Bonus density option puts U.F.'s groundwater at risk
Study may change path of master plan revisions
BY JANE MEGGITT
Staff Writer

UPPER FREEHOLD - The township's bonus density may go, but its cluster option will remain.

The Township Committee unanimously voted at its June 7 meeting to have its professionals draft an amendment to the zoning ordinance that eliminates the 35 percent bonus density option granted to developers in 2003. At that time, the Planning Board also voted for the township to change its 2-acre zoning to 3-acre zoning.

The bonus density option allowed developers with a minimum of 50 acres to gain a greater density of development if they clustered homes on smaller lots and preserved the remainder of the parcel they were building on.

In order to remove the bonus density option from the master plan, the Planning Board will review the proposed amendment. The Township Committee will then hold a public hearing on the proposed amendment before taking a final vote on the issue.

Township Planner Mark Remsa recommended elimination of the bonus density to the Township Committee based on a nitrate dilution model study that is 90 percent complete. The Township Committee authorized the study, which looks at the watersheds in the community.

Upper Freehold is a rural community with most houses on septics and wells. The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) only allows a certain number of nitrates to discharge from septics into groundwater, according to Remsa. The current limit for nitrates is 5.2 milligrams per liter, he said.

The model used in the study has a density of one unit per 3 acres, Remsa said, which is the township's current zoning.

"In order to create a master plan and zoning ordinance respectful of the land's carrying capacity," Remsa said, "I recommend removal of the bonus density."

Even with the removal of the bonus density option, developers could still cluster their developments but would no longer have an added incentive, according to Remsa. For example, he said, two identical 90-acre properties would both yield 30 units. However, one property might have 30 3-acre lots, while the other could have 30 units clustered on 30 acres of the parcel. Both developments would discharge the same amount of effluent into the groundwater, according to Remsa.

"If you give the bonus density of 10 more lots, there is more effluent beyond the carrying capacity of the groundwater," he said. "The 35 percent bonus density pushes nitrate levels over the limit of acceptability under DEP rules."

Deputy Mayor William Miscoski commented on the possibility of removing the bonus density option from the township's zoning ordinance. He said that by eliminating the bonus density but keeping the cluster option, the township is maintaining the viability and equity of its farms, because it is cheaper for developers to cluster houses in smaller areas rather than spread the development out.

"If you go to straight 3-acre zoning everywhere, farming will be gone," Miscoski said.

Mayor Stephen Fleischacker said that all the environmental constraints evaluated during the ongoing master plan revision process had not taken the nitrate dilution model into account. He said an Association of New Jersey Environmental Commissions (ANJEC) $7,000 matching grant to conduct a septic capacity and groundwater supply analysis partially paid for the study.

A press release issued early this year stated that projected build-out capacity in other towns has often decreased due to studies of this nature.

At the Township Committee's June 7 meeting, Fleischacker said the model showed that Upper Freehold could not sustain as many houses as projected by the township's 2005 build-out analysis.

At that time, Remsa estimated the housing yield of the township's developable land at 3,561 units.

Fleischacker said the model showed that the projected number of houses, which included bonus densities, would violate groundwater standards for the people living in the township. He added that a lot of land-equity issues are at stake.

At that time, Remsa said that landowners wouldn't have equity if the groundwater ends up poisoned.

Fleischacker said that based on this "sound, scientific approach," the Planning Board can no longer pursue some of the master plan revisions it had planned on implementing.

"Once you have conclusive data showing you were going down the wrong path, you have to change the plan," he said. "The bottom line [is] now that we've done part of the overall planning process, we must go in a different direction."