Monthly Mayor's Letter

[James Taylor]

The following Monthly Mayor's letter was printed in the Cranbury Press. A Town update letter appears the last Friday of each month in the Cranbury Press.

I imagine almost everyone was as happy as I was when March 20th came and we welcomed in Spring after a long cold winter. With Spring comes a number of annual events in Cranbury.

On April 1st Gil and Bert’s opens for the season. Their annual opening has become an annual celebration for the young and young at heart (plus our local dogs).

The fun continues on Saturday April 4th with the Woman’s Club’s annual Easter Egg Hunt. The Easter Egg Hunt will be held in Village Park at 1pm where children ages 3 through third grade are encouraged to find as much chocolate as they can get.

Aside from looking ahead, it is important to look back at the last Township Committee meeting where a couple of key actions took place. The Municipal Budget for 2015 was adopted and Township Committee after a review from the Planning Board agreed to a redevelopment process for the “Hagerty, Cheney, Kushner” properties on the corner of South Main and Old Trenton Road.

The budget process began by soliciting opinions from residents about what is valued in town. We heard from a few kids that we need more fun stuff in town and from some other residents that we have too much stuff, a few people told us we spend money on the wrong stuff and yet others told us we have the right stuff, but need to invest more in it.

For the vast majority though our town was perfect. Understanding most people were happy with Cranbury our goals were to keep operating expenses manageable, maintain our AAA Bond rating, monitor assessed value, and maintain a level of service that makes Cranbury attractive for residents and businesses.

Financial wellness begins with understanding one’s income first and foremost and then using that understanding to set your budget. Thus, the budget process began by understanding the overall value of our property in town (assessed value) and when we might anticipate receiving the revenue from future development.

In analyzing our income, our assessed value increased from $1.53 billion in 2014 to $1.54 billion in 2015. In speaking with our building department about development which has been permitted and our tax assessor we heard that by 2017 or 2018, we may have 9 million square feet of new commercial rateables on our tax role which will reduce our property tax burden.

To understand our expenses we went through a detailed process where we reviewed the unfunded state mandates and our contractual obligations. We spoke with the Library, the Police, the Fire Company and First Aid Squad and reviewed the Public Works budget in detail.

A review of our expenses highlighted a declining surplus, potential affordable housing costs, increased contractual obligations, an investment in Master Plan updates to bring in new commercial tax revenue, the need to dredge Brainerd Lake, and much required road repairs.

The approach we followed enabled us to reduce the 2015 operating budget by $117,000 and limit the tax increase to one cent. For the average home assessed at $603,813 you will see an increase of $16.25 per quarter or $65 annually.

The other item on our agenda was the “Hagerty, Cheney, Kushner” property. The 2010 Master Plan review consisted of a series of public meetings soliciting resident and business input. The Master Plan review established a vision for the development on the aforementioned properties, but despite the revised Master Plan no development occurred. In December, the property owners approached the township as a developer was interested in acquiring all three properties. Jointly they asked the Town to assess whether the area could be deemed an area in need of redevelopment. Our engineer and Planner conducted a detailed analysis and found the property met all of the requirements and thus proposed we adopt a resolution enacting this recommendation.

By approving this designation on Monday night, the Planning Board will establish a subcommittee of Planning Board and Township Committee members to work with the developer on a site plan. Working together we can ensure the visual design and density fits with the character of the area. Further, the process will entail a number of public meetings where the public will have an opportunity to offer input.

For those like me who are concerned with the impact of affordable housing obligations, a benefit of developing this area is removing a potential site for a builders’ remedy suit and the resulting higher density housing.

It is important to highlight that in the process we did not condemn the property and that there is no site plan drafted at this time.

Jay Taylor

[wow-1262]

Dear Mr Mayor, please take down your Christmas decorations already Sunday is Easter!!!!!!

[James Taylor]

LOL. Yes, the decorations are coming down tomorrow (finally). Unfortunately, uninsulated light grey roofs allow ice to build so it's been ice covered until recently. No one is more frustrated that when it cleared it then rained and then we'd have a storm come in. Last year, I am doing decorations on the roof. Fun in theory, bad in practice.