Planning Expert Explains How Redevelopment Plans Work at CILU Meeting

Clinton Andrews, a Rutgers professor and authority on urban planning and policy development, offered his insight on Monday night about how and why redevelopment plans are crafted. He was invited to speak before 45 people at the Holmdel-based Citizens for Informed Land Use at the Senior/Community Center.

His knowledge was sought by the group, in preparation for the Alcatel-Lucent Redevelpment Plan public hearing before the Township Committee, scheduled for Dec. 20.

"What is going to take place a week from tomorrow...is an important stage," Andrews said during his PowerPoint presentation. "It's worth making sure you make yourselves heard."

"Most of the public part of [a redevelopment plan] happens at the beginning, in laying out the vision, of 'what do we want this to look like, in broad terms,'" he said.

With his experience in academics, public policy and service on a redevelopment agency in Highland Park, NJ  Andrews was able to explain how a community's vision can be realized through a good plan. (Andrews said he had not read the Alcatel-Lucent plan in any detail, and could not comment on it.)

Typically, once a redevelopment plan is adopted by the governing body as may happen on Dec. 20, it is passed along to the town's designated redevelopment agency (a group of volunteers, which may include elected officials). The agency is tasked with finding a developer that will realize that vision. Much of the process takes place in closed meetings because the agency weighs the developer's talents and confidential financials. Only one developer at a time is engaged, he said.

Another public meeting will follow, when the detailed design is presented in rough form to show site usage and building layout Then the concept goes to the township Planning Board for its review.

"You do get a series of glimpses, but it is not an particularly open process because of the financial stakes for the redeveloper," he said.

Five years has already passed since the Alcatel-Lucent building was vacated, but the process is just beginning, Andrews said. "It's often decades." The room erupted in surprised laughter.

"This doesn't necessarily happen quickly, especially if it’s contentious," Andrews explained, drawing on his own experience in Highland Park, where he said politics dragged the process out for 15 years. 

"If everybody is behind it, and the economy is working, then something will happen. But it is also the kind of the thing that can just simmer along and not move. It's really going to depend on whether there's an interested party that wants it to happen."

He was asked what happens if there are no buyers for the town's vision for the parcel. "There's plenty of flexibility that the governing body has, but what this is meant to do is to provide a vision that's coherent, and that relates to the larger planning framework that is already in the town," Andrews said. "But it is not an absolute, by any stretch."

And if the seller does not like the redevelopment plan? "They do not have to acquiesce," he said. They can use procedural means to question the plan. They can present, or explore an alternative plan, with the municipality's redevelopment agency. "Alcatel-Lucent would have those two opportunities, plus a few others," he said.

Many more questions were asked and answered. At its close, as the members chatted before leaving, Mike Nikolis of the Environmental Commission said he was left wondering about how a future redeveloper would address environmental issues at the Alcatel-Lucent site.

Jenni Blumenthal said she gained insight on the rules and regulations governing the use of redevelopment plans, and why it is necessary to help move this 473-acre tract back on the market. "Things are complicated," she lamented. "One of the big things that is causing a whole lot of trouble is the economy. If we were in a good real estate economy, than people would be coming out of the woodwork."

Sede Spang said, "I guess I still have questions. What does the town really want?" she said.  The Redevelopment Plan is "just like a big laundry list of things that could go there. Anyone can come in and put in almost anything."  She said she was unhappy with the size of a fieldhouse that would be permitted on the property, and its effect on impervious coverage, for example. "It's good, in a way, that it's flexible. But some of stuff I'm not crazy about."

To see Clinton Andrews' PowerPoint presentation on redevelopment plans, click on the PDF link. For more Holmdel Patch stories on the Alcatel-Lucent property, visit the Alcatel-Lucent Property topic page.