For those who could not attend, the following is an overview of what happened at the April 25, 2006 meeting of Holland’s Plan Endorsement Subcommittee.
The subcommittee was composed of planning board chairman Peter Craig, and planning board members Sue Murphy, Elaine DeRosa and Ed Burdzy (also an elected member of the Township Committee). Holland Township’s planner Betsy McKenzie was there to provide support. There were no representatives of the general public on the subcommittee.
Representatives of two state agencies were also on hand to answer questions from the subcommittee and the public. The Office of Smart Growth (OSG), part of the State Planning Commission that will review Holland’s Petition for Plan Endorsement, was represented by Barry Ableman (who attended the March 13 hearing) and Courtney Mercer. The Highlands Council was represented by Christine Danis, Principal Planner, and Steve Balzano, Director of Science and Planning.
The format for the evening:
Township planner Betsy McKenzie made the first presentation, and she immediately contended that the size of the proposed Village Center has been overblown. It’s not 1.5 square miles, as we’ve been telling you. After feverishly measuring before the meeting began, she said, “It’s probably less than a square mile, at the biggest 1.1 square miles.”
We’d learned that township officials were complaining that this citizens group has been spreading “misinformation” about the size of the proposed center, so we were prepared. (In response, we had technical calculations done that indicate the proposed Village Center is 1.15 to 1.2 square miles.)
When the public could ask questions later in the meeting, local resident Ken Grisewood asked Ms. McKenzie if she was aware of a February 22, 2005 memo from the Holland Township Cross Acceptance Committee to the Hunterdon County Planning Board about Village Center Designation. (He had to use this approach because chairman Craig insisted on no speeches, just questions. So it was sort of like being a contestant on “Jeopardy.”)
Mr. Grisewood then read from page 2 of this 2005 memo about the Village Center, where point 2 says, “Its total land area is about 1.5 square miles . . .” That’s where we got the figure, folks. From the township’s own memo. The draft Petition itself only talks vaguely of a designated center “encompassing the Riegel Ridge/Spring Mills corridor along Route 519.” If there was “misinformation” being spread about the size of the Village Center, it originated with the same folks lodging the complaints.
The proposal for a center extending from Mr. Jiovino’s Huntington Knolls up to the top of Route 519 at Hawk’s Schoolhouse Road rapidly began “taking on water,” as my old boss used to say. When we were told that at the least, we had to have a designated center to accommodate Huntington Knolls, a questioner asked why we don’t simply designate that 87-acre property as a Hamlet (which state criteria say should be 10 to 50 acres). If the audience applause-meter governed, that obvious, common-sense proposal would win out.
The subcommittee members quickly moved to suggesting they might modify to a Village Center that would extend only from Huntington Knolls to Church Road, cutting out the northern portion that would run all the way up to Hawk’s Schoolhouse Road. While the smaller Hamlet proposal would take care of Huntington Knolls (the only mandated center designation), one suspects this larger proposal is driven by the subcommittee’s desire to incorporate the Galloway Farm and its proposed 14-unit apartment buildings into a larger Village Center.
The modified proposal would apparently have the Village Center only on the west side of 519 up to Route 614, so the “south of Church Road” concept would require one swing to the east side of 519 to incorporate the Galloway Farm. Thus, if they go with this new configuration, it would all be on the west side of 519, except for a little goiter on the northern end to capture the Galloway property, which, under the current zoning cannot be further developed.
Ms. McKenzie said in her initial presentation that there is no intention of changing the zoning of existing residential neighborhoods. That intention not to rezone was repeated several times during the evening. However, Holland’s Petition states on page 15, “There are only a few sites that are vacant or underdeveloped where additional development might be expected. One of these sites is the PCD zone . . . The other is the property located at the northeast corner of Route 519 and Route 614.”
That statement that the Galloway Farm property is “vacant or underdeveloped” is disingenuous. The property is currently zoned for one house on five acres, so it’s fully developed, with the one historic house on the property. Mr. Grisewood brought out that the planning board has already voted to recommend to the township committee that the Galloway property be rezoned for higher density of 14 units on nearly five acres. That vote included high-density rezoning of the Grisewood family property next door, against their expressed wishes. The township committee has not yet acted on this recommendation from the planning board.
Mr. Grisewood then read from a transcript of the planning board meeting on March 29, 2005, when Ms. McKenzie said, “But there might be other parcels in the center that might be appropriate for this sort of development that they—that the Township might want to look at down the road, depending on how they feel about the success of this. In other words, it’s not –the idea would be that if it works it may be a good mechanism that we might want to do elsewhere within the center.”
So despite the reassurances about no intention to rezone, there are past actions and statements on the record that undermine the words. Of course, the township can propose to rezone a property at any time, but if the state approves a Village Center with a minimum density of three dwelling units per acre, that would likely make it more difficult for a resident to mount a legal challenge to any rezoning within the Village Center.
The bottom line: If Holland is asking for a designated center to accommodate growth, but that center is nearly built-out under current zoning, how are they proposing to allow growth unless they rezone some properties in the new center?
Holland’s draft Petition for Plan Endorsement says that the NJ Council on Affordable Housing (COAH) insists that we must have a designated center because of the affordable housing in the Huntington Knolls development. But it also says the township could seek a waiver from OSG. When the OSG representatives were asked by the public if OSG would grant a waiver, Courtney Mercer revealed that the NJ Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) is requiring center designation for Huntington Knolls in order to extend sewer capacity to that development.
This was news to me. I reread Holland’s draft Petition, and there is no mention of any DEP requirement for a designated center. Mr. Ableman from OSG conceded that designating just Huntington Knolls as a Hamlet would be sufficient to cover the DEP’s requirement for a center.
The Highlands Council representatives agreed that center designation indicates receptivity to growth.
Early in the meeting, Ms. McKenzie said there was evidence that COAH will cooperate on slipping beyond the December 2006 deadline mentioned in the Petition.
Courtney Mercer from OSG said that Holland is already a month or two behind on submitting our Petition, but COAH is being reasonable. She represented that as long as COAH sees forward movement, they will extend the deadline.
The subcommittee was asked why they didn’t follow the recommendation in the state guidelines to develop the Petition for Plan Endorsement through a committee with widespread community participation. Ms. McKenzie replied that they felt it was better to do this through a series of public meetings.
I was astonished by the misrepresentation of that reply, so I exposed it later. Acceding to the “Jeopardy” format, I put my challenge into the form of a question: What had township officials done to inform the public about the March 13 and April 25 meetings other than putting a tiny and mysterious ad in a February edition of the Delaware Valley News? No one on the subcommittee could cite any other way they’d encouraged public participation – because there are none.
In fact, at the April 10 planning board meeting, when this April 25 subcommittee meeting was set up, the board specifically discussed whether they had to officially notice the public – and decided they didn’t. So this was a sin of commission, not omission. They didn’t just do a poor job letting folks know, as chairman Craig conceded after my criticism. They deliberately decided to have a public meeting and not tell the public about it.
I pointed out that the only reason the room was filled, the only reason anyone in Holland knows anything about the Petition and the proposed Village Center, is because the citizens took it upon themselves to let their neighbors know how this proposal could affect them. We can only hope that the representatives from the state agencies took note.
On that same front, midway through the meeting, Mr. Burdzy went to the white board in back of the subcommittee and wrote, “NIMBY. Not in my backyard.” That derogatory phrase is insulting to the public because it implies that anyone affected by the proposals in Holland’s Petition is selfish if they oppose the potential impacts on their property. Of course, developers with economic self-interest in their proposals are perfectly free to hire an army of lawyers and experts to advocate what affected citizens are called “selfish” to oppose.
Ed Burdzy said the subcommittee will now bring its recommendations back to the planning board. Of course, there’s no guarantee that what they recommend will resemble what was discussed at Tuesday’s meeting. The state folks made it clear that a Hamlet designation that includes only Huntington Knolls would satisfy the center requirements of COAH and DEP.
Mr. Burdzy said there will then be a public hearing before the planning board. You can expect our group to let you know when we learn the date of that hearing. It’s not clear if the Petition then goes from the planning board to the township committee for their approval.
In his initial presentation, Mr. Ableman from OSG said that once Holland’s Petition is filed with the state, the public can submit letters with their concerns. He also said there would be a public meeting at the State Planning Commission, where the public will be able to comment.
The potential reduction in size of the proposed Village Center is unquestionably a direct result of citizen participation, welcomed or not. If we continue as a community to insist that our wishes be respected in this matter, and that the designated center be limited to Huntington Knolls (the minimum requirement) then democracy and common sense could prevail.
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." - Margaret Mead
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