The Land Use Board of Wantage Township shall hold a public hearing on April 7, 2005 at 7:00 p.m. in the Wantage School, located on Route 23 in Wantage.  The purpose of the public hearing will be to present details of a proposed amendment to the Wantage Township Master Plan, and hear input from the members of the public with respect to the proposed changes.

“We have tried several time to coordinate the date for this public hearing” says Wantage Township Land Use Secretary Joanne Kanapinski.  An original public hearing that had been scheduled for early March needed to be canceled and rescheduled due to an error in the published legal advertisement for the meeting.  An effort was made to re-schedule the public hearing for later in March, but coordinating schedules of Board members and professionals led to the April 7 date being agreed upon.  “If nothing else, we can at least hope that the weather will have improved by April” says Kanapinski.  “This will also give us some added time to get the word out about the hearing.”

Wantage Township Administrator Jim Doherty explained that the Land Use Board is charged with the responsibility of creating a vision for future development and land use of Wantage Township.  “This proposed master plan amendment represents the Board’s vision for future development along the Route 23 corridor, at the southerly entrance to Wantage Township” says Doherty.

“It is a basic truth that people don’t plan to fail, they fail to plan” says Doherty.  “We know that there is a vocal element in Wantage who believe there should be no more development in Wantage at all.  That position, however much any of us may wish for it, is doomed to failure.”  Doherty says that any town which tries to outright deny landowners the use of their land will wind up spending a lot of taxpayer dollars on court battles that they will, without question, lose every time.  “We can sit back and angrily watch our Township develop, without any guidance or direction … we can spend a lot of the taxpayers money on a losing battle, … or we can take a pro-active stance and say, ‘If development must come, then let it come in the areas that we decide upon.  If Wantage must answer for affordable housing requirements imposed by the State of New Jersey, then let that affordable housing be provided for in an orderly and sane manner, rather than haphazardly all over the Township’”.
 
“As with any vision, the details of this amendment are open to discussion and debate” says Land Use Board Chairman Jim Smith.  “Hearing from people who may have a different vision is part of the process, and we welcome it”.  Smith suggests, however, that simply criticizing the proposal will not be productive.  “We need to start out with the understanding that this part of Wantage Township shall, inevitably, be developed.  The question before us is, ‘when it is developed, to what extent and for what uses will it be developed’.  There are a lot of smart people out there in Wantage, with a lot of good ideas.  Give us your vision if you do not like ours” says Smith.

The proposed amendment calls for revitalization of the Route 23 corridor over the next several decades, by establishing a series of mixed-use developments of commercial and residential uses in a small community village neighborhood setting.
Developers will be asked to use a tool called “Transfer Development Credits” to develop land in this area of the Township.   This is intended to preserve as much open space as possible throughout the borders of Wantage Township, while concentrating development in this area.

If a developer can prove to the satisfaction of the Land Use Board that Transfer Development Credits cannot be purchased at a fair market value, then the underlying use is established as residential development with a density of 1 housing unit per 10 acres.

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