FROM THE STAR LEDGER (Newhouse Newspapers)
Thursday, October 19, 2006
Agenda for development includes downtown shops and parking
BY MAURA McDERMOTT
Star-Ledger Staff
Dover's planning board has passed a master plan that calls for new homes, shops and parking garages downtown, as well as affordable housing, parkland and historical preservation throughout the town.
The master plan -- which passed 8-0 on Tuesday -- is a blueprint for local development and preservation, said Chuck Latini, a senior planner with Heyer, Gruel & Associates, who prepared the plan.
The document is not binding, but the board of aldermen uses it as a guide in drafting new local laws on development, he said.
Over the last year and a half, planners spent three full days interviewing residents and held about a half-dozen public meetings to seek input, making sure to include Hispanic residents as well as others, Latini said.
A central element in the document is the Transit Oriented Development Plan for the downtown, including Bassett Highway and Blackwell Street from roughly Prospect Street to South Salem Street, and from Route 46 to the area around Crescent Field.
That element of the plan -- which passed 7-1 -- calls for 500 to 600 new homes and about 100,000 square feet of retail. Much of the construction would take place in existing parking lots, and developers would build new multilevel garages, Latini said.
Those estimates do not include the new homes and shops being planned for the Bassett Highway area, Latini said.
Last year, Trammell Crow Residential proposed nearly 750 homes and more than 50,000 square feet of shops around Bassett Highway, although town officials have said there would be fewer homes -- perhaps 500 to 600.
The new master plan also calls for one affordable housing unit for every eight market-rate units, and one such unit for every 25 new jobs created by development.