By Frank Mustac, Contributor
A final version of the Pennytown redevelopment plan was recently given the green light by Hopewell Township Committee members in a move to better use the 25-acre site.
Once the location of a shopping center, the property at the junction of Routes 31 and Pennington-Hopewell Road (Route 654) was purchased by Hopewell Township in 2008 for $6.65 million. Immediately to the east of Pennytown, across Pennington-Hopewell Road, is the 100-acre Kooltronic site.
Earlier this year, the committee hired the Clarke Caton Hintz firm of Trenton to prepare a draft of the redevelopment plan with the intention of selling the property.
Restoring the Pennytown property to a more productive state, while preserving and reusing the historic single-family residence known as the Marshall House on the land that is part of the hamlet of Marshall’s Corner, are just two of several objectives outlined in the plan.
The proposal also calls for the preservation of the pond and stream corridor along the Stony Brook Branch located on the property.
The redevelopment plan process for municipalities is governed under the state’s Local Redevelopment and Housing Law. Stipulations in the law can provide incentives for landowners to update buildings and facilities on their properties if those properties meet certain requirements.
The draft plan was amended to include a number of recommendations made by the Hopewell Township Planning Board.
Some of those recommendations include a request that “green building” design features be incorporated in new construction at the Pennytown site. The federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) defines a green building as “a sustainable or high performance building.”
The Township Committee adopted its final version of the plan at its Nov. 14 meeting, following a public hearing held on the matter. The adopted plan is posted on the Hopewell Township website.
“Speaking for myself and not for the full committee on some of the things, clearly the committee put in this redevelopment plan a strong desire to see some of those green buildings and standards so that when prospective developers come back to Hopewell Township we have that as a basis to evaluate their proposals (for Pennytown),” Mayor Kevin Kuchinski said.
During the public hearing portion of the Township Committee meeting, Mike Pisauro, policy director with the Stony Brook-Millstone Watershed Association, suggested that the green building requirements could be strengthened beyond what the approved plan calls for. The association is an environmental advocacy group.
“Green infrastructure and green buildings are not a blight, are not a burden, but increase property value, increase productivity, increase the occupants’ health, reduces energy cost, reduces resource uses and has an increased rate of return than other types of buildings,” Mr. Pisauro said.
Mr. Pisauro also urged that the impervious cover on the site be reduced further than what the adopted plan calls for.
“That impervious cover, as you know, is really a problem with storm water runoff,” he said. “The old Pennytown (shopping center) had approximately an impervious cover of 25 percent. This plan allows somewhere between 40 and 65 percent impervious cover, depending on what is going in there.”
