WAYNE, NJ – During this past township council meeting, a long discussion was had regarding the possible redevelopment of both the Preakness Shopping Center and the Wayne Hills Mall along with surrounding businesses into a “walkable” downtown like what me found in Summit or Westfield, or dozens of other towns in New Jersey and across the country.
Township Planner Chris Kok provided a presentation on the Round Four Affordable Housing Element Filed by Wayne Township with the state during the meeting and explained that this element could satisfy the township’s obligation to provide very low- to low- to moderate-income housing in this round with both a building element and a “potential” building element.
The building element will be two “100% affordable” developments, bringing six units for disabled veterans in the Mountainview section and “at least” 100 units at 1805 Valley Road Extension.
However, Wayne’s obligation is for 1,000 affordable units in this round, so, less these 106 units, the township will still “owe” 848 units in what is called “unmet need.” Given that there is little available and buildable land to put all these units, according to Kok, the township’s round four housing element also includes areas of “Realistic Development Potential."
These are areas the township can re-zone to give the owners (or future owners) the incentive to build residential units there.
One large, 100-acre area chosen by the township to re-zone for mixed-use/residential stretches from Alps Road on the north side of the Hamburg Turnpike, all the way down to the Church Lane jughandle, encompassing both the Preakness Shopping Center and the Wayne Hills Mall.
With this re-zoning, Kok said: “This is an opportunity to create essentially a downtown in Wayne. As part of our Master Plan, we did do a first round of public engagement and a couple of things that came back was people want a walkable downtown area. And they are concerned about what's going on with the Preakness shopping center. That is one potential opportunity that could come out of this.”
“How does this work?” asked Fifth Ward Councilwoman Fran Ritter. “Because this is a commercial property that [has several] owners. How do you get their cooperation? Are we talking Eminent Domain?”
Kok confirmed that the township would not be using Eminent Domain, and it was Mayor Chris Vergano who provided more details.
“This is the incentive,” said Vergano of the rezoning of the properties. “Somebody has to be a visionary.”
“Everybody hates what the Preakness Shopping Center looks like - including me - it looks terrible,” he added. “It could be so much better and if people could work together, between the Kmart area all the way to Preakness, the 100 acres could be something beautiful.”
Vergano mentioned the owner of either of those two large shopping areas could see the re-zoning and a potential for profit.
“[They] could take a look and say, ‘Wow.’ If I redevelop this property, I can put apartments here, I can put commercial here, I can put restaurants here; I could build this Town Center and make money,” said the mayor.
But Planner Kok felt a more structured approach would work better for Wayne residents.
“I don't think this is necessarily something just to leave up to the whims of the market,” he said. “I think this is something that the town should be reaching out to property owners to start getting those discussions going - to get a vision together to how to build this as a cohesive development. I think if it's if it's developed in piece meal, we're not going to get the downtown. There needs to be a strategy moving forward to do something beneficial there."
“And frankly, I think it's an opportunity to more efficiently use some of the street infrastructure,” Kok added. “I know traffic lights drive people nuts in this town; we keep adding traffic lights and people don't like it. Well let's see what we can do with what we have and use it more efficiently as we do this.”
The idea of a walkable downtown area was appealing to everyone who spoke during the meeting. However, this redevelopment has the potential of adding up to 1,500 more residential units on Hamburg Turnpike.
Over 3,000 currently approved round three affordable housing/inclusionary units are proposed to be built on or near the Hamburg Turnpike (though 244 of these units had already been approved for the Preakness Shopping Center). So, adding more than 1,200 more units in this area will not be appealing to residents. Ritter also brought up how more units will exacerbate the local school capacity issues, congested roads and the drag on current infrastructure.
But given the state mandate, there does not seem to be any way out of it. Or is there?
Councilman-at-Large Mike Fattal asked Kok what would happen if the Mount Laurel/Affordable Housing law gets repealed.
“If they completely repealed it, and there is no Fair Housing Act and there is no Mount Laurel doctrine, we could probably repeal all of this,” he answered. “I don't see that necessarily happening, but there may be changes to the law which then I think we would have the right to amend our plan accordingly.”
Vergano said these changes could only come from the state legislature and whoever the new Governor of New Jersey will be come January 1, 2026.
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