HILLSBOROUGH: Planners’ vision is being put to test

Trying to make shopping area meet the master plan

By Gene Robbins, Managing Editor
Planners over decades have envisioned the core of the township at state highway Route 206 and Amwell Road as a built-up downtown, with green space, buildings close to the street, street-level stores and restaurants, and offices and apartments on upper floors.
   That’s a radically different image from today’s reality, with strip shopping centers large and small on three corners, and an elementary school on the fourth. Cars rule, with pedestrians risking life and limb to cross at the busy intersection. There are no apartments.
   With the Route 206 bypass road finally being built to the east, however, the day that the township would take over present-day Route 206 and make it more of a street than a thoroughfare is somewhat closer.
   Enter developer David Gardner, who wants to redevelop one corner of the intersection. The Shoppes at Woods Tavern proposes to add buildings of two and three stories in the back of the 5.1-acre lot, which has multiple shops in two buildings now. He wants to put offices, in addition to stores, on the first floor of those rear buildings, and put almost all of the site’s 27 housing units on their upper floors.
   The applicant continued to make his case last Wednesday at a Board of Adjustment meeting that the plan makes strides toward the township’s town center vision. Road improvements would eliminate one driveway, new parking would be in the rear and apartments would be built in mixed-use buildings.
   The case was continued to June 15, when attorney William Savo is scheduled to conclude the applicant’s case.
   Township planner Robert Ringelheim will describe intentions and requirements of the town center ordinance. He said at Wednesday’s latest meeting that the township was trying to change the look, design and feel of an area.
   ”We don’t want it to stay the same,” he said. He asked rhetorically if the applicant looked at the property with an eye to what was possible, or with the town center concept in mind.
   The proposal could help traffic flow in and out of the corner shops, but it’s debatable the plan comes close to creating the “Main Street” look and feel, with buildings only a sidewalk’s width from the street, that’s called for in a 2005 Master Plan and 2007 zoning amendments.
   Key to the conundrum is that an 18,324-square foot, one-story strip mall is there now, fronting Route 206. The town center concept would seemingly call for it to be physically moved, or torn down and something else built within five to 10 feet of the street.
   The first meeting in April concentrated on removing some of the parking between the strip of stores and the highway. The applicant made a step to compromise on that point last week.
   If Route 206 were to become more of a Main Street, the applicant’s professionals said they might give up some spaces in the lot with the knowledge there would be on-street parking.
   Engineer Robert Heibell said the applicant would be willing to consider changing 13 of the 16 perpendicular spaces facing Route 206 and replacing them with seven parallel spaces. The 6-foot grassy area would be expanded to 10 feet with a sidewalk, he said.
   Mr. Gardner said he couldn’t change parking without putting himself in legal jeopardy for violating leases for reducing services or impairing the operation of the building. He conceded that, over the years, he could try to renegotiate different terms.
   Shirley Yannich, township planner from 1988 to 2000 and now a private consultant, conceded the buildings were 73 feet from property line, whereas the ordinance wants buildings just five feet.
   But all the uses of the plan meet the zone with no impervious cover or setback variances required, she said. The main differences were that applicant is seeking office use on the first floor of new buildings in the rear (the ordinance wants retail stores) and the location and distribution of residential units on second- and third floors over the buildings. The whole area, remodeled in the last couple of years, would have a common architectural theme and landscaping, she said, and would encourage pedestrians — one of its key thoughts.
   When the Master Plan was discussed in the 1980s, she said, the township was looking to forge an identity, places to congregate for community events and the possibility of a commuter train station. She said the Shoppes proposal was in the public interest as a “starting process that’s been the vision of the municipality for decades.”
   When board member Frank Herbert said it didn’t sound like the applicant was proposing buildings within five feet of the street, she said, “Ordinances are written with good intentions but often need a little tweaking.”
   The housing issue hasn’t been discussed in detail. There is no problem to the number of units (27) proposed for the whole lot, but the ordinance calls for units above the stores near Route 206, and as well above new buildings at the back of the property. The difference is distribution; 26 of the 27 would be in the new construction, and only one in the strip mall facing Route 206, which has no full second floor.
   The board’s traffic engineer, S. Maurice Rached, said the Master Plan is looking for a traditional grid pattern of roads that envisions an access road connecting Amwell Road to New Amwell Road and paralleling Route 206 along the back of the Woods Tavern property, in part.it was difficult to assess whether the state DOT would have jurisdiction over the Route 206 driveway. He said a traffic study was needed to evaluate whether the proposal would generate significantly more trips.
   Jay Troutman Jr., traffic engineer for the applicant, said Mr. Rached’s comments could be met, and said the proposed plan represents a safety improvement on Route 206 and Amwell Road. Restricting Route 206 turns to right in and right out would solve the number-one safety issue, he said. The proposal would also work with the neighboring Petrock’s bar and grill to combine driveways.