Left-Turn Exit Removed From Green Village Plan

The developer of the proposed Green Village complex on Route 206 scrapped a left-turn exit out of one of the site entrances, to alleviate and also to schedule another site plan hearing before his application expires.

Antol Hiller conceded the left-hand turn out of the Route 206 site’s proposed southern exit as the Planning Board attempted to schedule another hearing for his plan. The board requested additional Department of Transportation documents, so that traffic consultant John Jahr would be able to review the options for the southern exit. During the initial project consult, the DOT denied the traffic signal stating that it would cause too many traffic disruptions with the lights on Valley and Partridge Roads.

But the questions about the DOT suggestions, particularly one stating that the township could place restrictions on turns out of the entrance, would have had the Planning Board pushing the site hearing to April—prompting Hiller to address the board.

“Nothing [from the DOT] will be done in the next six weeks and nothing will be done in the next 16 weeks,” Hiller said when addressing the Planning Board. “If the question is safety, I’m willing to give up the left turn lane right now.”

Hiller’s statement, which Planning Board Attorney Eric Bernstein requested in writing, means the hearing will continue on March 22. It is for a 469-unit apartment complex, 130-room extended stay hotel, and a 20,000 square foot retail space on a 50-acre Route 206 and contains 117 affordable housing units.

But the plan underwent more scrutiny from residents, who are concerned about the plan’s three detention basins and trees that will need to be cut down in order to build.

“The basins really aren’t a playground,” said Claire Liptack, a certified horticulturalist who lives on Amwell Road. “They could be fully planted and a place for the neighborhood for reducing landscape pest problems.”

Meanwhile Joan McGee, of the Stony Brook Watershed Commission, questioned the site plan’s drainage arrangements. Portions of her questions are pending information from other agencies, such as the Delaware and Raritan River Canal Commission, according to Bob Heibell, project engineer.

Trees on the site are also a concern, particularly with potential for flooding, resident Marilyn Rodriguez noted.

The site has about 3,500 trees on 35 acres of the lot, and the plan would propose removing 75 percent of the trees, exceeding the allowable number of trees that can be removed, Heibell. The town’s tree mitigation ordinance would require the applicant to replace about 805 of the trees.

The site plan had about 500 trees proposed on the site, and Hiller agreed to add 189 additional trees to the plan—leaving a shortfall of 116 trees. As a result, Hiller would need to donate $46,150 to the township’s tree mitigation fund.

“There is a tree ordinance that is separate,” said Steven Sireci, Planning Board Chairman. “The ordinance that set up this zone, unfortunately, made no mention of overriding the tree ordinance for this zone, though that was the intent. The reason for that is this: in the Mount Laurel affordable housing world, the judges don’t care about the trees. If you try to stop or reduce a development on the basis of cutting down trees, the developer will sue and the judge will agree with the developer and the township will lose.

“The judge could impose the settlement and it could be even much fewer trees than this settlement here,” he added. “People don’t understand that this is what we live in in New Jersey.”