Save Cranbury!

[Guest]

OK, so I went to the meeting last night (which was terrific - I have new respect for Sen. Baroni).

It was stressed that we write to Lucy Voorhoeve ( coahmail@dca.state.nj.us ) with comments on the COAH Rule Proposal. We were to concentrate on two areas:

- The miscalculation of the number of jobs generated by warehouse space
- The retroactive nature (going back to 2004) of the rules, which do not allow Cranbury to recoup COAH costs from developers of already approved or built projects.

In the directions in the "How you can help" flyer handed out last night, it says:

[opt out?]

Is Cranbury going to opt out of the third round?

[Guest]

They can't. It will expose them to builder's remedy lawsuits.

[Guest]

[wcody]

I think the approach being taken by objecting to the proposed regulations and working with the legislature is a good approach. Hopefully, COAH will revise the regulations to something more reasonable. Cranbury is not the only town in this situation.

If COAH does not adequately adjust the regulations, then I think the option of opting out of COAH should be taken more seriously. It was too easily dismissed because we were afraid of builder remedy lawsuits. It has been suggested we may initiate litigation. If we are going to enter litigation, why don't we opt out and wait for litigation to come to us. Opting out will be much more powerful if we band together with other towns in the same situation.

I am not a lawyer and do not know all the legal implications of that approach but I think it is one that should be considered among other options if COAH does not change their regulations.

Win Cody

[Jay]

The COAH group of employees and directors always talk about the builder remedy lawsuits. However, what is the likliehood of that vs the fact that COAH's third round requires all this new housing. I don't think the lawsuit potential is as great. The reason being that it will still cost the builders money to go to court when they can make money elsewhere.

[Guest]

"If we’re going to start talking about taking on the enemies of Cranbury, why not start locally? Has no one else noticed that the Managing Editor of the Cranbury Press, Hank Kalet, endorsed the proposals to force smaller townships to merge? He even wrote an editorial in the Cranbury Press in support of it. And I noticed they never published any responses to it. "

FYI...I know Hank Kalet personally and asked him about endorsing such a thing. He does endorse smaller town consolidation in certain instances...He does not endorse Cranbury consolidating with any other municipal entity. It's funny how when in times of trouble the editor who makes sure his staff is covering nearly every municipal function, that has been on the ball in reporting the new proposed third round COAH rules and informing citizens on how to proactively write into the DCA, is now the enemy? Mr. Kalet has just as many people to answer to in South Brunswick as he does in Cranbury, Jamesburg and Monroe. He's a man of integrity and if having an opinion now means you automatically have an alterior motive well then all I have to say to all the conspiracy theorists is that it's time to downgrade to decaf. If a response letter was not printed it's a) because none were sent in; or b) because any response given may not have been intelligent or informative. If Mr. Kalet's track record suggested he didn't print adverse opinions I'd say you have a point, but that just isn't the case. The media is not the enemy here...And if they are, certainly you should be pointing the finger at bigger outlets that haven't given one second or sentence of interest to Cranbury's dilemma.
And as for the amount of coverage Cranbury receives go count the number of stories or inches in the past few months and see which town has the overwhelming majority out of the three. By Boycotting the paper you'd only be biting the hand that first publicly pointed out the problem to you in the first place-much to the thanks of Mr. Kalet.

[Guest]

I personally have no idea why no counter point was published and am not inclined to jump to a conspiracy theory. And “enemy” is a strong, inflammatory word.

That said, I think you are too quick to dismiss the fact that he chose the Cranbury Press as his outlet to publish an opinion favoring small town consolidation precisely at a time that Cranbury was facing with a bill that eventually could lead to consolidation of our blue ribbon school. Everyone is entitled their opinions and I applaud a free press. But when you publish something it has context. If you publish an opinion in the New Republic it has a different context than the New York Times. He chose to publish an opinion favoring small town consolidation in a small town presently under attack on that very issue, without any qualification I can recall about how his opinion somehow didn’t apply to Cranbury. How is a reader in Cranbury supposed to take that? How are they supposed to assume it didn’t apply to Cranbury and, by the way, if it didn’t why publish it in the Cranbury Press in the first place? Is he saying that he doesn’t make an effort to make his editorials relevant to his readership? Frankly that isn’t much better than publishing something totally at odds with the interests of the Township because it means he is using the paper as a personal outlet for his opinions in general not as a forum for discussion of local issues. And why publish a me-to opinion very much like others already appearing in the Star Ledger and other urban sources when there was a clearly logical opportunity to have a unique piece about the very town he was writing for, if in fact he agrees Cranbury’s model works?

If he really doesn’t believe that Cranbury is a favorable candidate for consolidation, I think he should demonstrate it with a new editorial. He shouldn’t waste time defending what he wrote before. He doesn’t need to even mention it. But he should put energy into an impassioned piece on why Cranbury is a great Township with a model that works. If he can’t manage that, I remain skeptical that he wasn’t presumptively including Cranbury in his previous treaties on why small towns should consolidate.

[publius]

Builder's remedy, MY ASS!!!
What about citizen's remedy??????????????????????????????
What good is gov. is we don't us it to OUR advantage????????
We MUST combine our efforts with every other town, village and hamlet in N.J. to fight the scourge of creeping Socialism!!!!!!!!!
I consider myself to be a fairly liberal-minded sort, but how much can you give when you've given all that you can. We MUST band together with others in our district, our county and the ENTIRE state to fight the idiocy which rains down it's stupidity upon us from Trenton.

[ILiveNear30COAHhomesNow]

Cranbury's participation in COAH is voluntary and I still support every logical effort to correct the calculation, but as a small community we need to remain strong and keep the option open to manage affordable housing ourselves. Whenever someone discusses litigation at a town meeting our planners get gun shy and cave in. I agree with the other poster that when the developers threatened us last year, we caved. The very next year we have another tax situation and an unregulated agency is threading to make us fund 66mil in subsidized housing making every other house in our town funded by us residents. The best strategy is to be strong, have other backup options then COAH, and work together with leading townships in our situation that seem to be better co-ordinate. There is strength in numbers.

If this issue is important to you, go Google Princeton and Clinton response to COAH and read about the strategy they are using. And I would suggest that if we haven’t contacted the mayors of either to co-ordinate with our own Cranbury efforts, I would suggest we do that urgently.

Princeton:
http://www.nj.com/news/times/index.ssf?/base/news-4/120529476985730.xml&coll=5

Clinton leads the 7 town group on COAH 3rd round:

http://www.township.clinton.nj.us/town_council_docs/Letter%20to%20Commissioner%20Doria.pdf

[WhosInTheSameBoat]

FYI: Union, Bridgewater, Clinton, Readington, Tewsbury, Washington, Hampton, Franklin and Lebanon all banded together to respond to COAH 3rd round. It would be great to have Princeton and Cranbury join in this common cause.