warehouses – Hank Kalet

The denial last week of an application by the Matrix Development Group to build a 744,000-square-foot warehouse at the corner of Route 130 has created quite a stir.

Residents in the Four Seasons adult community, which abuts the Matrix property, and other warehouse foes were ecstatic (read this post from The Blog of South Brunswick), while others were not so sanguine.

Here is an excerpt from a letter from Paul Murray that ran in today’s Post:

Here is a case of everyone involved coming out losers, except, perhaps, Matrix.

Now Matrix will go to court. Matrix may get everything asked for and maybe even more. The township pays the court costs and the senior community will get stuck with the initial warehouses plans.

It appears to me that a great opportunity to compromise has been lost.

As I wrote earlier in the debate, this was not an easy issue. The Matrix plan essentially conformed — aside from a variance and some waivers — and the developer probably had a sense that it should have been approved without much fuss.

But the question is whether the zoning in place is correct now that the senior housing is in place and whether a planning board has the right to consider community attitudes when judging a plan like this.

Should Matrix sue — its lawyers said they would continue to pursue the project but did not say how — I have a suspicion they might win. Does this mean the Planning Board was wrong to deny the application outright, as Dr. Murray has argued? No. I agree that there will be need for some kind of compromise, but I believe the board should have some discretion to listen to residents, otherwise the board is nothing more than a rubber stamp for development interests.

If the courts side with Matrix on this, it will be because the state’s land-use law is rather archaic and protects property rights above all other considerations. There is a need for revision of the municipal land use law to grant more power to communities to take into account health, safety and quality-of-life issues at the time of an application and not just when the master plan is drafted or a municipality’s zoning code is approved. Too often, the detrimental effects that a development might have on neighboring properties does not become apparent until well after the zoning is in place and it is not enough to say that the master plan will protect us.

While it often does, it also doesn’t in too many cases.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

E-mail me by clicking here.

This is a tough call. Residents of the new Four Seasons adult community on Georges Road at Route 130 are concerned that a warehouse plan proposed by Matrix for Friendship Road will create problems for the community. They are calling on the Planning Board to deny the Matrix plan — and subsequent plans by the developer for several other warehouses in the area.

The residents have formed a group — Friends of Southern Middlesex County — to make their case and are allying themselves with other groups with similar concerns.

I am a huge proponent, as most people probably know by now, of citizen action and activism and, as a general rule, I tend to support neighbors in their fights against developers.

The issue here, however, is that the basic outline of this development is allowed under current zoning — and was allowed well before the Four Seasons development was built. The question, then, is how to address the concerns of residents without infringing on the rights of Matrix.

Neighbors are mistaken if they think they can stop the project in its tracks, but that does not mean that nothing can be done.

The answer, it would seem, is to hold the developer to the letter of the zoning, to ensure adequate buffering between residential and commercial uses. Make sure that whatever it is that Matrix ultimately builds has as little impact on the adjacent neighborhoods as possible.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

E-mail me by clicking here.

Broken Cord: An Anthology of Writing on Alzheimer’s and Dementia

We are looking to raise seed money for an anthology of writing on Alzheimer’s and dementia. The anthology will be the first project from a new small press. All proceeds will go to research and care groups. Contributors who donate $20 or more will get copies of the anthology and a mention on the acknowledgements page. Writers, we are looking for poems, fiction, and essays on dementia and Alzheimer’s. They can be from any perspective — care-givers, family, the person with dementia.

Contribute here.

Tag: warehouses

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