Preliminary OK given for homes

Wildflower at Marlboro to have age-restricted units and non-age-restricted apts.

BY REBECCA MORTON Staff Writer

Marlboro will be getting a new agerestricted development and apartment buildings with affordable rental units.

Following a series of hearings before the Marlboro Planning Board, Orleans’ Wildflower at Marlboro application received preliminary approval on Sept. 17. Board members voted 7-2 to approve Wildflower.

Mayor Jonathan Hornik and Councilman Frank LaRocca, both of whom sit on the board, voted against the court-ordered development.

“I understand we’re bound as a township by my predecessor and (the) proceeding Planning Board, but it doesn’t change the fact that I do not think this is a good project,” Hornik said before casting his dissenting vote.

Wildflower at Marlboro is an application that resulted from a legal settlement between Marlboro and the owners of the 75-acre Tennent Road parcel known as the Bluh and Batelli property. Attorney Kenneth Pape, who represented the applicant, said Orleans is the contract purchaser of the property.

Wildflower will include 168 age-restricted detached homes. Orleans also plans to build two three-story buildings that will contain a total of 50 apartments that will be rented to people whose income meets regional guidelines established by the state Council on Affordable Housing (COAH). The apartments will not be age-restricted.

The settlement also provides for 65 affordable housing units to be transferred out of Marlboro through a regional contribution agreement (RCA) with another municipality.

The Wildflower property has frontage on Church Lane, Tennent Road and Route 79 in the Morganville section of the community. The parcel is in the vicinity of the Marlboro Little League baseball complex.

The two sections of Wildflower at Marlboro will be divided by the Henry Hudson Trail. The first section, containing age-restricted homes and a clubhouse that will only be for the residents of the agerestricted portion of the project, will have access from Tennent Road and Route 79. The second section, which will contain the remainder of the age-restricted homes and the apartment buildings, will only have access from Tennent Road.

In hearings that have gone on since May, Orleans’ professionals have presented the plan to the board, but when members of the board expressed concern about a lack of elevators in the apartment buildings the professionals went back and adjusted the plan.

Architect William Feinberg said even though an elevator is not required by law in a three-story building, the applicant changed its plan to include elevators. All of the units in each building will be able to meet the requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

The property has some environmental issues that will need to be remediated prior to construction. Environmental consultant Mark Selover testified that the former orchard had been found to contain arsenic.

Selover told the board at a previous hearing that representatives of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) will be inspecting the site periodically. Once the DEP has issued a “no further action” letter, construction will commence.

One of the issues discussed at the Sept. 17 meeting concerned the timeline for the construction of the age-restricted homes that will be sold at market prices and the construction of the affordable units which will be rented at below market prices.

Attorney Kenneth Biedzynski, who represents Marlboro on COAH matters, said the phasing of the development is critical for the municipality in terms of its COAH obligation.

Pape told board members he would discuss the issue with Biedzynski and the board’s planner in private to determine a timeline for the construction of both types of housing.

LaRocca expressed his concerns about the affordable housing at Wildflower, saying, “These units in the back, secured by fences, separated, not being able to use the clubhouse. To me it’s not really in the spirit of COAH.”

Board members previously suggested that the applicant include a small play area for the use of children who will live in the apartments.

Pape apologized when asked about the status of the play area, stating it had not been worked on. He promised it would be a part of the plan when the applicant returns for final site plan approval.

The 65 RCA units that are part of the Wildflower settlement were also an issue that board members were troubled with. Gov. Jon Corzine recently signed a law which prohibits RCAs — a mechanism which allowed one municipality to pay a second town to accept a part of its affordable housing obligation.

The board’s planner, Richard Cramer, explained to board members how this change in legislation will now affect Marlboro.

“You’re not going to get 65 RCAs because the state won’t let you transfer (affordable housing units) anymore. So those 65 (affordable housing units) will have to be made up elsewhere within Marlboro itself,” Cramer said.

Another area of concern for the board was how children who will live in the apartments will get to school.

David Horner, the applicant’s traffic engineer, had planned for a bus stop to be located at the intersection of Foxglove and Sunflower roads within the development, rather then sending the bus into the designated parking area in front of the apartment buildings.

Board Chairman Larry Josephs said the board was in receipt of a letter from the Marlboro K-8 School District’s transportation department which expressed concern about sending a bus into the development.

Pape said he believed the concern had arisen when a bus stop had been proposed within the parking lot of the apartment buildings area. The attorney also said if it was a matter of the development having public or private roads, Orleans would work with the township in regard to Title 39 jurisdiction.

A copy of the letter, which was addressed to Josephs from former transportation coordinator Teresa Dondrea, states that “the Marlboro Township School District does not permit our buses to travel through age-restricted communities.”

Dondrea wrote, “Based on our present practices, these students would be assigned a group bus stop outside the Wildflower community. We have learned through experience that residents living in these (age-restricted) communities resent having noisy buses traversing their roads throughout the day.”

When asked if not sending buses into age-restricted communities is a district policy, Sharon Witchel, the public information officer for the Marlboro K-8 School District, said there is no law or policy in the district that prohibits buses from entering an adult community.

She said although there is no specific law or policy regarding that issue, the district’s practice has been as Dondrea explained in the letter.

Board members told the professionals for Orleans that both the Marlboro K-8 School District and the Freehold Regional High School District would be viewed as outside agencies that the applicant would need to receive approval from.

Contact Rebecca Morton at [email protected].