Staff Writer
PEMBERTON—If there is any conclusion to be drawn from the Pemberton Township Planning Board’s latest meeting on the community of senior homes proposed for a nearly 700-acre tract off Lakehurst Road at the edge of the Browns Mills section of the township, it is that the review process now underway is nowhere near being concluded—nor has a final draft of the project itself, a somewhat downsized phase of which is currently being discussed, even been presented at this point.
What is also evident is that a good many local residents remain vehemently opposed to it, as was indicated by the packed meeting room that greeted the board members when they convened on the evening of May 22 for their third session on the proposed Liberty Woods development (although any questions or comments from the hundred-plus residents in attendance had to be deferred until the next meeting scheduled for June 26 at 7 p.m.).
But interviews that the Pine Barrens Tribune has conducted with parties involved in the prolonged process have revealed that, although the eventual outcome is anything but certain at this point, the facts that the proposed use of the land is in accord with local zoning requirements and that the applicant already has prior approval for a general development plan (granted to a previous owner of the property) as well as for a subsequent redevelopment plan may give the project’s developer a definite legal advantage, albeit by no means a decisive one.
“Generally speaking, when a developer submits a plan for development that conforms to the zoning, they’re entitled to an approval,” maintained Township Planner David Banisch, who serves as a consultant to the board.
But at the same time, Banisch said he wasn’t sure he could predict the outcome of this particular application.
William F. Harrison, of the law firm Genova Burns, the attorney for the applicant, Equity Enterprises of Allenhurst, who was queried by the board at the latest meeting along with Jason McNee, a representative of prospective developer Ryan Homes, of Voorhees, and Richard E. Oberman, Jr., a senior project manager at Newlines Engineering and Surveying, of Lakewood, also said in response to a question from this newspaper that he thought the board would be obliged to vote in favor of the application “if we meet all the requirements.”
And while his client is now asking the planners for a variance to allow one of those requirements calling for the inclusion of a clubhouse in the first phase of the development to be put off until either the next phase has begun or when most of those units have been purchased, Harrison acknowledged that the board could continue to require that it be built as a condition of approval.
A variance to defer construction of the clubhouse, while within the planning board’s power to grant, was something that apparently did not sit well with some of its members, one of whom, Claudia Storicks, predicted that a result of not having one immediately available to residents would be that they are “going to fill up our senior center,” the use of which she maintained is “already burgeoning.”
The latest version of a plan for Phase I has seen a reduction in the number of homes to be built, from 101 to 89 units.
Another individual interviewed for this article, a planning board member who preferred not to be identified, contended that the fact “they have this (previous) approval in hand grants them certain specific vested rights,” and that “they would have to do something totally egregious or change the plans in a radical fashion” in order for the board to nullify it. But at present, that board member’s impression, based on testimony presented at the latest hearing, was that the developer was attempting “to adhere as closely as possible to the general development plan application,” in which case, “the outcome is basically a fait accompli (an accomplished fact).”
Board Solicitor William Sitzler, however, was unwilling to go that far, telling this newspaper that in his view, “there is no legal obligation (on the part of the board) to grant anything.”
“Any application has a whole panoply of issues they have to address,” Sitzler noted, including “having to meet the requirements of the municipal land use law.” And while “any (prior) approval has certain rights that are appended to it and the board has to consider those in weighing the evidence,” its members are also required under that law to employ “due process” in considering input from the public, and how much credence to give it.
And there are other factors that may well influence the final disposition of the application, he said, and that may override any previous approvals the township may have granted in past years.
“It’s very likely that a project of this scope and magnitude is going to need a lot of outside agency approvals,” said Sitzler, especially from the Pinelands Commission, as well as the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP). “Any approval this board gives them is conditioned upon any outside agency approval that is required, and that has jurisdiction over this. They can make an applicant conform to what they require.”
One such consideration is the need to meet the requirements of the NJDEP’s two-year-old Stormwater Management Plan, which, as was indicated at the latest meeting, calls for the use of “green infrastructure” to absorb and filter runoff in a more natural manner that follows the contours of the property, resulting in project engineers having to reconfigure the original plans for drainage basins. And the Pinelands Commission, the solicitor pointed out, has already vetoed a recommendation for an emergency access road at the rear of the development that it claimed would interfere with the habitat of pine snakes and barn owls as well as transgress on sensitive wetlands.
The location of access roads, in fact, and the question of whether an additional one for emergency use should be included, has already been a source of considerable controversy, with a number of residents of the Country Lakes development showing up with signs reading “No second entrance in Country Lakes,” intended to convey their opposition to allowing Split Rock Road, which borders their neighborhood, to potentially be used for that purpose, since people who move into Liberty Woods might be inclined to use it as a short cut to Route 70.
Noting that the developer is trying its best accommodate the township’s desire to incorporate an emergency access road in its plans, Harrison told this newspaper that in the event this particular road is utilized, “we will do everything we can to make sure it is forever (only) for emergency access.”
One reason why a rear emergency access road should be included in the plan, according to Board Member and Secretary Richard Brown, is the “extreme” potential danger of a forest fire “burning through your development,” particularly as it is extended into a more heavily wooded section of the property, something Brown called “problematic at best.”
Harrison, when asked by the Pine Barrens Tribune about that possibility, while acknowledging that wildfires are always one of the hazards of living in the woods, replied that “this is why the township (in accord with Pinelands Comprehensive Management Plan [CMP]) requires a perimeter fuel break around the development to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
In addition to the effect that edicts from outside agencies might have on any potential approval of the project, there is also the possibility that whatever decision the planning board ultimately makes could face a challenge in New Jersey Superior Court, either from the developer in the event the application is rejected or from an aggrieved citizen (or citizens) who feels that some negative aspect of the plan being approved is serious enough to merit filing a lawsuit and engaging a lawyer to represent them.
In fact, Sitzler contended, a resident of the surrounding community could even hire an attorney to be an objector during these hearings.
“Any member of the public can file an appeal, if they have the wherewithal … even someone who hasn’t attended all the meetings,” Sitzler said. “Anyone can ask that (a decision by the board) be overturned. In any land-use case, there is an absolute right to appeal it through the court system.”
Objections to the proposed development (which if all planned phases are eventually completed would contain some 575 homes) expressed by local residents at the initial meeting in December included concerns about its effects on an already strained infrastructure and sewer lines that tend to break repeatedly; the added traffic burden and danger of additional accidents posed by putting older drivers on roads that are constantly being repaired and have poor drainage and its impact on already “stressed” emergency personnel; the prospect of all those new residents creating “empty shelves” at the one supermarket in Browns Mills, and the loss of some “very old and beautiful trees” and of forested acreage that has long provided a place for local youngsters to enjoy the outdoors.
Townspeople have also voiced worries that the development will end up as housing for people of all ages, citing examples of developments intended for seniors where this has purportedly occurred, although the developers have promised that the properties involved would be scrupulously deed restricted.
“As part of the public hearing process,” Banisch pointed out in speaking with this newspaper, “members of the public are entitled to ask questions and to comment, just as they have the right to do in any other public hearing on any other matter.”
“And the planning board is going to listen to everything that comes before them during the course of the hearing and weigh the evidence,” asserted the planner, who previously advised attendees at the board’s December session that it would merely be the first in a series of meetings on the matter.
Then, too, as Sitzler noted, there is the fact that after three hearings on the subject, “they are barely getting into the meat of the application.” But already, he added, there have been changes made to the initial plan, “some minor, some major.”
All of which has the potential of drawing out these hearings for months to come before any decision is rendered.
Or, as the board attorney commented, “It’s very hard to predict how long this will take.”
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