After vote, park now part of plan

By AUBRIE GEORGE | The Moorestown Sun

Council made the decision to include a portion of Wesley Bishop Park in its affordable housing plan during a special meeting in November, but the decision solicited some concern from residents during last week’s Council meeting.

Council has been racing against a Dec. 15 deadline to submit an amended plan to the state Council On Affordable Housing, after the organization denied the township’s waiver request to use rehabilitated apartments units on Beech Street toward the 412-unit obligation the township must meet by 2018. Rejection of the waiver left the township scrambling for a place to build at least 18 new construction units somewhere in the township.

In addition, environmental studies commissioned by local residents indicated that the 10-acre Maybury tract may not be as developable as the township originally anticipated. Officials had hoped to build 180 units between the Maybury tract and 12 acres on the Nagle tract.

In November, Council identified about seven acres of the approximately 60-acre Wesley Bishop Park on North Church Street where they could potentially build new construction units, if the space is needed.

Officials said the decision would not require the use of taxpayer money to purchase additional land and would allow Council flexibility should COAH’s rules or the township’s obligation change. In addition, officials said the parcel of land is already zoned to build affordable housing.

Officials are waiting on a definitive answer from the Department of Environmental Protection on how much of the Maybury site is developable, which they said, could come in 90 days.

Township officials said last week that even if the wetlands buffer were redefined as 150 feet as opposed to the 50 feet in the original plan — there would still be four acres of developable land at the Maybury site.

But some residents questioned why the Maybury site was still in the plan given the questions of environmental constraints as well as its close proximity to the Nagel tract that some said could cause traffic problems and school re-districting.

Council members said they would still include Maybury in the amended plan.

“I don’t know of any real, compelling reason to take it out at this point,” Councilman Greg Gallo said.

Some residents expressed concern that the use of Wesley Bishop Park would take a way a valuable asset to the community.

Resident Diane Stanton who lives down the street from the park said using that land to build affordable housing would detract from the neighborhood.

“It’s the nicest park around,” Stanton said. ”It’s a nice area to leave as it is so that we have something nice available and open.”

Resident Ruth Seel expressed concern that taxpayers had recently paid to purchase lights for the park where the township is considering building.

Council members told residents they would replace any displaced fields and that replacing the fields would offer an opportunity to upgrade them.

“Whatever it would cost to upgrade fields or move lights, I’m positive it wouldn’t cost as much as it would to purchase new land.” Gallo said.

Council members said the township owns enough open space and parkland that they could easily use to replace any displaced fields should they experience a full build out of the COAH plan.

For some residents, there was a concern of the east end of town versus the west end of town, despite Council’s statements that it had no favor of on neighborhood over another in its decision.

“We’re not going to make everyone happy, but our goal is to protect the entire town — all 20,000 people versus one neighborhood over the next,” Mayor Dan Roccato said.

But resident Kathy Samuels said some residents on the west end remained fearful that Council would do a “flip flop” on them.

“There is concern that you will use Wesley Bishop and turn an east end tract into a park” Samuels said.

Council members said the plan requires an implementation schedule and any construction for affordable housing would start with Nagle in 2012, Maybury — pending the DEP’s decision — would begin in 2014, and building the remainder of the build out at Wesley Bishop Park would occur in 2017.

Officials said the township would likely only have to build about 200 new construction units due to the use of waivers and rehabilitation of existing units run by Moorestown Ecumenical Neighborhood Development (MEND) that will count toward its 412-unit obligation.

Some residents commended Council for a decision that would not cost additional taxpayer dollars.

“A lot of people don’t realize this — if we don’t do anything we get 500 units somewhere,” resident Grier Arthur said.

At the end of last week’s discussion, Council told staff professionals to proceed with finalizing a draft of a letter to submit to COAH that will amend the township’s plan. Officials said the public would have chance to see the amended plan once it is finalized.

In other news:

n Township Manager Chris Schultz told residents that up-to-date information on the forthcoming Route 73 and Fox Meadow Drive improvement project, which is scheduled to close the Main Street bridge for a period of time, will be provided through Nixle.

Nixle is a free service that provides news and information notifications to residents via e-mail and text messaging.

The township began using the service in November and will continue to update users with information relevant to township projects and other news.

Users can also sign up to receive content from the county and state as well as national updates. Residents are only charged if they chose to receive text messages and their phone carrier charges for text messages.

Residents can sign up for a Nixle account by visiting www.nixle.com.

n Council ended last week’s meeting by entering into an executive session to discuss personnel, labor and contract matters.

Council is scheduled to meet again on Monday, Dec. 14 at 7:30 p.m. in the auditorium of the William Allen Middle School.