N.B. residents oppose Franklin development
Jack Morris proposes Home Depot, 644 homes near towns’ border
BY JENNIFER AMATO
Staff Writer

NORTH BRUNSWICK — A township resident is organizing a citizens group to oppose a Franklin Township development off Route 27.

Karen Ramsden-Zahler is against Edgewood Properties’ plan to build a Home Depot, a strip mall and 644 housing units off Bennetts Lane and Veronica Avenue and to redevelop the old Ruffles Inn site into a gas station.

“Our neighborhood would be impacted by this development, and [my husband and I] felt that we had to approach the [Franklin Township] Council and voice our concerns,” the Mohawk Road resident said.

Although North Brunswick residents do not have a say in the Franklin government, Ramsden-Zahler is urging them to speak out against the development because of the potential traffic and environmental impacts and its proximity to John Adams Elementary School.

“There is no need for a big-box store like Home Depot in our immediate area,” she said. “In addition, the local roads cannot possibly handle the traffic that would result from this retail center and new residential development. North Brunswick will have an increased burden on its roadways and support services without the tax benefits of this development.”

She added that there is a Category 1 stream and wetlands off Bennetts Lane that eventually feeds into the Raritan River, and that the endangered red-shouldered hawk lives in the area.

“Built-on and paved-over ground will not allow the rainwater to seep into the ground, and this causes flooding. Also, rainwater will mix with oil and gasoline from cars and other waste projects and wash into these streams, causing pollution of our drinking water source.”

In July 2004, the Franklin Planning Board voted down the plan to develop the farmland into a strip mall, 864 housing units and a Home Depot, but then voted last week to put a revised proposal back into the master plan despite opposition by the Franklin Environmental Commission.

“Clearly, the Franklin Township Council and planners have had little regard for their neighbors in Middlesex County due to the development of residential homes and condos on the Somerset side of Route 27 in recent years,” Ramsden-Zahler said.

However, Franklin Township Mayor Brian Levine is vehemently against the development scenario, although other members of the council approve of it.

“For me in particular, I’m not in favor … only because this is not a benefit to our residents or yours. … To me it’s the quality of life of our residents and yours that have to be taken into account.”

Levine also said that North Brunswick is not a “foreign country,” and it is unfair that Franklin will receive the tax revenues while North Brunswick will receive the traffic.

“I can’t understand that kind of thinking,” he said.

North Brunswick officials agreed with Levine.

“I can assure you, nobody sitting up here or anyone in town wants this to go through over in Franklin Township,” council President Bob Davis said at Monday’s meeting. “This whole thing is a fiasco. … I’m dead-set against it and I think it’s a big problem for the whole area.”

Councilman Ralph Andrews, the liaison to the North Brunswick Planning Board, which is currently reviewing its master plan, concurred that the traffic in the area is already a “nightmare,” and Councilwoman Rhonda Lyles, the township representative to the state’s Council on Affordable Housing (COAH), said several residents have complained to her about the proposed development.

Yet North Brunswick resident Mary Pinkham disagreed with the protesters, saying that the development is better off in Franklin Township than in her own community.

“Jack Morris, God bless him, he gets what he wants. Listen to this old lady — if he doesn’t put it in Franklin, he will put it on the Treuman farm [on Route 130]. The groundwork has been laid,” she said.

In any case, Ramsden-Zahler is urging residents to attend North Brunswick Township Council meetings, write letters to elected officials and sign the petition on www.SaveNewJersey.

org.

“A lot of residents are surprised by it, and I hope by talking about it .… we can turn this decision around,” she said.

Franklin Township was expected to make a decision at its special council meeting on Feb. 8. A decision was not reached before press time.