BY SETH MANDEL
Staff Writer
A meeting called by Milltown activists about the future of Ford Avenue last week was attended by more than 100 residents concerned about the current redevelopment effort.
The April 13 meeting was hosted by Milltowners for a Sensible Ford Avenue Redevelopment, a group of residents seeking input on the plan to redevelop Ford Avenue with age-restricted housing and retail uses, along with Robert Spiegel, executive director of the Edison Wetlands Association (EWA).
Much of the meeting was devoted to the topic of contamination and remediation of the Ford Avenue site, the reason Spiegel said his group became involved. Spiegel said he had been driving past the old factory buildings on Ford Avenue on his way to visit a contaminated East Brunswick property when he noticed the doors in the front and back of the old powerhouse were wide open.
“When I looked in, I couldn’t believe that there were 55-gallon drums turned over and leaking, and asbestos everywhere, and it was just basically open for children to come in and play, and there were actually trails that went around to the back of the open building,” Spiegel said. “I called it in to the DEP [state Department of Environmental Protection] hotline and that’s how I got involved with the process.”
Spiegel said the EWA works to help communities convert old industrial sites to environmentally safe recreational and commercial properties.
But Milltown officials involved with the effort are already working on the environmental aspects of the project. In fact, Ford Avenue Redevelopment Agency Chairman Anthony Zarillo told the Sentinel that the May 10 meeting of the agency will be devoted to the results of the DEP’s testing of the site. He said representatives from each member of the “triad” — the DEP, New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT), and Najarian Associates, the three organizations involved in the testing of the site — will attend the meeting to present their findings.
“If anybody speculates prior to that report, it is mere speculation,” Zarillo said. “I don’t even know myself what the report is going to contain, and so I’m looking forward to hearing from the agencies that have the responsibility. They have the jurisdiction over the redevelopment of the site.”
The rest of last week’s meeting allowed for members of the public to make suggestions as to what they would prefer to see in the redevelopment.
Debate brews on housing
The current plan for the 22-acre site calls for 324 units of age-restricted housing and 75,000 square feet of retail and commercial space. The plan was adopted last year by the redevelopment agency, which has partnered with local developer Boraie Ltd. for the project.
“The bulk of the people there overwhelmingly did not want high-density residential housing,” Spiegel said. “They wanted open space and they wanted some commercial for the economic tax base. Most everybody who raised their hands and talked did not want high-density residential and felt that it was going to be very detrimental to the community.”
Resident Charles Jegou said many of the residents didn’t want any housing at all, but would rather the plan include professional offices and an open space buffer, possibly for a dog park.
Zarillo said that some of the ideas now being discussed are unrealistic.
“The bottom line is that the economics will drive the redevelopment of this project, and to suggest that 22 acres be preserved for open space is absolutely ludicrous,” Zarillo said. “The residential taxpayer in Milltown has been living with that site for too many years, where it’s been underproductive and underutilized. It is a site that should be developed in an environmentally benign manner, and it also should provide tax relief for the borough residents. The plan that we have put on the table does both of that.”
Spiegel, however, said the current plan does not represent the desires of borough residents, and that it could include more open space and still be economically feasible.
“You can have an economically based redevelopment and cleanup, but still have some set aside for open space, and what we’re looking for is a balanced redevelopment with this site,” Spiegel said. “We’re going to help them put together a redevelopment map that’s balanced, that really puts forth what the community wants, not a hand-picked bunch of politically connected folks who really are just concerned about money. The only green that the redevelopment authority seems to care about is the color of money.”
Zarillo said economic feasibility, and not politics, is the engine that keeps the redevelopment running. He said too much personal animosity has arisen from the public’s unwillingness to accept that the redevelopment agency members are trying to do what’s best for borough residents.
“Not only me, but every member of that agency is only interested in one thing, and for the public to suggest that we do not have the best interests of Milltown at heart when we go through this process is troublesome to the nth degree with me, because that is not the case,” Zarillo said.
The agency welcomes public input and participation at every one of the agency’s meetings, he said.
There is room in the plan for compromise, he acknowledged, but any proposed changes to the plan must be realistic.
“So while I’m willing to listen to the input from the public, the public has got to understand that there are times when their desires cannot be met, because of the economics of the site,” Zarillo said.
“Now, to suggest that this site ought to have more commercial development, to me that’s beyond understanding. We have enough commercial, and enough retail, in and around Milltown that will be competing with Milltown.”
Jegou said that even if age-restricted housing does not add to the financial burden of educating additional schoolchildren, the town still must provide services to the new residents.
He said even many of the borough’s senior citizens oppose the age-restricted housing in the plan, which would cost them more in taxes and condominium fees.
“The seniors who we talked to said they couldn’t afford to move in there anyway; they’re better off staying in their own house,” Jegou said. “So they would like to see the commercial, because that would bring a tax break for them.”
Another concern with the residential portion of the redevelopment plan is that it will cause further congestion of the borough’s main roads.
Zarillo said that the redevelopment, as currently planned, will not exacerbate the existing traffic problem in the borough, though additional commercial space might.
“It has been proven that age-restricted housing creates less traffic than a commercial site,” Zarillo said. “A commercial site will more than likely be 24-7. There will be traffic coming in all hours of the day to Milltown, assuming they can go shopping, and so therefore, what does that do with regard to the traffic problem?”
Zarillo said the current plan has been approved because it is the only feasible option.
“It’s been looked at by the Planning Board, it’s been looked at by the mayor and the council,” Zarillo said, adding that it may be possible to make adjustments and that he is willing to explore the possibility of reducing the density of the project.
“But if the density reduction goes so far as to make the plan uneconomic, the result that the public better be ready and willing to accept is that site will never be redeveloped, not in an economically feasible way,” he said.
Calling for a new plan
Spiegel said he is going to work closely with Jegou and the residents who attended the meeting to put together a redevelopment map that will more adequately mirror the wishes of the community for the redevelopment.
Jegou said he would like to take into consideration the opinions of all the residents who oppose the current plan in forming a new site plan.
“What we’re going to do is go back to the people who were there, make sure we’re all on the same base that everybody agrees, ‘Yes, we want open space, we want commercial property,’ ” Jegou said. “Then what we’re going to do is make an alternate plan, and Bob Spiegel and the Edison Wetlands are going to help us out to make an overlay on that.”
At that point, Jegou said, the group will present the new plan to the redevelopment agency “as an alternate for the people of Milltown, something that the people of Milltown decided they would like there.”
Spiegel said that the meeting, and the residents’ input, came in this stage of the redevelopment effort because residents did not feel that they could effect any change in the plan. But, he said, they grew tired of being left out of the process.
He believes community involvement should be a key component of redevelopment.
“Now that the community understands that they actually have a voice in the redevelopment process, I think you’re going to see a lot more people get involved, because this is so centrally located in Milltown that it’s going to either make Milltown a very desirable place to live and come and visit or it’s going to drive everybody from the community,” Spiegel said.
Zarillo said he has not yet perceived a large groundswell of opposition to the current plan, and that the residents should always be kept well-informed.
He said he supports and respects the idea of last week’s town meeting and each resident’s right to be made fully aware of every facet of the redevelopment process.
“We’ve been holding these meetings for four years, and we welcome the public participation,” Zarillo said. “The same people who are complaining they have no input, have been able to speak at every one of our meetings of the last four years. It’s not a question of whether or not there’s been public input. The frustration with these individuals is they expect us to adopt their proposal, and we have had professionals who have advised us with regard to the plan that we have put before the mayor and the Borough Council and the Planning Board, and it’s approved by those bodies. So therefore, we’re very comfortable with the plan.”
Many residents, according to Jegou, said they were told the redevelopment was a “done deal,” and that there was nothing they could do to change it.
“If you went to the Ford Avenue meetings, that’s what it sounded like, that they were running the show, and no matter what the people of Milltown say or do, they’re not going to change,” Jegou said.
“When they came last night, they saw that there can be a change.”