Opponents to Jaindl warehouse plan score early win

The fight in White heated up Tuesday night, a planning board meeting filled with planners interrupted, bright orange shirts and debates over New Jersey’s Open Public Records Act.

It all came as a result of a recently formed subcommittee unveiling its early recommendations to planners on how they should amend — or not amend — the rural township’s master plan. Township engineer Paul Sterbenz went through 10 zoning topics tackled by the subcommittee, but the eyes of the more than 100 people gathered Tuesday were on No. 10: the low-density industrial district, currently farmland where major developer David Jaindl has contemplated an industrial park.

In looking at the low-density industrial district, along with the adjacent industrial zone south of Belvidere and north of Foul Rift Road, Sterbenz said, the subcommittee felt goals 1 and 3 of the master plan — preserve White Township’s rural character and enhance residents’ quality of life — outweighed the second goal: provide for commercial and industrial development. The subcommittee, he noted, wants the master plan’s goals reaffirmed and believes a large industrial development in either district would bring increased traffic and road widenings that would be a “big character changer for the municipality.”

“This is clearly inconsistent with the master plan right now,” Sterbenz said, summarizing the subcommittee’s findings. So, Sterbenz said, the subcommittee recommended the zoning in those two districts be converted to residential.

While the subcommittee’s work provided a win for Citizens for Sustainable Development, a group fighting Jaindl’s potential warehouse plan for 581 acres bordered by Route 519, Foul Rift Road and the Delaware River, it’s early in the process. After Sterbenz’s presentation, the board went through each topic examined by the subcommittee and then collected public comments on every item, conversations it will use as it updates the draft report discussed Tuesday. At some point down the road, the subcommittee will ready a final version that will be presented to the board, and a more in-depth public hearing will follow before any official action is taken.

Planning Board Chairman Timothy Matthews stressed, on several occasions Tuesday, that the subcommittee’s 15-page report is a working document at this stage, something that will almost certainly change moving forward. He noted, after consulting the township attorney, the working document is not subject to the state’s Open Public Records Act, but planners agreed to release a report to the public once a better draft is prepared. Still, the process is one thing that set off Jaindl attorney Anthony J. Sposaro, who was upset the board appeared ready to “ramrod” the report through and get comments without the public getting a chance to review the actual report.

“You’re asking the public to comment on Mr. Sterbenz’s summary of the report, not the report itself,” Sposaro said to Matthews.

“Correct,” Matthews responded.

“I think the process is flawed because of that,” Sposaro fired back, drawing the ire of the crowd.

“How many members of the public are OK with this?” one woman yelled out.

Another responded, “Everybody.”

Applause ensued.

But it was more than just the process that concerned Sposaro. After the meeting, the Chester, New Jersey, attorney pointed out that while the subcommittee left the low-density industrial district topic until last, camouflaged below nine other requests across the township, it was the Jaindl property that was the precipitating factor to reexamine the master plan’s land-use element.

He also noted the property’s history. The land that Jaindl acquired this year from Talen Energy was, in 1999, in a zone that permitted detached single-family residences. But later that year, as the township was trying to stem residential development, the board concluded the land should be rezoned to a low-density industrial district, a zone “designed for relatively large-scale industrial,” according to meeting minutes last year.

Nothing changed with that district in the 2004 master plan or in the 2014 reexamination, Sposaro pointed out, calling the 1999 change a “knee-jerk reaction.”

“Now they obviously know that Jaindl’s knocking on the door, and they’re reacting again,” he said.

Further, Sposaro said, Jaindl tried to contact municipal officials, to no avail, to help determine an appropriate use for the land. Sposaro said at a meeting July 24 that Jaindl is prepared to scale down his conceptual plan, which called for more than 6 million square feet of warehouse space.

The few residents who spoke about Jaindl’s land applauded the board. That included Lehigh Valley Planning Commission member Chris Amato, who said the organization has been begging municipalities to reexamine their master plans to ensure they’re consistent with zoning.

Hackettstown resident Agust Gudmundsson agreed with the subcommittee’s suggestion to rezone Jaindl’s land to residential. He noted that Warren County is an escape from the urban sprawl of Bergen or Passaic counties, bemoaning how his native Roxbury, Morris County, is now filled with strip malls where he used to hunt.

“The fight for ratables isn’t a panacea,” he said. “It’s a cancer; it’s going to drive your kids away; It’s going to make it hard for you guys to live here.”

But the subcommittee’s initial recommendations didn’t come easily, according to board member Robert Mackey. There, in the White elementary school’s gymnasium, with attendees seated in chairs unfolded atop the waxed hardwood, a state trooper lingering in the back, leaning against a blue-padded wall, Mackey gave an impassioned plea to those on both sides of the debate.

“These are the changes we came up with and the places that we had to redo to be in concert with the master plan as much as possible,” he said, his voice then rising. “You have no idea what kind of a decision this has been for this board. You have absolutely no idea.”

Morning Call reporter Jon Harris can be reached at 610-820-6779 or at jon.harris@mcall.com.