EDISON — Slowly but surely, the township will come to own 23 acres of the former Camp Kilmer property along Plainfield Avenue.
Township Attorney Karl Kemm said the town has received communication from the state Department of Defense (DOD), which is currently reviewing the deeds of five areas on the site.
“They have sent us deeds to review — the [Department of Public Works] parcel and the parcel for the housing,” he said.
Kemm said this is a good sign that things are moving forward.
“What we are seeing now is light speed of work, even though it has been taking months,” he said. “This has sat for years, and now we have seen two deeds and the [DOD] has been responsive with answers.”
The Sgt. Joyce Kilmer Reserve Center at the Camp Kilmer site officially closed in 2009. Along with the school parcel for a preschool, other possible uses include 120 proposed affordable housing units, a community center and a parcel for the DPW.
Resident Bill Brunner asked Kemm at the regular council meeting on Feb. 27 about the movement on the school building, saying the school district is in need of the building as soon as possible.
Kemm said the township is aware of the urgent need for additional space in the school district. He said he has spoken to school officials in regards to the property.
“We have asked [the DOD] to put that [parcel] on the fast track ahead of the township parcels,” he said.
The school district has put aside $3.3 million for whenever they receive access to their portion of the Camp Kilmer site.
The extra building space is sorely needed, school officials said, adding that their elementary school classrooms are filled to the maximum, with Woodbrook Elementary School having 28 students per classroom.
The Township Council authorized the Planning Board in December to do a preliminary investigation to determine whether any area within the Camp Kilmer property meets the statutory criteria to be designated as in need of redevelopment rehabilitation and if so, to prepare a redevelopment plan.
No movement has been made on an ordinance to change the zoning of the 6-acre portion of the project where 120 units of affordable housing are proposed. This was also tabled at a meeting in November.
Nonprofit groups have come together to develop the site. In September, they came to a council meeting seeking consideration for a payment-in-lieu-of-taxes (PILOT) program, a long-term property tax-abatement initiative for the development of the affordable-housing units.
The total cost of the project, officials said, is $29 million. The PILOT program would fund $19 million of the total, and the remaining $10 million would be funded in a variety of ways, including a preliminary amount of $2.6 million from the county, $2.1 million through a federal program and $1 million in equity of the base-closure collaborative.