covering an area that had previously been defined as an Agricultural Development Area. This area had required a minimum 3-acre lot for a single-family house.
The board decided Monday that an area bordering East Windsor Township, that was being considered for zoning for a planned retirement community, will remain an R-30 zone that requires .75 of an acre for each single-family house. It also kept the Dock’s Corner Road area an R-30 (.75-acre lots and single- family houses) zone rather than change to light industrial.
The board approved a change along the westerly border with Cranbury, making it a planned-retirement-community rather than an office-commercial zone.
It also made the area along Route 522 near the Barclay Brook and Brookside schools zone needing 3-acre lots for single-family houses.
The township planners expressed their interest in open land on Gravel Hill and Union Valley roads. They left it as a 3-acre zone, but did an open space Overlay, marking it for possible change.
Township Planner Peter Tolischus said state historians have considered much of this land as part of the encampment for George Washington’s army before the Battle of Monmouth.