From The Residents of CornellHeights
Memo to Mayor G. Gilmore
To be relayed to Council, Planning Board and interested parties.
We have been asked by the neighbors to ask these specific questions/concerns
The concerns were voiced, emailed and told to us.
1)The community is asking for this project to be rescinded. This is in part due to irregularities of the fair process that we as citizens expect and demand. We were not advised within 200 feet of the site, we were not privy to information even though asked specifically known and we were treated unfairly in the early process of this development.
2)If a rescinding of said site is denied, we expect significantly reduced housing throughout the re-development.
3)No apartments; if Steve is wrong about the renting prices, and in our opinion he is wrong due to supply and demand, the apartment rental fees will have to be lowered resulting in a worst case scenario then what was presented to us. One landlord can further aggravates this. Let us add that CornellHeights has the lowest crime rate in Hamilton now as told to us by the Police Department at a crime watch meeting. The “Apartment component”, in our opinion, is a tremendous mistake in judgment due to its immense size. Any building over two floors is an eye sore and impacts the scenery of the neighborhood. The worst looking apartment buildings are up against Princeton Ave and will be towering over our homes and ruining our scenery and serenity.
4)No roads connecting from MetroCenter or housing into CornellHeights and in writing. All agreements should be considered permanent; any changes must notify all neighbors within 500 ft. from the line of property NOT 200 feet from the dwelling. This needs to be deed restricted.
5)MetroCenter private road access for the new homes permanently and in writing. Trees and retention basins put in place to prevent a road from being put in later. The Fire Department can access the site from Electronics drive through a break down fence. This needs to be deed restricted.
6)Displaced water table addressed not only by insuring that all storm water from property stays on property (we are lower) as well as reviewing security of all dams, public and private, are up to date. Creek and storm drains kept very clean thought the neighborhood (Floyd flooded ¼ of the neighborhood.)
7)Open space allowance ($5k/unit) used for the re-development area and our neighborhood to insure no other housing be built. Do not spend the money elsewhere spent it on our neighborhood.
8)Total Tree replacement along the project zone to completely buffer neighborhood from the view of the project and along the curb lines throughout neighborhood. Trees should be mature, tall and deep. No skimping. The developer must come back to the neighbors throughout the process of development to keep the lines of communication open. Failure to do this will be met with the Council and Mayors halt of the construction.
9)Fence off project (permanently) with good-looking fencing to prevent commuters and to curb crime. Fencing should be on the development side between the tree lines on development side of berms.
10)Car slowing methods employed throughout the neighborhood including 4 way stops and speed humps for streets only wishing them. (Perfect neighborhood for trial). Pilot Study and/or perhaps islands.
11)Greater police presence and radar in the neighborhood. Perhaps a substation. Our crime rate is the lowest in Hamilton – we want it to stay that way. Signage on all roads boarding neighborhood and parking permits to stop people from parking in our neighborhood. Better communication with PD. Enforcement of 20,000GVW on all roads. Currently 80,000GVW trucks are illegally going through destroying the roadway and rattling items off home shelves.
12)Guaranteed no Mt.Laurel housing in writing.
13)Keep Princeton Avenue open for the time being; do not have a road connecting the new road off of Sloan. Isolate our community. No Trucks, no speeders!
14)Nothing over 2 stories. The rest of Hamilton is a limit of 35 ft height. Princeton Avenueresidents do not want to look at towering buildings. Also, plans should be flipped, taller buildings should be near the train tracks, and lower units near Princeton Avenue.
15) 200 ft notification is not adequate for a project of this magnitude.
When building a project that is impacting a neighborhood it should be the entire neighborhood that is informed. Most houses are 90 feet from the tree cutting and were not notified. Spend the extra cents for stamps to notify.
16)Traffic lights on Sloan need to be tied together in a traffic sequence to allow all residents to leave off of side streets. Further traffic signs should be considered to prevent more traffic i.e. “No left hand turn between the hours of” “No trucks” “parking by permit only”. We should have open dialog with Mr. Jacobs and an understanding from him of what we would like.
How We Feel
The process has been secretive and pushed through quietly. All of Hamilton has been left out of the loop. We had to dig to find things out on our own. Legally, maybe okay but in the Township spirit of community, not.
The process was put in place for re-development without public opinion. We begged, along with other people (100%) to have council table this vote until open public meetings could be held. Council quickly voted 5 – 0 for re-development.
250 to 300 units total both sides with a little retail and café would be fine but not 1000+ units. Preposterous! In this plan, property values may go up but quality of life will surely go down.
Major downside – TRAFFIC and SPEEDING. Traffic has slowly but surely increased with the train station, movie theater, RWJ Health Fitness Center, Metro Center and Development on Quakerbridge/Lawrence Station Road. The roads have hit saturation point. This housing project is the straw that breaks the camel’s back. This is not smart growth.
All other downsides – Some impact on an already overburdened school system. Again, slowly but surely test scores are on the decrease at CrockettMiddle School and Nottingham High. That directly impacts property values. Student/Teacher ratio is saturated and Crockett was built for 930, currently has 1200+.
Displaced water table.
Potential crime increase.
Tax abatement from historical renovation and redevelopment. Greater burden on services necessary but not enough tax dollars will be collected to cover will directly increase taxes to all Hamiltonians. If new schools are needed it will significantly again increase taxes.
The 6 million will be eaten up.
Please tell us the upsides for Hamilton – We don’t see any. Only the developers will benefit financially. Everyone else suffers. We are being sacrificed, in our opinions perhaps for a small net tax gain for Hamilton and a large financial gain for an out of town independent developer.
Redevelopment scares us on a prime piece of real estate. Eminent domain scares us – can take parts of all people’s property.
Mayor, council and planning boards are supposed to look out for the residents of Hamilton’s best interests and not just the builders who want to make as much money as possible. That’s why we voted for you.
Thank you for your time and consideration.