By Frank Mustac, Contributor
The Hopewell Township Planning Board is in the process of rewording a proposed amendment to the township’s Master Plan affecting properties on the east side of Scotch Road.
The area in question is located near where Capital Health Medical Center and a group of office buildings known collectively as the Merrill Lynch complex.
The Planning Board is considering including assisted living facilities to the area as part of the municipality’s Master Plan, and allowing facilities sought by owners of office buildings.
According to a memorandum report prepared by the township’s professional planner, Frank Banisch, there exists a “challenging oversupply of office space in New Jersey.”
The memorandum also indicates that more and more employers are looking for municipalities that provide “walkable in-town locations with activity zones.” Those accommodations are reportedly favored by millennials and usually located away from “isolated office campuses in the countryside.”
“Nothing we are talking about here relates to the west side of Scotch Road,” Mr. Banisch said at the Planning Board’s Nov. 17 meeting.
That evening, Planning Board Chairwoman Karen Murphy explained that the process will operate in two parts moving forward.
One part of the process, she said, is crafting a Master Plan amendment.
“What we are going to focus upon tonight is really … the Master Plan amendment, because that is within our realm,” she said.
A zoning amendment, Ms. Murphy explained, would constitute the second part of the process.
“Changes to the zoning are approved by the Township Committee, not by the Planning Board,” she said. “The Planning Board definitely reviews and recommends changes to the zoning, but the actual (zoning) amendment is approved and adopted by the Township Committee.”
During the Oct. 27 Planning Board meeting, officials discussed what a zoning amendment for the affected area would entail, including what specific details it would have to support a Master Plan amendment. The board’s actions taken at that meeting were described by Ms. Murphy as a “kind of memorializing our recommendation to the (zoning) changes, which will be going to the Township Committee” but have yet to be seen by municipal officials.
During the public comment portion of the meeting, Hopewell Township resident Paul McCoy questioned parts of Mr. Banicsh’s memorandum report.
Mr. McCoy suggested there is there is nothing about the east side of Scotch Road of interest to millennial office workers “in the least bit, at all.”
“We have no rail. We have no bus line,” Mr. McCoy said.
He also suggested there is no collapse of the office space market in the local area, as evidenced by new office building construction he sees along the north side of I-95 in the Lawrenceville area.
Hopewell Township is a “rural community,” Mr. McCoy said, and if the suggested changes are made to the Master Plan and zoning in the area, “we will have a village center in the middle of farm fields.”
The Planning Board is likely to vote on a reworded version of the proposed amendment to the township’s Master Plan at its next scheduled meeting on Dec. 8.
