MANCHESTER – Mayor Robert Hudak recently expressed his opposition to legislation that involves the conversion of commercial areas and retail centers into mixed use developments.
In a letter to Senate President Nicholas Scutari, the mayor said, “Bill S-2103 would effectively overrule municipal zoning codes.”
A mixed-use development contains both residential and nonresidential components. Under the proposed legislation, it would be a permitted use if a developer wants to convert an office park or retail center. Normally, the town’s zoning board would make the decision if that was allowed.
“Manchester Township takes pride in its carefully planned zoning ordinances and allowances being that we are in the heart of the Pinelands. The town is 82 square miles, with a large portion of the Township protected due to the sensitivity of the environment and Pinelands/CAFRA restrictions,” the mayor added.
CAFRA refers to the Coastal Area Facilities Review Act, overseen by the State Department of Environmental Protection. It makes it difficult to build near bodies of water.
In his letter Hudak, said “every submitted land use application is analyzed and scrutinized carefully to balance the needs of our residents with the determined environmental footprint that follows it. We have several areas in town zones for commercial uses only.”
Mayor Hudak added, “if this bill were to become law, mixed use buildings would be permitted in those zones as-of-right by state law. An additional component for future concern is the severe stranglehold caused by the required services, infrastructure, and utilities that future forced housing would put on our community.
“Manchester Township provides water and sanitary sewerage service to majorly developed portions of the Township,” the mayor said. He added that the community also provides a sewerage collection system; the sewerage then flows into regional interceptors to the Ocean County Utility Authority in Berkeley Township.
“We have two regional interceptors that run from the northeastern region of Manchester and through our Whiting section. While studies have shown that minor housing increases would not adversely impact these interceptors, more mixed used developments on top of our future state mandated affordable housing requirements shows potential for not being sustainable,” he said.
The mandates Hudak spoke of refer to a state law that requires all towns to provide for a certain number of homes for people of low- to moderate incomes.
Manchester’s drinking water is operated by the Manchester Township Water Utility with ten wells, seven of which draw from the Kirkwood-Cohansey Aquifer, and three of which draw from the Potomac-Raritan-Magothy.
“Our Township is already approaching our state-imposed water allocation limits in our eastern region which is located in the CAFRA section of the Township. To require additional mixed use developments in our town without any say from the Township, our system would need additional water capacity as well as the infrastructure to meet that new capacity,” the mayor added.
Mayor Hudak stated in the letter that while he was “cognizant of the state’s development push and the mandated affordable housing requirements in New Jersey, this bill completely undermines all of the careful consideration and planning that goes into municipal zoning efforts and gives predatory developers a ‘right’ to invalidate the say of the people. I urge you not to post this bill in the Senate.”
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