IS WESTGATE COMING TO JACKSON?



The Jackson Township Council on Tuesday night voted to introduce an ordinance to modify the Township's Highway Commercial Mixed-Use Zone (HCMU) zone.


As reported by Lakewood Alerts and The Lakewood Scoop, the Council claims that the Ordinance will greatly reduce the number of homes permitted to be built there.


Investigative minds are not so sure.


Jackson Township's Highway Commercial Mixed-Use Zone (HCMU) zone includes those areas generally located on the south side of County Route 537 between the Interstate 195 corridor and the Hurricane Harbor Water Park.


The existing ordinance permits residential uses other than detached single-family dwellings with the "maximum number of dwelling units is four units per gross acre, including affordable units."


The newly introduced Ordinance modifies this to permit "four units per acre dedicated to residential use."


According to the report on Lakewood Alerts:


"The key change in the ordinance involves a shift from calculating allowable homes based on “gross acreage” to “net acreage.” Under the existing “gross acreage” designation, developers could build more than four homes per acre when there is land they own on the property that is unsuitable for construction. The new “net acreage” standard would limit developers to building only four homes per usable acre, effectively reducing the number of homes that can be built.


"This ordinance specifically reduces the number of homes that are allowed to be built in the Adventure Crossing development – which contains many acres of of unusable land, and additional acres designated for commercial use – by a staggering 800 homes."


There is no dispute that there are hundreds of acres of lands owned by the developers of the Adventure Crossing development and that many of these acres of land is unusable for residential construction due to wetlands.


However, the new ordinance does not expressly change from gross acreage to net acreage.


Rather, the new ordinance delineates "acres dedicated to residential use." Nowhere does it prohibit the developers from dedicating the acres of wetlands for residential use (for example, they could be dedicated as open space for the adjacent residents). In that case, the acres of wetlands could still be counted as "acres dedicated to residential use."


If that is indeed the case, then this new ordinance - which the Council is lauding pompously during election season - is nothing but a smokescreen, and the next Westgate is on its way to Jackson.


[Fun fact: Before voting on the ordinance, Council Member Scott Sargent questioned the timing of this ordinance being that the Township is currently reexamining its master plan and commonly such major land use changes are best left up to the master plan process. Council President Jennifer Kuhn waived away his concerns.]


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6 comments:

Anonymous said...

the people of Jackson r sleeping bigly. good night. Wake up and smell the coffee. By the time you wake up it will be too late

ab said...

There's enough room in Jackson to build 100 Westgates.

Anonymous said...

Naïve is the one who thinks the township changed the language for the sake of the people. this is Vitto who we r talking about. Mayor's buddy. and partner??????!?!????

Anonymous said...

Do we want Jews to live stacked up- like in yeshiva dorm - like in Westgate or Newark??? If so, this ordinance is great.

Anonymous said...

You know this was done against the people when this is done a month before elections. They got to get everything done before they are out of office

Anonymous said...

Houses are unaffordable we need 10 westgates