Rezoning plan alarms Wantage residents

WANTAGE-For several months now, the township's land use board has been working on major changes to the master plan designed to create a village-like center for this sprawling community. "This is a vision for the next 30 or 40 years," said Township Manager Jim Doherty. It's a vision that some residents want no part of. Last week, an unsigned letter was delivered to residents in the area in question, calling the plan, a "major destruction of our way of life." The letter urged residents to descend on a public hearing for the ordinance scheduled for last Thursday and announced in a legal ad in The Herald. (The Advertiser-News was not notified of the meeting, and, when Doherty was asked why not, he said, "It's on our Web site.") But there was a mistake in the notice, making it invalid and forcing the township to cancel the meeting, Doherty said. The anonymous letter writer interpreted the cancellation as a sign that the township did not want to listen to the public. Thursday, he or she delivered a flyer charging: "Someone apparently would rather not hear your opinion." Not so, said Doherty. The hearing, he said, has been tentatively rescheduled for 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 23 to discuss the sweeping proposal that, if adopted, will shape the future of the community. "We're not ashamed of this," Doherty said. "We're proud of this. This is what we want to do." At the hearing, he said, the township wants to hear from residents: "What do you think is the downside?" The goal of the proposal is to preserve open space while encouraging mixed-use, high-density development in what would be, in effect, a town center. State law allows rural communities without a formal town center to create one. Sparta and Vernon have followed that path. Vernon is actually creating two centers, one aorund the Mountain Creek resort, the other along Routes 515 and 94. Doherty used the term "town center" but said it was uncertain whether the town would formally apply for such designation. Either way, the effect would be the same. Wantage's area is about 68 square miles - nearly identical to its neighbor, Vernon. But Vernon has more than twice as many residents - more than 25,000 compared to about 11,000. Both towns have increased required lot sizes for top residential zones to five acres. Doherty said that Wantage does nothing, "roughly 2,300 to 2,600 housing units can go up in Wantage over the next 40 years before we are maxed out. That will roughly double our population." But it will also continue the sprawling development characteristic of Wantage, whose effective center now is Sussex Borough, which the township completely surrounds, and the strip development southeast of the borough along Route 23. Under the proposed master plan, some 1,100-1,200 units of housing divided among apartments, townhouses, duplexes and both single-family and multi-family age-restricted housing would go up in the town center south of Route 23. A new road parallel to Route 23 and joining Cemetery and Blair roads would enclose the area, which would also host up to 270,000 square feet of commercial development. To make that happen, the township wants to allow landowners to sell development rights to their properties to developers, who could then use them to build in the area designated for high density. Doherty said it's a way to preserve as much open space as possible. Once development rights are sold, the land would have to remain open in perpetuity though a deed restriction. As explained on the township's Web site, wantagetwp.com, 100 acres of developable land would normally yield a maximum of 20 units. But if a developer purchased those rights and transferred them to the town center, he would get a 25 percent bonus, allowing him or her to build 25 units instead. The idea, Doherty said, is to create "a showcase entrance to Wantage." The proposed master plan says it will also "establish a community identity and a sense of arrival into the Township." The plan calls for the center to be developed in clusters, which it calls "community villages." "The individual small community villages should be self-sustaining developments like pearls on a necklace," the planners wrote. "Planned access points to Route 23 and a road parallel to Route 23 will link the major vacant land parcels like a string and minimize traffic impacts. The road will be a local residential road with an emphasis on pedestrians and bicyclists." In all, there would be five clusters, each containing a mix of residential and commercial uses. Different clusters would mix the various components differently. The first, for example, would, if fully developed, yield 100,000 square feet of commercial development along with 20 apartments, 100 townhouses, 250 senior townhouses, and 60-120 single-family/duplex homes. Other clusters would have commercial areas ranging from 30,000-60,000 square feet and would contain from 120 housing units in the smallest to as many as 385 in the largest. At build-out, the plan would allow 50 senior aparment units, 131 regular apartment units, 405 townhouse units, 170 senior townhouse units, 180 single-family senior units, and 152-304 single-family/duplex units. "This represents a vision for an area near Route 23 that the land use board says represents the best use of the land," Doherty said. "The board has been working on developing this for the past three or four months. We've finally gotten to the point where we're confident it's ready to be put before the public." Doherty said the plan is not a response to proposals by developers. It also is not something that will happen overnight. "There's no way that volume of building permits and construction can happen immediately," he said. "That's a plan over the next 40 years."