TO: Richard Bilotti
FROM: Dianne Brake
DATE: March 22, 1999
RE: Meeting with the Editorial Board
Your editorial of March 18th, sympathetic to West Windsor's current situation with Toll Brothers, is understandable if you look only at recent Court decisions. Your editorial places blame on the developer, the Courts, the inadequacies of current planning tools, and even on growth itself. The Township's innovative Timed Growth Ordinance was struck down. The Township's efforts to meet affordable housing were deemed inadequate. Local residents, who should have a say in how their town grows, were muzzled. Painted this way, the picture is of a powerless municipality victimized by an intrusive Court. There is no place in your picture for the many people who were responsible for the local decisions which were taken over the last ten years that have contributed to West Windsor's current predicament.
Looking at the facts over a longer period of time, a different picture is painted. West Windsor has grown rapidly for many reasons, such as its location, its train station, its school system. There is no blame there. But it has also grown because its master plan and zoning ordinances call for growth. Its commercial zone has become a major employment hub, attracting people to live in the Township. This growth did not happen without planning. It happened because of the plans in place.
We agree with the editor that towns need stronger tools to make change easier to manage. Change in this case means easier to change direction, if a municipality deems it appropriate, or easier to accommodate and support change as people and jobs move in.
But there are planning tools in place that other towns have used more effectively to manage change, and West Windsor officials had these tools at their disposal, but chose either not to use them, or to use them without the appropriate homework or constituency building that should have taken place first.
This is not meant to imply that West Windsor is bad or even different from most of the towns in New Jersey. On the contrary, West Windsor's planning is more like other suburban towns than not. But there are good examples of more effective planning, using tools that are in place today, that West Windsor could have applied, but chose not to.
For example, some towns, have enacted zoning consistent with farmland preservation. Many have been active in supporting applications to the State's farmland preservation program. Although West Windsor was one of the earliest towns to introduce a tax for open space revenue, its taxpayers have been paying a premium for the value of generous zoning. Although West Windsor has had a well-regarded green belt plan for years, it was not adequately protected, either through regulation or negotiation.
Although West Windsor had the forethought to conduct a build-out analysis of their zoning, other towns use such an analysis to balance the amount of traffic with the capacity of the transportation system. Although gridlock on local roads can be avoided by allowing transit-supporting densities, which would allow some travelers to use transit instead of cars, West Windsor's zoning will result in developments that can only be reached by car.
Because New Jersey has such a fragmented system of governance that it is difficult to develop a plan for growth with a plan for the infrastructure needed to support it (schools, transportation, sewers, water, recreational space, etc.), it is not difficult to see why we are so often caught out by growth. West Windsor deserves credit for developing the innovative Timed Growth Ordinance (TGO) as a sound means, in concept, to phase growth. But it is difficult to support a TGO if the plan it is phasing in will not meet all the needs of the community's future. If the plan does not provide for adequate open space, or protect natural resources, or does not have the means to deal with its traffic, or if it does not meet its affordable housing obligation, it is not a good plan. If the Governor does lead the way, as she promised, to legislation supporting TGOs, it should only be for plans that meet their affordable housing obligation and are consistent with the State Development and Redevelopment Plan.
In regard to the current predicament with Toll Brothers, West Windsor is one of many towns which were sued because they had not planned to meet their Constitutional obligation to provide their regional fair share of housing opportunities that would be affordable to low and moderate income households. Although some towns chose to meet their obligation by zoning for "inclusionary development" (allowing the developer to build about four market rate units for one subsidized units), other towns chose to reduce the amount of housing overall by building their obligation themselves. West Windsor chose to zone for inclusionary development, but has failed to stick with a plan. Their resistance has resulted in the Court's tying the Planning Board's hands. It is an intrusion that was brought on by the Township's decisions, and is an intrusion necessary to support the public's interest in affordable housing. We all need to have adequate housing for our children, our employees, and our retired parents.