General Development Plan (GDP) will be topic
Capital Health System (CHS) wants to build a 237-bed hospital, plus three companion office buildings, on a Merrill Lynch-owned tract of land in south-central Hopewell Township.
Among the governmental approvals CHS needs to accomplish that goal is township Planning Board approval to amend the General Development Plan (GDP) for the land. The Planning Board is scheduled to consider that matter tonight (Nov. 1) at 7 p.m.
Merrill Lynch obtained GDP approval for the land in the late 1990s. That approval covered 450 acres Merrill had purchased earlier from Bristol-Myers Squibb, which had owned the land for years.
CHS is the contract purchaser of the property slated for the hospital. Under the contract, CHS does not have to buy the land until it gets all approvals needed to build the hospital. The land is near I-95 and Scotch Road.
A hospital and the three companion buildings are permitted by the township zoning code on the land involved.
If CHS obtains the GDP amendment, it then may seek Planning Board site plan approval to build the hospital itself. That site plan approval is needed to obtain construction permits.
CHS cannot advance to the Planning Board until a site plan application has been declared complete by the board’s Application Review Committee (ARC).
For its part, ARC won’t begin its own hearings on the site plan application until CHS has received approval to amend the GDP.

