SCOTT FRIEDMAN Dennis Weitz, of Dayton, shows his wife, Clara (l), and Judy Caccavale, also of Dayton, a new development in town at the Community Design Workshop at Fresh Ponds Village in Dayton last Thursday. See page 6. SOUTH BRUNSWICK – For four days, they put in their hard work. They were brainstorming, drawing out plans and wracking their brains to come up with something perfect. For four days, the citizens of Dayton and the Dayton Village Citizens Coalition were looking to make their town perfect at a Community Design Workshop in Fresh Ponds Village.
The workshop was put together last week by the coalition and Russ Richardson, who owns the Fresh Ponds Village and nearby undeveloped properties in Dayton.
Jim Constantine, with the Princeton architectural firm Looney Ricks Kiss worked with the citizens of Dayton on refining a plan for their town’s future.
“It brings together similar people interested in trying to take a proactive approach to create a plan for their town,” Constantine said.
The workshop began on Monday and immediately got the citizens involved in the process of “dot-mocracy” as Constantine called it. As they entered the cozy yet spacious meeting room at Fresh Ponds Village, the people of Dayton were given dot stickers colored green, yellow or red. On a table nearby were 32 photographs of places in Dayton. They were told to put a green sticker on their favorite spots, a red dot on their least favorite and a yellow dot on traffic problem areas.
SCOTT FRIEDMAN Russ Richardson, an architect and planner, discusses the future plans for Dayton at the Community DesignWorkshop at Fresh Ponds Village in the Dayton section od South Brunswick last week. Joan Luckhardt, of the Dayton Village Citizens Coalition, talked about which areas were highlighted.
“The places that had the most green dots included the Henle Park at the Five Corners and the Whitlock Tavern,” she said. “Receiving less green, but still a solid amount of green, included the historic building in Dayton such as the Slack-Carroll house, the Presbyterian Church and the houses across the street from the church.”
Wawa received numerous red dots, more for its appearance than its function as a convenience store. The Dayton Park strip mall on the corner and the asphalt grass in front of the two buildings on the southeast side of Georges Road were also disliked.
Finally, it was the five corners intersection in Dayton that received top honors for being a traffic hot spot.
“It’s extremely dangerous for pedestrians because there are no crosswalks, although we’ve repeatedly asked for them,” Luckhardt said. “There are no sidewalks in front of the Dayton Park strip mall at the five corners. People have to dash across wide lanes, putting their lives at risk every day.”
Luckhardt also mentioned how difficult it was to drive from one place to another because of the intersection. She said traffic is pushed into the intersection because there are few ways of getting from one development to another without going through it.
Constantine spoke during the introduction session onMonday about working together on the issues.
“At times it will be like making sausages and it’s a little messy on the floor,” he said. “My nonscientific definition of a consensus here will be about 70 percent of the people getting about 70 percent of what they want.”
He talked about how he can help Dayton.” We’ve experienced the ability to help people,” he said. “We want to make Dayton a place of community pride. Walkable streets are essential: streets for 8-yearolds and 80-year-olds.”
Many people expressed that they wished Dayton could go back to what it was – a rural village.
It has been a long process getting to this point.
“This started before 1999, when we went up and down the street talking to neighbors about things that were bothering them,” Luckhardt said.
She said that while trying to improve Dayton in recent years, the coalition has gotten stuck in little projects instead of having a great big overview.
“Have you seen downtown Dayton?” she said. “You couldn’t cross the street, the stores are really ugly, and we have places that are falling apart. Many people can’t walk anywhere.”
On Tuesday, a bus tour was taken around Monmouth Junction, Kingston, Rocky Hill and Plainsboro. They found ways to protect pedestrians and ways to improve their buildings’ appearances.
“We went to Kingston and saw the rooflines, the style of the building along Main Street,” Luckhardt said. “Jim would draw as he went, on napkins and things.”
On Tuesday and Wednesday, more ideas were brought up by residents and plans started to form. By last Thursday, the final vision plan was completed. A massive overhead shot of Dayton lined the front of the room, while drawings and smaller maps surrounded it. Finally, the plan for Dayton’s future could be visualized.
“We talked about cutting off Culver Road [from Five Corners],” said Russ Richardson. “If it goes back to four roads, and we cut out the fifth, traffic will move much better.”
With some property he owns, Richardson hopes to build a park with a bike path. He also talked about making buildings in town look better and adding sidewalks to areas that lack them, which would add to the town’s desirability.
“Even without sidewalks, people are making that trek,” Richardson said.
Richardson also talked about traffic calming devices, like a gravel road.
“People don’t like that noise, so they really slow down,” he said. “We also want parking along the street. It would be a protective barrier for pedestrians walking on the sidewalk.”
He also said that drivers slow down when cars are parked along the road.
Constantine also talked about his ideas and unveiled what he called a town green at the center of Dayton, on Culver Road.
“We wanted to find a way to find a stronger sense of community,” he said.
He said that if more connectivity could be created in the Five Points area, maybe parents wouldn’t have to drive their kids to their friend’s house that is such a short distance away. He also talked about the need to fix the sidewalks.
“It has a real impact on the quality of life,” he said. “We can’t focus on anything until we get the safety concerns out of the way.”
Constantine also talked about making the houses of Dayton more historical, appearing as they were before World War II and not after when it was about “cars and zoning and not about building for people.”
Everyone seemed to be happy this event took place.
“It’s good to think about planning ahead,” said Art Lee. “I’ve been here since 1979 and we’ve never done that.”
“It helps bring our community together,” said Valerie Potts. “Over the last 25 years, South Brunswick has built, built, built without planning. This is good for retail. It gives us a place of safety, which we do not have now and haven’t had.”
Rhonda Eppelsheimer was most excited about a town green at the center of town.
“It will be a general place people will want to go to,” she said. “People can park and get out or walk and have parties there.”
Many others were excited about changing Five Points to Four Points.
“This is giving people a chance to express their viewpoints at the beginning of the process,” Lee said. “This is not just going to happen tomorrow. It will require some patience.
However, Constantine said that people have to start getting out there now.
“We need to have some things that happen in the next 18 months,” he said. “The real work now has to begin by you if you want this to happen. Once you get the ball rolling, things start to happen.”