JACKSON – The public hearing for an ordinance that would, upon its adoption, establish a Highway Commercial Mixed Use (HCMU) zone on Route 537 will be held at the Feb. 11 meeting of the Jackson Township Council.
Residents may comment on or ask questions about the proposed ordinance during the public hearing.
Township Council President Barry Calogero, Vice President Alex Sauickie III, Councilman Andrew Kern, Councilman Ken Bressi and Councilman Martin Flemming voted to introduce the ordinance on Jan. 28.
The HCMU zone will include areas generally located on the south side of Route 537 between the Interstate 195 corridor and the Hurricane Harbor Water Park, according to the ordinance.
Permitted principal uses in the HCMU zone will include all of the principal permitted uses in the Neighborhood Commercial zone and the Highway Commercial zone.
Principal uses include hospitals, medical research, surgery center and philanthropic eleemosynary (charitable) uses, convention/conference centers, exhibition halls, convenience stores with gas stations, stadiums, banquet facilities, distribution centers, warehousing, open air theaters and multifamily residential dwelling units.
“The point of (the new zone) is to make bringing in commercial ratables, in an area we want to see developed, easier to do, frankly,” Sauickie said. “The problem in that area in the past and in general (is that) you often have to parse together pieces of land that might be zoned differently.
“We are going to put this zone all the way down that corridor basically between Six Flags, Hurricane Harbor, and Interstate 195, so that entire (area) will be zoned this way,” the councilman said.
He said the HCMU zone is not an unusual or unprecedented zone.
“Robbinsville (Mercer County) has one very similar that they call a Planned Commercial Development zone,” Sauickie said.
“For us it is delivering on a campaign promise. Mayor (Michael) Reina, myself and Councilman Kern ran on this. We said we wanted to help increase smart commercial ratables in town; which is to bring more commercial revenue to town to give residents a break and to put (the ratables) in a smart location (and) we believe (Route 537) is about the best place we can put it in Jackson,” he said.
