By John Tredrea, Special Writer
A $250,000 bond ordinance that will pay for the preliminary planning needed to produce a formal development proposal for a new village — centered around the 25-acre Pennytown tract — was adopted by the Hopewell Township Committee Monday night.
There was no public comment on the measure before the adoption vote.
The township purchased the Pennytown tract, off routes 31 and 654, two years ago. The money for that purchase came from affordable housing fees paid over the years by developers. No tax revenues were used for the purchase, township officials say.
The money the bond ordinance provides will be used to pay various professional consultants needed to create the plan — including lawyers, professional planners, wastewater engineers and geologists.
Township Administrator/Engineer Paul Pogorzelski and Bond Counsel Edward McManimon both have predicted — with confidence — that the township would recoup the full $250,000 via agreements with developers who would build the new village.
”There’s tremendous value in the place,” Mr. McManimon has said of the area proposed for the village.
He added that, if the township proceeds with the redevelopment plan for the new village, it likely would recoup all the money it spent on consultants needed to get the project off the ground and significantly replenish its affordable housing funds as well.
Noting the township owns both Pennytown and the Else tract, Mr. McManimon said, “The township has all the leverage because the property is in its possession.”
He added Kooltronic has indicated it is amenable to proceeding with the redevelopment plan.
Conferring with the Township Committee several times in recent months have been members of the committee-appointed Pennytown Task Force, which proposed the creation of a new village on the Pennytown tract and two nearby tracts of land — 100 vacant acres owned by Kooltronic, across Route 654 from Pennytown; and the township-owned Else tract, about 70 acres in size and just south of the Kooltronic land. The Else tract also is vacant, having been a farm until the township bought it a number of years ago.
The task force believes a small, mixed-use village, about a half-mile wide, would be the best use of the three parcels of land. The village could include retail outlets, small parks, a senior center and teen center.
The township already has OK’d an ordinance designating the three tracts as a redevelopment zone. Under state law, according to Mr. McManimon and Mr.Pogorzelski, that gives the township much more flexibility in dealing with prospective developers of the land than the township would have otherwise.
”Several developers have already expressed interest” in participating in the construction of the proposed village, Mr. Pogorzelski has said.
If the township decides to move ahead with the venture, the “first shovel could go in the ground” by 2013, according to Mr. Pogorzelski.
