Page 4 THE VILLADOM TIMES I • January 18, 2012 Franklin Lakes New affordable housing planned for Colonial Road by Frank J. McMahon The Franklin Lakes Planning Board has begun a public hearing on a new plan for the borough’s second affordable housing site, which will be located on Colonial Road. Mill Pond, the borough’s original affordable housing site, is on Old Mill Road. The 14-acre site on Colonial Road is located just east of the New York Susquehanna & Western Railway tracks and Route 287 and north of the access ramps to 287 and Route 208. The site was originally approved for affordable housing in September 2001 when the borough council authorized a settlement agreement with Colonial Road Associates, LLC, the contract purchaser and anticipated developer of the site. That agreement allowed the borough to rezone the property for affordable housing in order to meet its constitutional obligation to provide its fair share of affordable housing according to the Mount Laurel Supreme Court decisions in 1975 and 1983 and the state’s Fair Housing act of 1985. A site plan approved in December 2003 provided for age-restricted, market rate units and affordable housing units, but the site was not developed by Colonial Road Associates. Kara Homes later purchased the property, but went bankrupt. The site is now owned by the Amboy Bank and GS Realty Corporation is the bank’s subsidiary. GS Realty attorney Stephen Sinisi appeared before the board in November 2009 as a result of state legislation enacted in July 2009 to permit age-restricted housing sites that were previously approved, to be marketed as non-age restricted units because of the state’s depressed housing market. At that time, Sinisi assured the board that, while some technical design changes were being made to the plan, it was essentially the same plan approved by the board in 2003. The board approved that amended site plan, which shortened one of the buildings by 25 percent and on-grade parking was provided in the area previously occupied part of the building. In addition, there were to be 87 units instead of 84, which were to be comprised of 69 market rate units and 18 affordable housing units. Before that plan was approved, however, an objection was raised to placing all the affordable housing units in one building that was separate from the other building on the site. But it was pointed out that the new law gave the developer the choice to place all the affordable housing units in one building. In December 2011, Sinisi returned to the board with an amended site plan that included a subdivision of the property separating the two buildings proposed for the site onto two lots, and other changes to the buildings and the parking areas. A public hearing was scheduled for the board’s first meeting in January. During that hearing, Sinisi explained that the potential installation of a sewer line to this area by the Northwest Bergen County Utilities Authority caused his client to abandon the originally proposed sanitary waste pumping station and sewer line that were to be installed along the railway tracks to Wyckoff in favor of eventually connecting the larger building on this site to the new sewer line proposed by the NBCUA and providing a smaller pumping station for part of the smaller building. Sinisi then elicited testimony from Richard Morrale, the professional engineer who created the plans and Morrale explained the changes to the site plan including the increase in the number of affordable housing units from 18 to 23 in one of the buildings and the reduction in the number of market rate non-age restricted units to 64 in the larger of the two buildings. He also explained that the affordable housing building was reduced in size and moved back on the property, the underground parking was eliminated in the smaller building, and more grade level parking was added there. The pedestrian bridge over the creek was eliminated, as were the stairs and the ramp in the smaller building. (continued on page 20)