South Brunswick Twp. reviews its master plan
Very few changes made to document, mostly due to language clarifications
BY CHRIS MURINO Staff Writer

SOUTH BRUNSWICK - A public hearing on the 2007 Master Plan Re-examination Report was held Nov. 8 at the South Brunswick Planning Board meeting, and not many major changes were made to the plan.

Township Planning Director Craig Marshall and Assistant Planner Brian Bidlack went over the report, saying it is requested every six years by the state.

"There weren't really a lot of changes," said Planning Board Chairman Robert Southwick. "A lot of what we did is make the lines conform in zoning."

Southwick said the new global positioning system the town has was instrumental in the process. There were at least 23 zoning changes made in the report.

One zoning change that was not added to the plan quite yet was the rezoning of properties along Route 130 and Friendship Road from industrial to residential, which the Township Council completed last month. Southwick said it would be prudent to wait until the board goes over the sewer management plan sometime next year to add anything like this to the master plan.

The plan also included a section about the recreational open space and bikeways plan.

"We added the extension of the existing path at the end of Georges Road to Spring Drive," Marshall said.

Marshall said the goal was to make a path that would go past the schools and the shopping areas, across Route 1. He also talked about his desire to get an overpass on Route 1 completed so that people would not have to walk down the highway.

Mayor Frank Gambatese expressed his concern over getting the overpass completed.

"It's really a very difficult township to do it," Gambatese said. "How do we get it across without creating a major problem? We asked the state to create an overpass, but getting the state to move has got to be the slowest thing under the sun."

There were a few other changes to the plan, mostly minor language changes.

"There were a lot of dilapidated houses stuck in the township," Bidlack said.

Efforts were made to improve this situation, mostly along the Route 1 corridor.

There were also changes to the historic preservation part of the plan, but according to Southwick, they were mostly language changes and nothing drastic.