EAST BRUNSWICK — The township is becoming more diverse, planners told the East Brunswick Planning Board during a master plan re-examination.
“The dynamics have changed in East Brunswick so much over the past five or six years,” Township Planner Steve Gottlieb said at the board’s May 20 meeting.
As of 2010, East Brunswick had a population of 47,512.
According to Gottlieb, East Brunswick demographics have changed since 2000, with Hispanic, Asian-American and African-American populations on the rise.
While the white population has declined by 10 percent, the Asian-American population has increased by 70 percent to 3,500 during that timeframe, he said, adding that the changes reflect statewide trends.
“The demographics in East Brunswick can be seen in New Jersey as a whole. New Jersey is losing population, except the immigrants coming in are holding. People retire and move out, but we have immigrants coming in, so it’s becoming more diverse,” Zoning Officer/Planner Debra Rainwater said.
The township’s population is also aging, according to Gottlieb. The youth segment has decreased in recent years, he told the board. The number of children under age 5 has decreased by almost 1,000, while the 65-and-over age group has increased by 2,800, or 76 percent, during the same period.
The median age of township residents has increased by three years to 42 years, and the change has impacts.
“There are nursery schools closing because there aren’t really [enough] young people,” Rainwater said.
Demographics drive the types of homes that are built in the township, according to Rainwater. An aging population usually means more of a focus on homes for seniors, while a greater youth population means that more homes would be built to appeal to millennials.
Housekeeping was also on the agenda as the Planning Board sought to fix some “split” zones that have more than one type of zoning.
“A lot of them had been in our master plan to rezone since the 1990 master plan; this is our first step to get better zoning,” Rainwater said.
“What we found was that zone lines were going through property lines,” said Gottlieb.
A stretch along Route 18 that is zoned as residential would be changed to a highway commercial zone, according to the board’s recommendation.
The board also recommended that zoning in the northeast corner of the township — at the end of Schoolhouse Road, where an industrial complex was planned — be rezoned from commercial to an R-3 residential zone.
In addition, several commercial zones would be changed to residential. These include an area on Milton Road that would become an R-3 zone if the changes are adopted.
An area near the former New Jersey Turnpike administrative complex, currently listed as R-3, would be rezoned as a Highway 1 area.
Included in the recommendations is a change for a lot on Eggers Street from Commercial 1 to Highway Commercial-2.
The current master plan was adopted in 1990 and was re-examined in 1995, 1999, 2005 and 2011.
Mayor David Stahl congratulated those who worked on the initiative for their hard work in cleaning up the split zones.
“They did a tremendous job,” Stahl said.
The recommendations made by Rainwater and Gottlieb were approved unanimously. The recommendations will now be further examined before being considered by the Township Council, which must approve the updates.