Save Rural Andover Borough - Hearings continue for controversial development

http://www.strausnews.com/articles/2007/03/29/township_journal/news/2.txt

Hearings continue for controversial development
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Township Journal

Andover - Residents of the borough, Andover Township and Byram Township listened attentively Wednesday, March 21, to testimony aimed at convincing Borough Council to refrain from terminating the general development agreement for Beazer Homes.

Attorney Donald R. Daines of Princeton and architect Constantine Karalis of Brooklin, NY, reviewed evidence from years of hearings on the plan for 590-units of housing plus commercial development originally proposed for the Francisco farm in the mid-1980s.

The series of public meetings was ordered by a Superior Court judge after Beazer appealed the borough planning board’s rejection of the plan.

The developer must convince the borough to allow the application to continue in spite of a five-year hiatus in activity.

Neither council nor its special counsel for the matter, Richard Cushing of Clinton, would comment on the likelihood of that, but residents are hoping it doesn’t happen.

Former Councilman Hugh Rush was in the audience. He was on the borough council when the original Planned Unit Development ordinance was approved. “I voted against it,” he said. “I thought it was not a good idea, it promoted over-development.” He noted the original proposal was for 290 homes, then 300 more were added. “That would be a burden,” he noted.

The slightly more than 600 residents of the tiny borough are served by a municipally-owned and operated water company but have private septics for disposal. The development would include a sewage treatment plant, but Rush said the lack of sewers has never been a problem, even for the businesses along Route 206 which include a salon and restaurants. There are also a few apartments above Main Street businesses.

Rush also noted the farm, which is partially in Andover Township, contains wetlands and trout streams and is near a popular hiking trail.

John Morgan, president of the Andover Regional Board of Education and the borough’s only representative noted there are 98 students in the regional district, including those who go to Newton High School on a tuition basis. The developer has projected 100 more children from the development, but Morgan is skeptical. “There are a total of 983 second, third and fourth bedrooms in the unrestricted houses and townhouses,” he said. There could be 300 or more kids.

He said Long Pond, the upper elementary school could have a classroom addition, but it would create a problem for lunch periods to have many more students in that school. Florence M. Burd, the lower school, cannot be expanded because the water mains for the Newton Water Company run under a corner of the property. In addition, the high school has no room for expansion.

Daines and Karalis are arguing part of the delay was the six-year process to get the development in the “208” planning area, a watershed-dependent program of the state Department of Environmental Protection.

Another delay was the necessity for an easement to cross the trail which is an old railroad line.

Karalis said some of the initial objection centered around the “us vs. them” look of the development since it is isolated from the developed portion of the borough. He noted the borough had asked for the buffer between new and old housing.