Allison Musante

By: centraljersey.com
WEST WINDSOR – The Planning Board is making recommendations to the Township Council about the design of a proposed transit village near the Princeton Junction train station – recommendations the council can either accept or reject as it moves toward ending litigation with the developer, InterCap Holdings.
At a five-hour meeting on Wednesday night, the board discussed two ordinances that essentially would codify agreed-upon land use elements for the mixed retail and residential village off Washington Road.
The ordinances were attached to the settlement agreement, which the council reached with InterCap in November. The board is reviewing them to assess how well they align with the goals of the township’s redevelopment plan, given that village’s elements vary from the plan’s vision in several ways.
"The board felt it was important to give our input," said Chairman Marvin Gardner. The board is reviewing the plan under state statute but was not required to hold a public hearing, he said. "The council can accept, modify or reject any of our recommendations, but we felt we had to do our due diligence for the residents of West Windsor."
During the meeting, planning consultant Linda Weber and traffic consultant Nick Verderese raised a number of concerns about the village, including the affordable housing provisions, the promenade design, housing density and traffic flow issues. Based on the two reports, the board approved the following four recommendations to the council: to require affordable units to be built on site, to eliminate cross streets through the promenade, to eliminate a single-story building near the kiosk, and to build more retail space than what’s proposed.
Mr. Gardner said the board will review several outstanding issues at its meeting on March 2. The board has asked the consultants to comment further on the density of the site, the shared space concept and getting more affordable housing units.
The board also hopes to see a fiscal impact statement from the developer that justifies 800 residential units and calculations of bedroom averaging to substantiate the capacity of the site.
Steven Goldin, chairman and CEO of InterCap, said in response to the recommendations, "we have worked tirelessly and cooperatively with the mayor, council and township professionals to negotiate a settlement that is fair and reasonable to all parties, and will provide residents with the public gathering space and retail shops they desire."
InterCap sued the township in 2009, challenging the redevelopment designation of a 350-acre lot off Washington Road – district 1 of the Redevelopment Plan – where InterCap owns 25 acres. The litigation settlement will undergo a fairness hearing during the third week in March with Superior Court Judge Linda Feinberg. If the judge deems the settlement fair, InterCap would go to the Planning Board again with a formal site plan application.
At that stage, the board could approve it as is, or approve it with conditions. But Mr. Gardner said if the board imposes conditions that InterCap doesn’t wish to meet, it runs the risk of going back into litigation and starting back at square one.
Ms. Weber said she had hoped at least 10 percent of the 800 units would be reserved for affordable housing, opposed to the 5 percent agreed upon in the settlement.
She was also concerned that the density was too high for the area, given that there would be about 33 units per acre, when 12 to 20 units is appropriate for residential villages that size. She shared the board’s concern about the safety of the promenade – a "shared space" for cars, pedestrians and bicyclists, with no curb separating sidewalk from road.
Mr. Verderese said "shared space" was a good idea in theory, but probably would not be as successful in West Windsor as it is in high-density European cities, which InterCap used as a model for the idea.
"It’s supposed to be a pedestrian arcade with the ability for cars to pass," he said, adding that the pedestrian density would likely be too low and drivers would forget it’s a low-speed area.
Mr. Verderese was also concerned about the traffic flow through the promenade’s cross streets, speculating that commuters from the train station might use the proposed extension of Vaughn Drive as a shortcut to and from Alexander Road.
Ms. Weber and Mr. Verderese were hired to be a "set of fresh eyes," Mr. Gardner said, because the board had been named a defendant in the litigation.
Traffic consultant Gary Davies and planning consultant John Madden are the board’s professional consultants. Attorney Peter Lange was facilitating the meeting, in place of the planning board’s regular attorney, Gerry Muller.
"The board thought it appropriate to have an independent and unbiased look at this," he said. "We didn’t think it was right for our own professionals to basically be critiquing their own work."