EAST BRUNSWICK–The East Brunswick Township Council adopted an ordinance authorizing the adoption of the Tices Lane Redevelopment Plan for a property located at 110 Tices Lane.
The council directed the Planning Board to prepare a redevelopment plan and to transmit its recommendation relating to the redevelopment plan to the council, according to information provided during the Dec. 10 council meeting.
Francis Reiner of DMR Architects prepared the plan, dated November 2018, for the board’s review and consideration.
“The township had moved forward previous by designating [110 Tices Lane] along with several other properties. This is the second step which is the redevelopment plan. In essence, this represents new zoning for the property,” Reiner said. “Then, the third step would be a developer [who] would come in with a site plan application that would be presented in front of the Planning Board.”
Reiner said each of the developers’ site plan applications would need to meet the redevelopment plan’s requirements, and then the board would review each application to make a decision about moving forward with a yes or a no pertaining to each application.
At its Nov. 7 public meeting, the board reviewed the redevelopment plan and adopted a resolution recommending the council adopt the redevelopment plan.
The council reviewed and accepted the board’s recommendation and by resolution adopted on July 10, 2017, the council formally designated the study area as a Condemnation Redevelopment Area; however, the council subsequently canceled and rescinded the resolution due to the fact that full post-designation notice was inadvertently not completed, and readopted the resolution on Aug. 14, 2017, to ensure full notification as required by the LRHL, according to the council agenda.
Reiner said the Tices Lane property is about 34.5 acres, and through the redevelopment plan, permitted uses for the property include residential facilities, parks, plazas, open spaces, commercial/retail facilities, civic, cultural, institutional and religious facilities, bus transit stations, off-street parking, and/or a roof-top amenity.
“The redevelopment law allows you as a municipality to do more than what common or typical zoning allows,” Reiner said. “It allows you to really negotiate specific details regarding the redevelopment of the site.”
Some of the requirements that the developer would need to provide to the municipality include: the developer would have to deed approximately six acres of land to the township for public recreational purposes and not for commercial or residential development; the developer is responsible for construction of the loop road, which is the road around the development that starts on Tices Lane down to Highland Street; the developer is responsible for reconstruction and widening of Tices Lane in front of the development; and the developer must construct 200 parking spaces for the municipal facility, according to Reiner.
Reiner said a maximum of 520 units must be constructed, and 320 of those units must be used for multi-family/mixed-use apartments, 80 units must be used as townhouses, 100 units must be used as apartments and 20 percent of those units must be affordable housing units.
There will be a minimum open space requirement as part of the plan. The community clubhouse would require a minimum of 5,000 square feet, two-thirds of an acre for a common green area and a minimum of three public parks as part of the development with at least one dog park would have to be included, according to Reiner.
Councilman James Wendell said, “It’s an exciting day that we get to see the old Hostess factory start to move forward. We’ve had numerous conversations with the property owner … [who] I believe still has one tenant on that property and when that tenant has vacated the property we are going to see a lot of process going forward on this. It’s going to generate a lot of revenue for the town beyond that it’s going to generate some nice recreational facilities for the residents of East Brunswick.”
For more information, visit www.eastbrunswick.org/content/885/101/default.aspx.
Contact Vashti Harris at [email protected].