North Brunswick transit village ordinance passes on 4-3 vote

STAFF REPORT • May 18, 2010

NORTH BRUNSWICK — The Township Council narrowly passed a controversial transit village ordinance Monday night, paving the way for a developer to build the first phase of a development officials hope will someday include a train station.

The vote on the ordinance came to a 3-3 tie, but Mayor Francis “Mac” Womack broke the tie by voting in favor of the ordinance.

The ordinance will allow developer TOD Associates to construct the first phase of a proposed transit village on the 212-acre former Johnson & Johnson site if the developer first pays for improvements to four intersections along Route 1. That phase would include box stores, the first block of a planned mixed-use “Main Street”, and 300 housing units.

The second, larger phase could not be built unless NJ Transit agrees to build a train station on the site, which sits adjacent to the Northeast Corridor rail line. So far, NJ Transit has not committed to build the station. The second phase would expand the Main Street and increase the housing to a total of 1,875 units.