Seminary Redevelopment Plan Needs to Be In Best Interests of Town, Environment
To the Editor:
Smart Growth America defines smart growth as “creating homes for families of all income levels alongside one another in locations where daily needs are close by.” We all appreciate and welcome families of all income levels, but the problem with the redevelopment plan for the seminary’s properties is that it does not recognize that this neighborhood is not walkable to any daily needs. For planning purposes, walkable is a term of art, generally accepted as a quarter of a mile. Using that criterion, this location is not walkable to schools, the grocery, the Dinky, a pharmacy, or medical attention.
The town can permit the developer to provide fewer than necessary parking spots (Rutgers researchers found that parking usage at low- and mid-rise apartment communities equates to 1.41 cars per unit whereas the TRW redevelopment requires just 1.1 spaces per unit), but that won’t reduce the need for automobiles. The alternative may be parking on side streets where it is allowed. Worse in all respects would be that residents rely on deliveries by Amazon, UPS, or Grubhub and transportation by Uber, all of which are terrible for the environment, traffic flow, and quality of life.
Walking to town for a latte is great, but it is not a daily need. Most longtime residents acknowledge that the town no longer has the types of stores that residents need for their daily existence — the shoe store, the five and dime, the hardware store — and that is OK. Things change. The truth is that while residents still enjoy going into town to the library or the restaurants, the stores increasingly are aimed at tourists who want to visit a quaint historic college town. And that is OK, too. But we need to be realistic. Any development on those properties could meet most of the town’s objectives — more ratables, an attractive gateway, diverse housing, and affordable housing. The town doesn’t owe either the seminary or the developer a guaranteed return on investment. We need to do what is in the best interests of the town and the environment. Density for density’s sake isn’t smart growth.