Town waiting to hear
Jackson Commons plan

One of the most anticipated applications to come before the Jackson Zoning Board of Adjustment in quite a while is scheduled to be heard for the first time on May 19.

Leigh Realty, Brick, wants to build Jackson Commons, a 38-building, 2.9 million-square-foot commercial project on a 330-acre tract in north-central Jackson near Interstate 195. The project would include a hotel and conference center.

The applicant is seeking two variances — one is needed so the applicant may build a 55-foot-tall hotel in a commercial zone where there is a height limitation of 50 feet. The applicant needs the second variance in order to build a distribution center in a highway commercial zone.

In recent weeks, several letters to the editor that have been published in this newspaper have questioned the impact that Jackson Commons may have on the township’s environment. Many of the people who have written letters have been commenting on environmental issues for years. We do not question their integrity or their concern for the community.

With that said, our position as the zoning board prepares to hear the Jackson Commons application is complete open-mindedness. There is much to be said for a project that sounds as ambitious as this one, and we are willing to hear everything that the representatives of Leigh Realty have to say about their plans.

Jackson residents should be open-minded, too.

Frankly, until one sees the plan and hears exactly what the applicant wants to do, there should be no other way to approach it.

There are many dimensions to the application, including the possibility that it would bring commerce and jobs to the community. It would, if built, add to Jackson’s commercial and industrial inventory and boost a component of the tax base that at present accounts for an anemic 1 percent of the township’s 19,321 properties.

Will the property taxes paid by Jackson residents ever drop to nothing? It’s not likely, and that is not why residents should be considering what Jackson Commons will do for them.

Residents, like the municipal officials who will hear the presentations over the coming months, must ask themselves if the town would be better off with what the developer is proposing to build.

That question remains to be answered in an — pardon the pun — environment of fairness.