December 5, 2006

On the road to a transit village

EDITORIAL

This is an exciting time to be a resident of North Brunswick now that township officials have moved beyond merely talking about whether the old J&J property on Route 1 should be turned into a transit village and are taking steps to make it happen. So far through public workshops, with one more scheduled for Thursday, members of the community haven't been shy either about what sort of development they want to see, and that is to their credit.

It isn't often that a community is handed a blank slate for development and is asked to fill it in. In this case especially, the more ideas offered the more agreeable and useful to everyone the final product is bound to be.

The wide range of ideas put forth up to now is expansive and looks something like this: a rail station; mixed office, retail and residential space; "green plazas"; a new township library, and even a youth center.

The best part is that residents can choose to support one or more of those items - the whole kit and caboodle even -- whatever they want.

More encouraging is that representatives for the owner of the 212-acre property, North Brunswick TOD Associates, LLC, an affiliate of Garden State Homes and Garden Commercial Properties, seem intent on taking the community's advice to heart. Here is to the hope that remains so when the final plans are drawn up.

The transit-village concept encourages well-designed, open, free-flowing community hubs that intermingle mass-transit options with housing and commercial areas. North Brunswick sure could use some of that.