Upper Freehold mayor pitches new master plan
Fleischacker will seek re-election to see land use changes through
BY JANE MEGGITT & JENNIFER KOHLHEPP
Staff Writers

The mayoralty has become another factor in the current status of the controversial master plan revisions in Upper Freehold Township.

A review of the township's master plan that began in early 2005 is still incomplete nearly 2 1/2 years later. Although the township's planner has submitted a draft of possible revisions to the plan, which guides land use in the town, some of the suggested changes have met with public scrutiny.

Mayor Stephen Fleischacker, a strong proponent of the proposed master plan revisions and Smart Growth principles, previously hoped the revision process would wrap up this year. Earlier this year, he made a decision not to file for re-election.

"At the time, I felt the work [on the master plan] would be completed by year-end," he said. "However, not long after making this decision, the local political opposition reversed their criticism that the process was 'taking too long.' The rhetoric became [that] we were now 'rushing to conclusion' before year-end and we needed to stop."

Given local politics and new state mandates that are now factoring into the revision process, Fleischacker said on Monday that he has reconsidered his options and will seek election in November as a write-in candidate. He will face the winners of the June 5 primary election for one of the two open committee seats. Republicans Stanley Moslowski Jr., Lori Horsnall Mount and John Mele ran in the primary, which the Examiner could not obtain the results of prior to Tuesday's deadline.

To continue to have influence over the master plan revisions, Fleischacker would either have to be reappointed as mayor for a third consecutive term in January 2008 by the Township Committee - which has not been done since the 1960s - or be appointed to the Planning Board by whoever serves as mayor in 2008.

Any mayor appointed by the governing body in 2008 would have the opportunity to make new appointments to the township's Planning Board. The board, which is overseeing the master plan revisions, currently has some of the largest landowners in town serving on it. As mayor, Fleischacker made new appointments to the board in January and was publicly criticized by some for not discussing the appointments with the Township Committee prior to doing so.

Under direction from the board, Township Planner Mark Remsa drew up a master plan draft of revisions this year that would change the township's current 3-acre and 5-acre base zoning to 6-acre and 10-acre zoning. Proposed revisions also include creating designated centers for development.

In addition, Remsa has proposed allowing township landowners who choose to preserve their properties by sending their lands' potential development densities to the township's receiving areas to get density bonuses based on the township's original 3-acre and 5-acre zoning.

The master plan draft states that "the creation of these strategically located centers provides public benefits by preserving the rural landscaping and achieving Smart Growth for rural areas, as identified by the State Development and Redevelopment Plan (SDRP)."

The draft also states that the centers have the ability to absorb a substantial amount of development potential from sending-area parcels due to the higher levels of mixed housing, nonresidential development and infrastructure they provide.

According to Susan Babbitt, the Planning Board's administrator, the last master plan discussion took place at the board's April 24 meeting with the Economic Development Committee and dealt only with the nonresidential component. She said no further discussion regarding the master plan is scheduled at this time.

The residential component of the plan does not appear to have been discussed at a meeting since mid-March. Since that time, Planning Board Vice Chairman Barry Wright resigned from the board.

When contacted about the issue, Planning Board Chairman Richard Stern said that the master plan revisions are still ongoing.

"However, due to one meeting a month during the summer and ongoing applications on the schedule, we have not been able to address it during regular meetings," he said.

Stern continued, "We will schedule it as soon as all members are available or when time provides at a regular meeting."

Fleischacker said the discussions will have to take into account new state regulations and will require the Planning Board to incorporate new groundwater quality protection goals.

"In my opinion, [they] will place restrictions on the number of homes that can ultimately be constructed in Upper Freehold Township," he said. "This will require additional time to understand and incorporate in the master plan."

Fleischacker said that if re-elected, he is committed to continuing the planning process for the next six months and beyond.

When asked if he as mayor and as an advocate of the Smart Growth plan still believes in the proposed master plan draft or if he has given up on it, Fleischacker said, "I am determined to correct the misconceptions. The State Plan and Redevelopment Plan has always been about retaining agriculture in farming communities and building/rebuilding in cities and older suburban areas.

"The message that needs to be delivered in our community, and in Trenton," he continued, "is that to accomplish state water-quality-based land-development restrictions, we must have state policy to promote agricultural viability and state programs that protect farmers from paying a disproportionate share of necessary environmental protection initiatives."