Citizens organize against Wantage central development proposal

WANTAGE-Most residents of Pond School Road and Cemetery Road don't want their serene vistas of grazing cattle and green hilly pastureland supplanted by a sea of roofs. Alarmed by the township Land Use Board's plan to rezone part of the township to allow up to 1,283-units of residential and commericla development in a string of high-density hamlets, the citizens have organized a group called Save Rural Wantage. The group hasn't much time to get their message across: At 7 p.m. on May 17, the board will put the new-development issue to a vote, and citizens associated with Save Rural Wantage are trying to muster all the support they can in the interim. A petition against the plan already has more than 300 signatures, and posters directing people to the Web site at saveruralwantage.com are everywhere to be seen on Pond School Road and throughout Wantage. Proposed for a site on Route 23 just off Pond School Road are 192 duplexes (low-income units); 341 senior units in addition to the 350 units approved last year; one or more apartment building with 40 apartments (low-income units); 178 town houses, 67 commercial buildings with overhead apartments (low-income units); possibly a new school; 15 single-family houses and a new road connecting Blair and Cemetery roads. The board believes the proposed hamlets will help Wantage meet its obligation to provide housing for the less affluent, and make good use of depleted land that would be expensive to restore. The state requires one low-income housing unit to be built for every eight new houses. Wantage now owes the state 90 low-income units. By requiring developers to purchase development rights from other tracts in the township, planners say, large expanses of farmland can then be preserved forever from development. Opponents say that vehicles would congest the roads and pollute the air. An influx of children would push the now-crowded schools to the breaking point. Social and other township services would be stretched, and it is likely that Wantage would need to reinstate a police department. Hamlet residents, opponents say, would not pay enough in taxes to offset the costs they would cause the township to incur. The best way to ensure a continued high quality of life and keep taxes in check is to preserve the open space that still remains, advocate claim. The state allows a township to pay a well-disposed town to assume its obligation to create low-income housing, at a cost-per-unit of about $35,000. Wantage could transfer its obligation to other, urban areas for somewhere around $3,150,000. Farmland Preservation program may be the solution, open-space advocates assert. Give landowners an incentive to keep their land forever as an open space, they say. The state now pays $2,500 per acre. Wantage could have a municipal land preservation referendum and agree to pay an extra $2,500 per acre. A recent Wantage real estate listing, however, reads "Farmland, approx. 80 acres, rolling hills, mostly open land, possible sub-division on county road. Great location, great views: $1,300,000." The price shown would bring the landowner $16,250 per acre. Pond School Road resident Sandra Babcock and her fellow outraged residents mean to do all in their power to stop a development scheme they consider misguided. Babcock says she understands the concept of installing little self-contained hamlets of houses and shops, as at Disneyland, but can't see why the proposed development has to be so vast and intrusive. "All of us want to cooperate with the Land Use Board, and we understand they truly want what's best for Wantage. However, the board members won't have to live with the clogged highways and overflowing schools that certainly will result. And the character of their own neighborhoods won't be disfigured irreparably, as will the character of ours." "It's beautiful here, and none of us want to see the beauty evaporate forever." "All we're saying is, ‘Scale down this development and explore the alternatives.'"