By jane meggitt
Staff Writer
UPPER FREEHOLD — At last week’s special meeting to discuss the future of land use law in the township, the planner laid out a set of alternatives.
Township Planner Richard Coppola presented the recommendations he previously made to the Planning Board to the Township Committee.
The Planning Board voted 5-4 to establish 3-acre minimum zoning for building lots in residential zones, which is a decrease in density from the current 2-acre minimum lot size. The new zoning endorsed by the Planning Board also calls for a cluster provision that would allow properties of 50 acres and larger to be built upon at a higher density in exchange for preservation of some of the land.
Coppola researched and presented three rezoning possibilities to the board and the committee: 3-, 4-, or 6-acre zoning with a farmland/open space cluster option for properties greater than 150 acres in size. Coppola had not researched or recommended the zoning option the Planning Board endorsed through its vote.
Coppola said the overriding purpose of the cluster option was to preserve open space. He said municipal land-use law allows tracts to be composed of noncontiguous land areas. If a property to be developed is 150 acres, at least two parcels must consist of 50 acres, but there could be five 10-acre lots or variants thereof.
Developers opting for the cluster zoning would be granted a density bonus, the planner said.
According to Coppola, on a hypothetical 150-acre parcel with no environmental constraints, 63 lots could be developed under the current 2-acre zoning; 3-acre zoning would yield 42 lots; 4-acre zoning, 31 lots; and 6-acre zoning would yield 21 lots.
If a developer chose to develop a hypothetical 150 acres using the cluster provision, 57 units could be constructed on 3-acre zoning with 75-acres of land preserved, he said. Clustering would yield 42 lots if 4-acre or 6-acre zoning was adopted, while preserving 97.5 acres, he said.
Coppola said the straight 3-acre zoning and the 6-acres with cluster option would yield the same number of housing units.
"The cluster would preserve significant amounts of land at no cost to the taxpayer," he said.
"As development occurs in town, it will not take an overdue toll on the carrying capacity of the land to support lots [with the cluster]. That is a cumulative situation. It will prevent a radical transformation of the town. There are a lot of municipalities changing lot sizes on the basis of the state plan. That causes available land to be targeted for development.
"There is a legitimate planning goal to monitor the development in the municipality — there is also the equity issue for the large landowner," he said.
Mayor William Miscoski asked if there would be a big difference if the cluster were on 100 acres, saying that he could not see several owners of smaller properties getting together to make deals. Coppola replied that developers would likely step in to broker with each owner.
"If you give bonuses for density, there is incentive for the deals to be made," he said.