State won’t allow traffic signal at this juncture
By Gene Robbins, Managing Editor
Building of 469 apartments off Route 206 could start and then perhaps stop midway to assess how well the highway is handling traffic turning into and out of the future home, hotel and business project.
That’s what the applicant Route 206 Enterprises proposed to the Planning Board on Thursday, Jan. 5. The phasing suggestion was necessary because the state Department of Transportation has refused to authorize a traffic signal at the main intersection, which would lie between Partridge and Valley roads.
Route 206 Enterprises proposes to build 469 apartments, 20,000 square feet of retail space and a 130-room extended-stay executive suite hotel on a largely wooded 46 acres. The mixed-use development could add more than 1,000 people to the township.
The next public meeting on the project is scheduled for Thursday, March 1.
As described by Gary Dean, the traffic engineer for the applicant, the project would initially defer building both the hotel and retail components of the plan and concentrate on the apartment units. Once 180 units are built and occupied, the applicant would start monitoring traffic movements in and out of the complex.
If the traffic counts reached 199 turns in or out at the highest-usage hour of the day, work on the project would be suspended until something was done to Route 206, he said. The possibilities include continuation of the four-lane dualization that exists about a mile north of the area, installing a traffic light or installing barriers in the road to prevent any left turns in or out of the project.
Green Village engineers have said they have “concept review” from the DOT for the two-driveway plan. That was described as an important but less-than-final approval of traffic improvements, but enough to design a plan. Mr. Dean called it “a handshake” between the two parties. The plan calls for 325 two-bedroom apartments that would be rented at the going rate, which a community impact statement estimates would be $1,850 monthly. Another 117 two-bedroom apartments would be rented at the affordable-housing rates, estimated to be $1,083 per month.
When built out, the development could bring 1,071 residents and 238 employees to the township, according to filed paperwork. The 2010 census had Hillsborough’s population at just over 38,000.
From the start, the highway would be modified at the main entrance to have left-hand turning lanes both southbound into the proposed project and the northbound into the equipment rental facility whose driveway would be opposite Green Village’s.
Mr. Dean didn’t discount the project would add to the traffic volume on Route 206.
”We are expecting long delays turning left onto 206,” he said.
John Jahr, the board’s traffic consultant, suggested also tying the number of apartments that could be built at the start to the number of traffic accidents. Hearing the idea for the first time, Mr. Dean didn’t reject that, but he said accidents would have to be linked to the project, and not just a deer being hit as it ran across the road, he said.
Mr. Jahr, who works for Maser Consulting, reviewed the applicant’s traffic report for the township and has been working with county officials on potential traffic improvements to address safety concerns posed by the Green Village application.
”Clearly, traffic is the primary concern with this project,” he said.
Michael Avolio, the owner of the United Rentals business opposite the Green Village driveway, said the traffic is so heavy that he often tells his drivers to sit and wait for a break in the line and avoid taking chances. He said it sometimes takes five to eight minutes for a chance to make a left turn, he said.
”I personally don’t understand how this is going to work,” he said. With a light, it might be feasible, he said.
The most desirable option would be continuation of the dualization that exists near the Duke Farms estate. That would largely depend on the state’s ability to fund it in a difficult economic era.
Green Village’s attorney, William Savo, said the dualization has become the top Somerset County priority project.
The Green Village plan calls for two driveway accesses onto Route 206. Off the more southerly road would be the retail space and hotel off a treed boulevard.
The northerly access would be permanently limited to right turns in and out.
Green Village’s engineer Robert Heibel said an alignment of a road with the traffic signal at Valley Road isn’t possible because of a tributary of Royce Brook and associated wetlands, which would require environmental approval that might take a long time to achieve.
The plan fits the mixed-use zone, and needs few variances or waivers. It does ask for parking spaces smaller than the required 10-by-20 feet and for permission to remove more than twice the trees than the ordinance allows, although the developer would plant others. About 977 parking spaces are shown on the plan.
The site includes active hayfields, fallow fields and pastures to the north. The central and southern portions are a mix of wooded uplands and deciduous forested wetlands, according to an environmental statement filed with the application. A tributary to Royce’s Brook runs through part of the tract.
To the east is Gateway at Sunnymeade, a nearly 700-unit development on 190 acres given final approval by the Planning Board in July. Just less than one-half, or 315 residences, of Gateway would be single-family homes.
The owner, Alma Holdings, has the same Westfield address as Route 206 Enterprises.
The community impact statement by Richard Reading Associates of Princeton estimated that the 325 market-rate apartments could generate 40 public school children, and the 117 affordable-rate units another 79 students.