By Katie Wagner, Staff Writer
MONTGOMERY — A Planning Board hearing for the residential component of the Montgomery Promenade project was far from a stroll in the park for the applicant, with the board ultimately deciding at 11 p.m. Monday to postpone making a decision on the application.
Both the Planning Board and representatives of the applicant, Madison Marquette, expressed frustration with their failure to reach an agreement on the appearances of the 16 age-restricted duplex houses that will occupy both sides of approximately half a mile of a street near the pedestrian-friendly shopping center component of the Montgomery Promenade.
The shopping center, which received final approval from the Planning Board late last year, is located near the southwest corner of Route 206 and Route 518. It will include 325,000 square feet of retail space and a central plaza. In addition to the residential component of the project, the development of lots for free-standing commercial buildings on the outskirts of the shopping center requires final approval.
The applicant’s proposed addition of brick and other masonry to portions of the facades of some of the houses aroused the greatest amount of debate.
Mark Ellenbogen, the project’s residential developer, said his company’s marketing experts believe the houses would not sell without providing more variation among the houses and that adding brick and other masonry to gables and other parts of the buildings would create the appropriate amount of house-to-house variation.
Members of the Planning Board, however, disagreed that using the additional materials was necessary and claimed that the way Madison Marquette had chosen to vary the houses was inconsistent with the kind of streetscape the township’s Design Advisory Committee had requested during a previous meeting.
”I believe what we’d spoke about was trying to simplify things and not to throw in so many types of materials,” said Thomas Lee, a member of the Planning Board and chairman of the Design Advisory Committee, a subcommittee of the Planning Board.
”To me alternating the bricks and color on every other one almost creates chaos.” Mr. Lee added later in the meeting. “When we talked to the applicant at the Design Advisory Committee meeting, we kept talking about the same things. What I’m finding is the things that we brought up that were the specific things that we said we didn’t want to see are the things we’re seeing tonight.”
After several lengthy exchanges between board members and Madison Marquette representatives, the applicant agreed to provide an alternative method for creating variation in the homes. The applicant will be presenting two additional house designs when the hearing continues on Feb. 25. An artist’s rendering that provides a longer stretch of the residential streetscape than was offered Monday will also be presented to the board.
