Franklin Township edges out housing plan
Planning Board denies 644 high-density units on border of No. Brunswick
BY JENNIFER AMATO Staff Writer

FRANKLIN TOWNSHIP - The Franklin Township Planning Board, Somerset County, has eliminated a project that would have added 644 residential units on Bennetts Lane and Veronica Avenue, off Route 27 on the border of North Brunswick.

At the Dec. 19 meeting, a resolution amending the town's Housing Element and Fair Share Plan included a denial of the proposed housing plan because "the property contains a number of environmental constraints which limits the area which is capable of being developed as set forth in the documents and information available to date," according to the document.

The resolution also states that with the recalculation of the township's affordable housing requirement, set forth by the Council on Affordable Housing (COAH), the amended plan meets the regulations if the additional units are excluded. The housing plan was adopted on Feb. 1, 2006, and was amended in August 2007, reflecting the inclusion of 66 units of affordable housing within the Churchill-Millstone redevelopment area, according to the resolution.

"Our residents can breathe a sigh of relief that this project will not happen," said North Brunswick Councilman Ralph Andrews, who is the liaison to the North Brunswick Planning Board. "At a minimum, the Route 27 corridor, Bennetts Lane, Veronica Avenue and How Lane intersection is already extremely congested with traffic.Adding 225,000 square feet of retail and a large housing component would have made an already extremely bad situation much worse."

The issue began in July 2004, when the Planning Board voted down Edgewood Properties' plan to develop the farmland into a strip mall, 864 housing units and a Home Depot, but then voted to put a revised proposal back into the master plan despite opposition by the Franklin Environmental Commission. Franklin Township Mayor Brian Levine opposed the development, although other members of the council approved of it.

Then, in February 2006, a North Brunswick citizens group opposed the plan, which included redeveloping the old Ruffles Inn site into a gas station, because of potential traffic problems, environmental impacts and its proximity to John Adams Elementary School. A group of North Brunswick council members attended the Feb. 8, 2006, Franklin council meeting to express their own concerns about the impact on the local quality of life.

The Franklin Township Council approved the application to build an affordable housing development that night.

"Since then, we've had a number of additional affordable housing projects, so the board decided it was appropriate to take the plan out because we still met our obligation," said Mark Healey, Franklin's director of planning.

The plan by Edgewood Properties, according to its Web site, was to construct 300,000 square feet of retail space at the Market Place at Franklin, anchored by Home Depot and Stop & Shop. Healey said the "zoning has not been changed," so it could still be possible to have some commercial buildings in the office-professional and general business zone along Route 27. He said as of right now, the current zoning of the property is half light manufacturing and half single-family 1-acre residential.

"They can still do something, but not anywhere near the density of the original plan," Healey said.