By John Tredrea
A proposed $250,000 bond ordinance — which would pay for planners, architects, lawyers, wastewater engineers and fiscal consultants — was introduced by the Hopewell Township Committee Monday night.
The funding, if OK’d, would allow these people to devise a formal proposal for a new village centered around the 25-acre Pennytown tract.
Voting in favor of the measure were Mayor Jim Burd and Committee members Vanessa Sandom and John Murphy. Deputy Mayor Michael Markulec and Committeewoman Kim Johnson were absent.
The township purchased the Pennytown tract two years ago. The purchase was paid for with affordable housing fees paid over the years by developers, not with tax revenues.
The proposed bond measure is scheduled for an adoption vote at the committee’s July 25 meeting. A public hearing will precede the adoption vote.
Talking with township officials Monday night were members of the committee-appointed Pennytown Task Force, which has proposed creating a new village on the Pennytown tract and two nearby tracts of land — 100 vacant acres owned by Kooltronic, across Route 654 from Pennytown, and the township-owned Else tract, about 70 acres in size and just south of the Kooltronic land. The Else tract also is vacant, having been a farm until the township bought it a number of years ago.
The task force believes a small, mixed-use village, about a half-mile wide, would be the best use of the three parcels of land. The village also could include retail outlets, small parks, a senior center and teen center.
The township already has adopted an ordinance designating the three tracts a redevelopment zone. Under state law, noted township bond counsel, Ed McManimon, and township administrator, Paul Pogorzelski, that gives the township much more flexibility in dealing with prospective developers of the land than the township would have otherwise. “There’s tremendous value in the place,” Mr. McManimon has said of the area proposed for the new village. He has confidently predicted that, if the township proceeded with a redevelopment plan for the village, it would recoup all the money it spent on consultants needed to get the project off the ground as well as significantly replenishing its affordable housing funds.
Noting that the township owns both Pennytown and the Esle tract, Mr. McManimon said: “The township has all the leverage because the property is in its possession.” He added that Kooltronic has indicated it is amenable to proceeding with the redevelopment plan. “Several developers have already expressed interest” in participating in the construction of the proposed village, Mr. Pogorzelski said recently.
If the township decides to move ahead with the venture, the “first shovel could go in the ground” by 2013, according to Mr. Pogorzelski.
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