FROM THE NEW JERSEY HERALD (Quincy Newspapers, Inc.)
August 26, 2006
By BILL WICHERT
Herald Staff Writer
WANTAGE -- Sharply reducing new home construction, the township has shaped a revised plan to develop the southern Route 23 corridor.
More than a year after a large-scale housing plan was knocked down under pressure from a preservation group, township officials approved changes to the master plan last week, laying out a vision for a mix of residential and commercial development in vacant lands along the highway.
The master plan amendment, which was adopted by the township Land Use Board on Tuesday, allows for development and sewer service in three separate sections totaling 373.3 acres off Route 23, between the Route 565 area and the Hardyston Township line.
Spread across interconnected village neighborhoods in two sections, as many as 349 homes might now be built -- a more than 70 percent decrease from the maximum amount of 1,240 homes proposed by the Land Use Board in February 2005.
In the vacant area surrounding Katterman Farms, a developer has already started the first phase of a long-term project that will ultimately include 269 housing units and 44,000 square feet of commercial space on a 100-acre tract of land.
Amending the master plan gives the township more control over future development in the Route 23 area, officials said.
"We know growth is going to happen in the Route 23 corridor. We'd rather it be planned growth with what we want," Wantage Township Administrator James Doherty said. "We have the opportunity to be proactive."
The Land Use Board proposed a similar master plan amendment last year but put off a decision after a group of residents created the Save Rural Wantage organization and collected more than 1,000 signatures on a petition opposing the amendment.
"We are much happier with this plan... They really scaled it down," said Sandra Babcock, a Save Rural Wantage member. "People have the right to develop their land as long as they're doing it responsibly."
Aside from an overall reduction in residential density, the main difference between last year and this year's master plan amendments is the removal of the "transfer of development rights" program, which allows landowners throughout the township to sell the development rights, or credits, for their property to a developer.
Land in the township would have been preserved, and future development would be concentrated in these neighborhoods.
"This amendment stayed away from all those controversial types of things," Doherty said. "(TDR) is progressive, innovative and scary when it's new."
The Route 23 corridor has always been an area targeted by township officials for development and on-site sewer service, namely because of its location and groundwater quality. In a municipality with dry well problems in certain neighborhoods, the geological conditions in the corridor should provide a good source for drinking water, according to the master plan amendment.
"With the soils, the aquifer, the proximity to (Route) 94, I think it's an excellent place," Wantage Mayor Jeffrey Parrott said.
To minimize the traffic impact on Route 23, the mixed-use developments will include an internal roadway system, including sidewalks for pedestrians and a bike path. Community greens and open space also will be integrated into the developments.
Two of the three development sections will be designated for mixed-use development, spanning 129.9 and 42 acres respectively, but more than half of the corridor, or 201.4 acres, will be a planned commercial section near Blair Road.
"We'd really like to see as much commercial as possible," Doherty said. "Population control is the key to tax control."
The proposed housing is now set to become the township's largest residential area serviced by a sewerage system. The only residential communities in Wantage with on-site sewer service are the 100-unit Regency at Sussex apartment complex off Layton Road and the 117-unit Clove Hill Manor community off Fairchild Lane.
On the land surrounding Katterman Farms, Clove Hill Manor developer John Maione is expected to build the most residential units in the Route 23 corridor area.
Maione has already received township approval for 35 age-restricted units, 4 affordable housing units and a 4,800-square-foot commercial building, but he hopes to build a total of 229 age-restricted units, 40 affordable units and 44,000 square feet of commercial space.
Fairfield-based Rachel Manor Properties has proposed building between 70 and 80 housing units on the second mixed-use section of the Route 23 corridor, but it still needs site plan approval, said David Troast, a planning consultant for the Land Use Board.
Under Maione's proposal, vacant fields would be transformed into a new downtown, or town center, with a large, main boulevard and between 30 and 40 boutique shops.
"It would definitely feel open to the public," Maione said. "You're going to get more of the local people in Wantage doing shopping in the town center."