More hotels...

[Monopoly]

There is a zoning board application for the proposed hotel on Rt. 130 & Half Acre. Given that another hotel in town is already housing long term section 8 renters with school kids instead of the business travelers we imagined, is there really a need for another hotel? Is this really wise, given the potential COAH obligations?

[Guest]

[MASH]

Wasn't Clinger trying to get labeled section 8?

[guest17]

I think the reference is to families receiving public assistance.

the issue is that the extended stay hotels allow families to stay for months at a time. whether they are on public assistance or not, those families have kids who are then educated where the hotel is located. the local town must then pay to educate those children.

apparently, this is already occuring iwth one of the hotels in cranbury. another extended stay hotel could add to that educational expense.

[Sec 8]

The Section 8 Rental Voucher Program increases affordable housing choices for very low-income households by allowing families to choose privately owned rental housing. The public housing authority (PHA) generally pays the landlord the difference between 30 percent of household income and the PHA-determined payment standard-about 80 to 100 percent of the fair market rent (FMR). The rent must be reasonable. The household may choose a unit with a higher rent than the FMR and pay the landlord the difference or choose a lower cost unit and keep the difference.

Section 8 does not count toward COAH obligations. It is also unlimited in duration so a Sec. 8 family could stay in the extended stay hotel 20 years or more if they so desire.

Cranbury receives no benefit for schooling children who live in Sec. 8 they are considered residents of the town. Yet, we collect no school tax nor do we get relief under COAH.

The families I am concerned about because hotels are transient in nature and these hotels being new will attract people unlike Sleepy Hollow in East Windsor also Sec. 8. Therefore the kids in these families are on a regular basis around unknown strangers who are there on a short term basis.

Hotels like this because it guarantees them income. So they are the only ones who get a true benefit.

[Guest]

Yup! The Marriott Residence Inn and The Courtyard in Cranbury really make a lot of money from them poor Section 8 people staying there

[Guest]

[How quaint?]

Its July 4th 2011, and the residents of Cranbury gather in Village Park for the annual Independence Day extravaganza. Children chase fireflies across the field as the sun goes down; and the crowd turns their attention toward the east for this year's fireworks display. Much to their dismay, the townfolk find it hard to appreciate the fireworks against the backdrop of the plastic, multi-colored, back-lit, billboard-sized Hyatt Place sign looming over the festivities. How quaint?

[guest 2]

people complain about the cost of taxes and all line items in the township budget.. people should research how much money is brought in from the occupancy tax alone plus the regualar taxes paid by the properties from the current hotels and a third and fourth maybe not be such an awful idea. The more the hotels are full the better.. no matter if it is section 8 or otherwise. rateables are what is needed to keep your taxes from being increased significantly year in and year out.

[guest 2]

the town receives an occupancy tax per room per night that is occupied from each of the two hotels. I am not sure but I believe it is at least 10% or higher of the rate charged per customer.

[2 Sides of the Coin]

Before you count the revenue, be sure to factor the expense, too. COAH obligations may turn these projects upside down.

[ratables?]

Good Planning and prudent land use decisions are what is needed for Cranbury and the Rt. 130 corridor, including the Buy Rite parcel.

By and large, Cranbury has been fortunate enough to have made good planning decisions in the past. We need to continue. This means sticking to the Master Plan and not allowing wholesale deviations from that plan.

Buy Rite's proposal for a 60 foot hotel on the edge of the Village and just around the corner from our National Historic District is a wholesale deviation both from the Master Plan and Cranbury's history of good planning decisions.

Good Planning is not a ratable chase. If you want just ratables, then we can agree to host a regional low level radioactive waste dump in Town-we could reduce our property taxes to nearly zero. But, is that the Town in which you wish to live? Probably not.

Take a good luck at what Buy Rite is seeking, review the plans, go to the meeting and make your own decisions. But, if you decide to allow the Hyatt Place Hotel to be built on the Buy Rite parcel (or if your inaction condones such a structure), don't be surprised when that is the vista you enjoy from our Village Park and from Brainerd Lake. There is a place for everything, but the Buy Rite parcel is not the place for a 4 story hotel and at 300 person banquet facility.

[Guy Smiley]

[Truthhurts]

A little bit of diversity will not hurt this Lilly white town.

[publius]

Didn't we try getting good ratables by putting in warehouses, only to have them whine like little school girls that they were paying too much, and the residents were paying too little?
Actually, a toxic waste dump would fit in nicely where that baseball field to nowhere is right now.

If you build it.................they will dump!

[publius]