Master Plan, preservation, traffic, housing on agenda.
By: Josh Appelbaum
Over the course of the next year, the Planning Board will aim to meet new affordable housing requirements, re-evaluate the township Master Plan, look at traffic problems and offer solutions to manage recent land acquisitions.
The board met Jan. 13 to reorganize for 2005, and reappointed Thomas Harvey as chairman and swore in David Stout as a Township Committee liaison to the board.
Traditionally, the mayor has sat on the Planning Board as a Class I member, but Mayor Becky Beauregard ceded her seat on the Planning Board to Township Committee member Richard Stannard, who expressed an interest to remain on the board after his term as mayor expired.
There was little change in membership of the Planning Board from last year to this, with most members staying.
The 2005 Planning Board also made an appointment to replace Township Planner Harvey Moskowitz, who announced his retirement last year. The board hired Richard Preiss, from Phillips Preiss Shapiro Associates, a Red Bank-based planning firm, to replace Mr. Moskowitz in March.
Mr. Preiss will re-evaluate the Master Plan, a process required every six years as per New Jersey law. He also will work with Cranbury’s affordable housing consultant on a plan of action for new housing.
New requirements call for towns like Cranbury to build one affordable housing unit for every eight residential units built. For every 25 jobs created in the township, one affordable housing unit also must be built.
Mr. Harvey said an evaluation of township roads would be another focus in 2005.
"We’ll have a re-examination of circulation where roads are, how they’re placed and how to deal with present and prospective traffic problems," Mr. Harvey said.
In addition, the Planning Board will work to preserve remaining tracts of open space and evaluate how to best use the property for farmland preservation and recreation.
The board also made the following appointments last week: Mr. Harvey as chairman, Allen Kehrt as vice chairman, Josette C. Kratz as board secretary, Joseph L. Stonaker for board attorney, Mr. Moskowitz as municipal planner for January, Cathleen Marcelli of Hatch Mott MacDonald as engineer and Andrew Feranda of Shropshire Associates as traffic consultant, Carolyn Cummings as court reporter. The Cranbury Press was designated as the official newspaper for the Planning Board.

