WEST WINDSOR: Redevelopment faces March 23 vote

By Kristine Snodgrass, Staff Writer
   WEST WINDSOR — Township Council will hold a public hearing next month on the adoption of the land use ordinance that would enact the redevelopment plan for the train station area.
   A special business meeting is scheduled for 7 p.m. March 23, when council will hear public comments before voting on the plan. Council voted to introduce the ordinance after a marathon work session Monday night that lasted past midnight, where council members approved hundreds of additions to the plan.
   Council was under pressure to complete revisions to the plan that night so that the ordinance could be introduced, allowing a public hearing and vote at its next open Monday meeting.
   The work session was scheduled by council to allow community groups and members of the public a last opportunity to give input to the plan. Several groups expressed displeasure that they were not given what they felt was sufficient time to give their input during the Planning Board’s review process.
   Council President Charlie Morgan cast the sole vote against the introduction of the plan. Shortly before the vote, he asked township planner John Madden for a final calculation of housing in the plan: 487 total units.
   Mr. Morgan said yesterday that the calculation is an “exhibit on how to lie with statistics.”
   ”We’re using a lot of aggressive and comforting assumptions that are simply not realistic,” he said.
   Requirements by the Council on Affordable Housing could bring the figure as high as 1,000, he said. He added that in his current campaign for mayor, he has knocked on 500 doors, and the majority of people are not in support of the redevelopment plan.
   Councilman Will Anklowitz, who ran with Mr. Morgan on a platform against 1,000 houses in the township, said this week that the plan is “excellent.” He complimented residents on their participation in the meeting, which had about 50 in the audience at its peak.”The people of West Windsor are such an inspiration to our democracy that they would come to the table so prepared and so thoughtful,” said Mr. Anklowitz, who may soon leave council as the result of a judgeship nomination.
   At the meeting, as they discussed various revisions to the plan, council members repeatedly stressed that the plan can always be changed at a later date.
   ”We have to assume that what we do tonight is amendable and subject to revision,” Mr. Morgan said.
   At the beginning of the meeting, Mayor Shing-Fu Hsueh thanked the council for its work on the plan, and said that its approval would allow him to work with outside agencies to obtain funding for the project.
   ”It’s just like a passport to move to the next step,” he said.
   Council also used the meeting to review the Planning Board’s list of recommendations on the plan. After some discussion, it rejected the board’s recommendation that removed a provision that all market housing units in the redevelopment area were for sale, with no rental units.
   Councilwoman Linda Geevers, former West Windsor-Plainsboro Board of Education member, said that her preference was to have only for sale units, which she said would limit the impact of the housing on the school district’s enrollment. She also said owners would show “more commitment” to the community.
   ”I think it’ll make the area less transient,” she said.
   Councilwoman Heidi Kleinman and Mr. Morgan voted against overturning the board’s recommendation.
   ”I don’t like any type of zoning that excludes one type or another,” said Ms. Kleinman, a Planning Board member.
   Township Attorney Mike Herbert urged the council to accept the board’s recommendation, saying that requiring all units to be for sale would be an “encumbrance on marketability in a very, very volatile housing market.”
   ”This is the kind of thing that should classically be in the site plan,” he said.
   Council responded to input from several community groups, including FOWWOS, the Environmental Commission, the Parking Authority and the West Windsor Bicycle and Pedestrian Alliance.
   Also at the meeting, council discussed a letter it received that day from N.J. Transit, which encouraged the council to consider its comments and those of the West Windsor Parking Authority. Among its comments, N.J. Transit asked that provisions related to commuter parking be removed from the plan, including limits on parking structure heights.
   Parking Authority Chairman Andy Lupo asked council to consider exempting the authority from the redevelopment requirements, as well, particularly one provision that requires a certain amount of first floor retail frontage
   The first step toward helping address the community’s parking problem would be to build something inexpensive, he said.
   ”Everything we’re looking to build would add to the monthly cost for the commuter, and we’d like to avoid that,” he said.
   The authority currently doesn’t own any land suitable for a garage, he said, so working with N.J. Transit would be necessary. Mr. Herbert said that land belonging to N.J. Transit would be exempt from the redevelopment plan because it is a state agency.
   As a result of the conversation, the council agreed to a provision that design standards for parking garages “shall be determined cooperatively with the township, Parking Authority and N.J. Transit.”
   ”If we want to build a garage, we have to do this,” Ms. Geevers said.
   A list of suggestions also was submitted to council by the WWBPA, and President Ken Carlson argued strongly for bike lanes in the redevelopment area that had been rejected by the Planning Board. He asked for lanes along parked cars in the Promenade area of District 1 that were argued against by traffic consultant Gary Davies as a safety hazard.
   ”West Windsor has an opportunity to be progressive,” Mr. Carlson said.
   After some discussion, council voted to include the WWBPA suggestions in the plan. Councilman George Borek supported Mr. Carlson’s plea for West Windsor to be at the forefront of bicycle design in the state.
   ”We have the ability to change it,” Mr. Borek said. “I don’t think it’s unreasonable to put in a plan to try to get those bike lanes.”
   The council also approved a series of recommendations from the Environmental Commission, including the encouragement of plug-in hybrid facilities, wetland mitigation, green roof planting and solar energy.
   A policy was also added to the plan for the development of a storm-water management plan in the form of a regional detention facility. Another policy added promotes protection of the Sarnoff Woods through transfer of development rights.
   Before the hearing, the ordinance will be posted on the township’s Web site at www.westwindsornj.org.