Your Turn
Bob Davis
Guest Column
Councilman responds to column on housing plan

I can’t help taking exception to the bold headline in the Dec. 18 edition of the Sentinel, "Housing plan draws criticism," because two people at the Planning Board meeting had a negative response to something that hundreds of our residents have been asking for, for years.

Of the two negatives, one person doesn’t even live in North Brunswick. I find it odd that only the negative remarks of Andrew Besold were stated and not the positive remarks of other residents who were present at the meeting. What I’m talking about is age-restricted housing.

When I was first appointed to the Planning Board five years ago, the lack of senior or age-restricted housing was a large concern of a vast number of our residents. They didn’t want to move out of a community where they had spent the majority or all of their lives.

Even though I didn’t agree with the condemnation of the Otken farm, it is now owned by the township and it will take care of open space. We will have active and passive recreation there. It’s about time that we take care of our 55 and older residents.

If it were not for the zoning changes approved by the Planning Board, which, by the way, is made up of Democrats and Republicans working together, we probably would have had new homes being built there with a number of school-age children that would have added more financial burdens to the township.

Mr. Besold states that "if our seniors move out of their homes, these homes will go up for sale to new, child-rearing families". As council vice president Carlo Socio said, "If our citizens over 55 years old move out to adult communities in Monroe or Franklin Township, their houses would become available to families anyway." Instead of putting all these "scare tactic" numbers together in his "Guest Column," he should have thought more about reality like Mr. Socio did.

I don’t fault Mr. Besold about his convictions for farmlands and open space. I think it’s commendable. I just don’t appreciate his scare tactics and misinformation to our residents. Maybe when Mr. Besold reaches 55, he’ll have a better understanding of all of this. Should we just forget about the people in our community who are over 55 and want to stay in North Brunswick?

I don’t think so.

Bob Davis is a North Brunswick councilman