Plan eyed for Dayton

Coalition looks to future of village

by Sean Ruppert, Staff Writer
   The Dayton Village Citizen’s Coalition is taking the first steps toward creating a development plan that could turn the five-corners intersection into a village center area.
   The coalition held an open meeting Tuesday night in an attempt to generate interest among residents of the village for making improvements to the area. Presenting at the session was Jim Constantine, a community planner with the Princeton office of the firm Looney Ricks Kiss Architects.
   Mr. Constantine presented the approximately 20 attendees with large aerial photographs of village as a whole, as well as smaller ground-level pictures of scenes from around the area. The participants were asked to take green, red and yellow dots and place them on areas in the pictures they liked, areas they did not like, and areas they felt traffic was a problem.
   ”We call this ‘Dotmacracy,’” he said. “We want to see what the people who live here like about Dayton, and what they don’t like about Dayton. We want to have a dialogue. We’re not here to tell anyone what they should do, but to find out what they want. We want to show people that is possible take an area and make it better.”
   The most common complaints of those who attended dealt with difficulty of pedestrian and bike travel within the village. Many said they would like to see more sidewalks, bike lanes and crosswalks.
   ”We don’t have crosswalks, we have cross runs,” Dayton resident Frank College said. “When you cross the street, you run for your life.”
   Mr. Constantine said it would be his goal to create a plan that would preserve the historical look of the village, while creating a main street type location.
   Russell Richardson, owner of Fresh Ponds Village and some surrounding properties, brought in the planner to work on the potential project.
   Members of the coalition, along with Mr. Constantine and Mr. Richardson, will meet with township officials Tuesday to further discuss their ideas.
   According to coalition member Joan Luckhardt, it will be necessary to build a consensus among to the village residents that action needs to be taken.
   ”We have all been complaining as individuals about different things for years, but not planning together,” she said. “What we want to do is bring people together to find real solutions to the problems we see.”
   More information about the Dayton Village Citizen’s Coalition can be found at its Web site, www.daytonvillage.org.