Committee in quandary over improvements to Pleasant View Road
By: Jake Uitti
MONTGOMERY Beazer Homes Developers, a real estate development company, has broken ground on a roughly 200-unit housing development on Pleasant View Road in Hillsborough Township right across the border from Montgomery.
The development is adjacent to an area in Montgomery that township officials said they want to keep undeveloped.
Pleasant View Road is a north-south, 20-foot-wide road that intersects Route 601 east of Carrier Clinic. When Pleasant View Road enters Hillsborough, however, the road becomes unpaved and is lightly used.
Once the Beazer development is complete, however, the Pleasant View Road section in Hillsborough is planned to be paved and widened to 30 feet to support the new traffic.
Mayor Louise Wilson said township officials have not decided whether they want Pleasant View Road to be widened to 30 feet in Montgomery, since the area is meant to stay undeveloped with a rural feel.
"On one hand, we want it to remain a rural road with a rural appearance and feel," Mayor Wilson said. "On the other hand, we know that road will be carrying a whole lot more vehicular traffic not just by people who live in the new neighborhood, but by people who will use Pleasant View and Mountain View to avoid the intersection of Routes 601 and 206." Pleasant View Road intersects Mountain View Road in Hillsborough.
As the construction begins to heat up for the Beazer development, Montgomery officials are moving ahead with a 4-ton weight limit on Pleasant View Road to keep the traffic at a manageable level.
In addition to the new commuter traffic, there will be more of a need for emergency service vehicles to be able to travel Pleasant View Road due to the Beazer residential development. Mayor Wilson said the Belle Mead Fire Company is much closer to the Beazer development than the Hillsborough Fire Company. As a result, the Montgomery Fire Company will be the first responder.
In order to bring public water to the Beazer development, Beazer is paying for water lines to be installed from Route 601, up Pleasant View Road to its development. Once the water line is in the ground, however, Montgomery has to pay for its upkeep.
"We don’t have any option to refuse to allow Beazer or New Jersey American Water to put those pipes in," Mayor Wilson said.
Fire officials from the Belle Mead Fire Company requested that the township put in a new hydrant along Pleasant View Road so that there could be better access to water in that area in case of a field or car fire. The Township Committee on Wednesday suggested that the fire officials ask representatives from Beazer to put a hydrant on the Hillsborough side of the line near the Montgomery border as a compromise.

