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Board Announces 900-Home Application Could Go On For Months
By Keith Hagarty
With hearings on plans to build a 900-home development near the Pinelands expected to go on for many months, the township planning board announced they will hold a series of late night hearings on the application proposed by Hovbilt, Inc.
With the testimony of several of Hovbilt's expert witnesses planned for the hearings, the board announced they would hear testimony from the applicant's witnesses at a series of predetermined that would go on until 2007. Each set of hearings will begin at 9:30 p.m. after the board has heard other applications beginning at the board's normal starting time of 7:30 p.m.
The first hearing is scheduled for September 11, with testimony expected from Hovbilt's engineer from Schoor DePalma, and the subsequent hearing to address landscaping and storm water management concerns.
The proposed 900-plus unit age-restricted housing development on West Veterans Highway and Perrinville Road has been in the works for over 5 years, raising concern from the Pinelands Preservation Alliance who protested the use, citing the impact on endangered species on the 650-acre site, near the Collier Mills Wildlife Refuge. Hovbilt have since modified their plans from their initial application filed with the township in 2001, which had called for the construction of 850 homes and an 18 hole golf course.
With an application of such a large magnitude expected to be quite intensive and time-consuming, the board believes that scheduling the special hearings after wrapping up all the other backlogged, smaller applications already before the board, would provide a more efficient means of hearing testimony.
"I think we should try it, and see how it works," board member Blanche Krubner said of the special hearings for the Hovbilt application.
The public will be allowed to question each expert witness by the applicant, however, Janet Gearman, of Perrinville Road, objected to the board's revised schedule, saying the 9:30 p.m. start times for the hearings would make it problematic for residents who want to be an active part of the hearings.
"You're going to hear their witnesses' testimony at 9 and most likely is going to go on till midnight," Gearman told the board. "I get up at 5:30 in the morning, like a lot of others, to go to work. How am I supposed to do that?"
Gearman asked the board to flip-flop the start times for the upcoming hearing dates, putting the other applications on after the scheduled Hovbilt hearings.
"With the number of people who are interested in this, wouldn't it make more sense to have it go until 9:30?" she asked the board. "We're probably not even going to be alert enough to ask questions after working all day."
Board Chairman Kenneth Bressi said he can relate and sympathizes with the plight of those who want to participate in the hearings, but unfortunately the board's hands are tied.
Gearman said she and her neighbors disagree with the board's decision.
"We're here because we're concerned with what's happening in our town," she said.
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