Some tough pills for borough’s mill

Council says no to latest redevelopment changes

By Vic Monaco, Managing Editor
   HIGHTSTOWN — The Borough Council has rejected the latest amendments to the ordinance guiding the future redevelopment of the former rug mill, including a payment in lieu of rehabbing the nearby municipal building, a construction requirement the landowner has said he cannot do.
   In the process, one council member strongly suggested the borough consider ending its policy of meeting the requirements of the Council on Affordable Housing, which have driven up the proposed number of residential units at the mill site on Bank Street.
   ”I think we really need to rethink our participation in COAH,” said Councilman Dave Schneider, who voted to approve the amendments. “I think it’s too expensive for this project.”
   The council on Monday voted 4-2 against the amendments, with Larry Quattrone casting the swing vote after getting a formal reply from the local Economic Development Committee that the amendments represented a “lost vision” for the mill project. That position followed the submission in October of a petition signed by 100 people opposed to the amendments.
   Councilman Quattrone said he didn’t want to see Mayor Bob Patten, who favors the amendments, once again break a council tie related to the four-year mill discussions. And he said he’d like to see the newer, younger members of council be allowed to get more involved in the negotiating process.
   ”Maybe the juniors on council didn’t get a fair shake,” he said in reference to Ryan Rosenberg, Constance Harinxma and Patrick Thompson, who also voted against the amendments.
   Besides not being represented on the committee negotiating with mill owner John Wolfington, Mr. Quattrone also suggested that committee members have not explained to council colleagues what’s been going on.
   ”Maybe the communication has broken down over the years,” he said.
   Mr. Quattrone also said he can’t understand why the borough had not suggested a possible 55-plus development at the site, which would alleviate concerns of stressing the regional school district with more students.
   Councilmen Schneider and Walter Sikorski, who both sit on the negotiating committee along with Mayor Patten and others, voted in favor of the amendments, which included the option of a payment in lieu of municipal construction, which borough officials have said would be $350,000.
   Before doing so, Mr. Schneider noted that some local leaders, including EDC members, have pointed out that COAH requirements for additional affordable units have proved to be a big problem when trying to limit the proposed mill density, which now stands at 130 residential units with a maximum of 14 affordable units.
   While disregarding COAH presents a general risk of having other developers propose additional lower-income housing, Mr. Schneider said that threat is “meaningless” because the borough has only one other significant developable tract of land — the Minute Maid parcel — and the developer there is not proposing such construction.
   ”I believe that the current guidelines on COAH were not written for us,” he added. “They were written for towns that were being extremely elitist by keeping out all the poor people.”
   The council’s vote came after a two-hour discussion marked by continued public opposition and political accusations among borough leaders.
   ”We’ve used the white flag too often with a bully, Mr. Wolfington, and the best example is a $350,000 bribe,’ said Frank Rivera, a resident of Broad Street.
   The council rejection also came despite an e-mail request from Mayor Patten for those supporting the amendments to speak out at Monday’s meeting. That call brought out only three members of the Planning Board, which previously approved the amendments.
   Chairman Steve Misiura said the borough’s redevelopment goals and objectives set out in 2004 would still be met “to some extent” by the amendments despite the myriad changes proposed at the mill site over the last four years. Those changes include raising the number of units from 80 to 130 on the 7-acre site and eliminating proposed retail space along Main Street under new municipal offices.
   ”I guess as a council you have to decide whether we can afford not to develop this site,” he said.
   Mr. Misiura also expressed concern with COAH requirements.
   He pointed out that newly proposed state regulations would require one affordable unit for every five newly constructed units, as opposed to a recently court-rejected ratio of 1-per-8. If the new regulations go into effect and the borough sticks to its maximum number of 14 on-site COAH units, Mr. Misiura said, the mill developer would have to drop his total number to 70. If the developer were to stay at 130, he added, the borough would have to find a place for a dozen COAH units in addition to the 14 on site.
   Even though the council’s vote represented a repudiation of continued concessions to Mr. Wolfington, Planning Board member Ashley Hutchinson chastised the council for just the opposite as it was poised to defeat the amendments.
   ”To put yourself in a position of opening the door and walking away makes you look so weak to the developer,” she said.
   Councilman Thompson criticized Ms. Hutchinson for what he later called an “absurd” comment aimed at manipulating the dialogue.
   ”Ashley, nice try, but we’ve been at the table with this guy for four years,” he said at the meeting.
   Planning Board member Nancy Walker Laudenberger simply and quickly asked the council to approve the amendments and let the details be worked out in negotiations. But after the vote, she angrily confronted Councilman Thompson outside council chambers, telling him he had accomplished nothing in his four years on council.
   Borough government critic Gene Sarafin warned the council that moving ahead with a proposed payment-in-lieu-of-taxes program, which was mentioned in the proposed amended ordinance, would invite a lawsuit from East Windsor, which is on record as opposing it (see related story). Without the PILOT program, he said the development would bring in only about $142,000 in annual borough tax revenues.
   Councilman Schneider put that estimate at closer to $180,000, while Council President Sikorski pointed out that the borough is only getting about $10,000 in taxes from the property now.
   Mike Theokas, the owner of Theo’s Lakeside Tavern who was defeated in his fall bid for a council seat, said the borough can’t let the mill property remain in its blighted condition.
   ”We can’t afford to have a vacant property for a more extended period of time,” he said. “The taxpayers can’t afford it. The business community can’t afford it.”
   But Councilwoman Constance Harinxma said it would be “shortsighted” to look only at the tax revenue implications.
   ”This is going to be here forever,” she said of the mill project.
   In voting no, Councilman Rosenberg pointed out that he went along with the last big change, to raise the number of allowable units to 130. But he added, “I’m at the point right now personally where I have to say enough is enough and it’s time to draw a line in the sand.”
   He and Councilman Thompson said they didn’t buy into what the latter called “scare tactics” of Mr. Misiura and others who indicated that if action isn’t taken now, the site would likely remain a blight for many years.
   On the other side, Councilman Sikorski expressed his frustration in a voice steadily increasing in volume. He sarcastically gave detractors “an A in rhetoric,” and said it is wrong to say the borough has been driven by the potential developer.
   ”The developer is being driven by economic factors,” he said.
   But he said he was willing, given a “lack of consensus to move forward,” to postpone the vote for a third time.
   ”Until Patrick’s gone,” Councilman Thompson quickly replied, in a reference to being succeeded next month by EDC Chairman Jeff Bond, who sits on the negotiating committee and favors the amendments.
   Mr. Bond said after the hearing that he does not intend to support a reintroduction of the same amendments next year. He said he does think COAH requirements need to be closely reviewed.
   Councilman Schneider suggested that council OK certain amendments lacking controversy, such as the borough having an option to maintain ownership of the Mechanic Street stub between the mill and municipal building to assure emergency vehicle access. Mr. Thompson once again responded by accusing one of his colleagues of “shrewd political maneuvering,” to keep the proposed amended ordinance alive. That garnered some claps from the 25 or so people in attendance prior to the 4-2 vote.
   On Tuesday, a representative of Mr. Wolfington declined to say that rejecting the payment in lieu of municipal construction is a deal-breaker.
   ”Not having the option for the redeveloper to contribute a fee in lieu of constructing a new municipal facility is a significant hurdle to overcome,” said Rich Almquist of Wolfington Companies, based in West Conshohocken, Pa.
   ”What happened (Monday) leaves us with a 2006 ordinance in place that includes significant hurdles for any developer to overcome,” he added.
   Borough Attorney Fred Raffetto also pointed out the fact that the borough still has the previous ordinance in place.
   ”They have a plan,” he said Wednesday. “Where they go with Mr. Wolfington is anybody’s guess.”
   Mr. Almquist said the company plans to continue talks with borough leaders.
   But he surprisingly said that, despite recent comments to the contrary from Mayor Patten, the company has received no formal request to provide the borough with updated conceptual plans to alleviate what the mayor sees as public confusion.
   ”We have not been asked to prepare anything beyond the exhibits we’ve already contributed,” he said.