New government returns to old ways of doing things

You recently (April 12) published a letter from Jackson Planning Board member Todd Porter. He suggested the prior Democratic administration did nothing to deter residential overdevelopment in Jackson.

As a former committeeman, mayor and Planning Board member, I am painfully aware of Jackson's development concerns. Mr. Porter's claim is wrong, dead wrong.

The prior administration gained a majority of the Planning Board in January 2001. By the summer of 2001 we increased the minimum residential lot size to 3 acres in every area of Jackson where we possibly could without outside agency permission. This reduced the number of residential lots by at least 3,000 homes.

We also initiated a process with the Pinelands Commis-sion to jointly develop ways to address development in the Pinelands zones within Jackson's borders. As everyone knows, when you deal with other government agencies, the further away from home you get, the more time consuming the process.

While the Pinelands Commission was generally cooperative, it took time. By 2004 we agreed on measures that reduced overall development in Jackson by thousands of more units. In some cases this was accomplished by reducing permitted density and in others by shifting some development capacity to Manchester. Was it a perfect solution? Absolutely not. Was it better than was accomplished by prior administrations? Yes, I believe it was.

Some wonder why Mitch Leigh's "grand design" for Jackson is still under consideration. One reason is that during the decade of the 1990s, when Republicans controlled local government, Leigh was given five-year extensions of his approvals to build through 2005. Without these rubber-stamped extensions his approvals would have lapsed in 1999.

Leigh's site was also included in the GOP plan to meet the township's affordable housing obligation. We could not rezone this area without risking a legal challenge that we would surely lose. Porter, much like Mayor Mark Seda, ignores the facts and simply blames the prior administration for anything he can't fix.

Porter complains that our zoning laws going back to the 1970s need to be "updated." During his re-election campaign in 2000, former mayor Bill Allmann claimed credit for revising Jackson's master plan to preserve land and reduce development. Porter must have been sleeping.

When I was on the Planning Board we knew we had to approve applications that conformed to the law. We also knew we didn't have to provide developers with a virtual "Easy Pass" or "Fast Track" system of approvals.

I was astounded to see that Porter and his colleagues on the current Planning Board have brought back their old practice of granting preliminary and final approval of massive projects at the same set of hearings.

By requiring two applications, one for preliminary approval and another for final approval, we got two opportunities to review development proposals at a public hearing and try to get as many concessions as we could from the developers. It gives residents two opportunities to come forward with their questions and concerns.

By granting both approvals at the same hearing the board delegates to its engineer and planner the ability to finalize projects and cut deals in private out of public view. Radical changes could be made to the development plan without the Planning Board's, or more importantly, the public's knowledge and input.

This "behind the scenes" maneuver is government at its worst. It's the exact same thing that led to so much development, and particularly so much poorly planned and designed development, in the 1990s.

The new administration has taken us "back to our future" by restoring some of the past "developer friendly" practices that caused many of today's problems. That's not only regrettable, but given their pre-election rhetoric last year, it's downright hypocritical.

Joseph D. Grisanti

Jackson