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It mostly has to do with the lack of resources, Clark is going to be responsible for all emergency calls, Cranford is going to be responsible for suddenly integrating about 8-900 students across various grades. Add the fact that if you suddenly had about 750 people who needed to drive to the train station every day (because they are not providing a shuttle nor is it within walking distance) how well would your local lot handle it. Both towns are going to suddenly have an increase in traffic.
The issue that most people have is that it's an area that is zoned commercial. It's not a factory but an office building. And the developers want to demand that it be converted to commercial by providing a very limited amount of low income housing (less than a hundred units) while then charging exorbitant rates for the other 800+ units. If they had created a smaller scale development or were providing increased resources or offsetting tax bases (commercial pays more taxes than residential in town) I could see where they were trying to work with the community, but they do not have plans for any of these issues.
There are great locations less than a mile from the train that are zoned residential, but it would result in smaller buildings. They have no interest in doing that and providing low income residents an easier way to access public transit. It's a pure money grab to plunk as much housing down in the town unequally (we're not going to be able to build another school on the south side and they can't bus kids over to the north for even distribution). That's the major conflict.
Actually no. If they wanted to drop 200 units of low to moderate income housing in I'd be first in line picketing that the town do so. We can handle an increase of 2-300 kids to the schools on the south side.
Most of the problem is actually with the 755 high income apartments.
I see a lot of this type of building complex around Kenilworth and Roselle Park area, recent developments.
I don't even know should be considered Cranford or Clark, it's sort of borderline to both more closer to Clark. It's not even that close to Cranford train station. The only thing I can think of is that Walnut ave is gonna be jammed.
Yeah, that's one of the major conflicts. It's literally on the border to Clark, next to the golf course, so they would need to be available to respond to every emergency since it's so close.
There would probably have to be another another school built next to Hillside if every class increased about 75-100 students (I can't imagine people without kids moving to this development). Or add three or four classrooms to the other schools in the area. It starts to look fiscally challenging to have 900 units in one side of town, but with flood zones being what they are it's kind of out of room unless we all build upwards.
No, I don't mind people moving here at all, but it needs to be done intelligently, not just plunking down 900 units without context. The downtown area on the north side has several blocks of abandoned buildings and is due for a renovation. Make that four story buildings adjacent to the train station (fewer cars), and have the ability to equally spread any new students to the schools throughout town, for example.
Now we've eliminated a series of downtown sites that are being poorly used while adding residential with the capability to have the first floor still as commercial properties. It's literally the same thing being done on the other side of the train tracks very successfully.
Halfway between a newer apartment building on the south side and the train station is another building, the Mason's building that has been for sale for years. It's another opportunity to build within a five minute walk downtown and distribute students equally.
These are projects that I would fully support, especially if they were mixed income because this town desperately needs low income housing. But, similar to a game of Jenga, putting all the blocks on one side of the tower is going to cause instability.
What's wrong with it? Major overdevelopment. We do not have the schools, roads, parking, or other capacity, in Cranford or elsewhere in the area, to accommodate all the building. They are building all over, in Cranford, Garwood, Westfield, Clark, etc. It's absurd and needs to stop.
They are proposing about 900 units (I think it's 955), 1 to 2 bedroom and some with a den that can be a third bedroom. This will add at the least 1000 extra residents to a town that only saw a growth of about 50 people from the 2000 to 2010 census. We've already far surpassed that from 2010 to 2020, probably at least by 1000 because of all the building they've already done. The population surge is insane. And the property is far from the train, meaning more cars on the road and that need to park at or near a train station that already has a 3 year waitlist for parking spots. Traffic is already bad through town and through adjacent towns. Parking is nearly impossible.
Around here, we call this POS company proposing this complex and trying to railroad it through using the detrimental affordable housing case law Heartless Mountain.
I've said it many times here before, NNJ has been built up for decades. Without completely overcrowding already crowded areas, and putting a huge strain on local services and schools, public transportation, roads and highways, there isn't much more room to build, especially high density complexes rather than single family homes. Yet they find a way, and would rather say "screw it" to all those things because all they see is $$$.
Last edited by JerseyGirl415; 04-11-2018 at 10:02 PM..
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