A Changing Vision for The Next Five Years and Beyond

With state approval in hand, the Barnegat Township Planning Board voted Tuesday to approve the completed draft of the master plan.

The master plan was created in 1978 and last updated 10 years later.

A special subcommittee of the planning board has been developing the plan since 2007, with input from the town’s various other commissions and committees that deal with historic preservation, economic growth and the environment.

 The New Jersey Office of Planning Advocacy has been working closely with the subcommittee as well, with various representatives visiting and touring the town, and introducing their own demands and conditions. The state defines a master plan as a “composite of one or more written or graphic proposals for the development of the municipality.”  Such a plan then becomes a foundation for any future zoning and planning ordinances the town creates.

Planning board member and former Township Committeewoman Dorothy Ryan calls it “a vision of what we want our town to be five years down the road.”

“For example we don’t want a developer walking in to put up a building here and it looks like a box, when one just across the street is really nice,” said Ryan, who had been serving on the master plan subcommittee for the past three years. “So a part of it is developing that commercial look we’d like to have, like when you look at CVS and Wawa.”  

“The master plan defines all sorts of things, from style of buildings, to overall traffic flow, to overall general characteristics that the town wants,” said Jerry Harper, one of the subcommittee members who worked on the master plan.

Among its many goals, the new master plan recommends ordinances that would “enhance the protection of the town’s environmentally sensitive areas” and “encourage more compact and efficient development patterns,” according to the text of the plan which was drafted for the township by Peter Van den Kooy, planner, and John Hess, engineer.

The plan aims to develop a more pedestrian personality, by building more sidewalks and bike paths. At the same time, the plan calls for somewhat increasing the interconnectedness of neighborhoods with roads and shopping plazas (which is more challenging in Barnegat, with its many isolated communities, according to Harper.). The plan also considers a possible re-examination of established historic district boundaries.

Wayne Pawloski, a member of the historic preservation commission, whose input the planning board sought, said he was “very, very satisfied” with the final product. “The primary concern is to keep that historic correctness of the area, to not let any modernization take away that charm,” said Pawloski, who is also a local business owner.  

Tweaking the historic district boundaries was one of the changes Pawloski applauded. 

 “It was basically a squaring off, where one part of the street was [in a historic district], and the other wasn’t,” Pawloski said, indicating Brooke Street as
one of the examples. “There weren’t any big changes, other than straightening
out those lines.”

The master plan takes a look at public transportation as well, letting more residents know of the options they already have available, such as Ocean Ride.

Some of the other master plan goals include:

• Identifying areas that are in need of rehabilitation and developing a plan to revitalize them;
• Encouraging development of more local healthcare facilities;
• Discussing the possibility of having a water taxi on Barnegat Bay;
• Creating calmer intersections with more speed bumps, additional signs, traffic signals, traffic circles and roundabouts.

While township officials say they sought the public’s feedback throughout the master plan developing process, they also lamented that so few residents attended the open planning board meetings where the plan was discussed.

"Increasing awareness -- that I think is the biggest issue,” Ryan said. “I know the mayor in the interviews he’s given encourages people to look at the website, see what’s out there, but many people don’t even know.”

WORKING WITH THE STATE

According to the New Jersey Municipal Land Use law, every town must continuously update their vision for the future, to account for changing economic and demographic trends.

In addition, the completion of this plan is an important step towards the township’s other goals, Barnegat officials say, such as an official town center designation.

Officials hope that such a designation for a large area east of the township, around the Route 9 intersection with Bay Avenue and beyond, would help encourage economic growth, while steering new businesses toward areas of the town where they would be most welcome.

Also, having an updated master plan is one of the conditions for the state’s plan endorsement.

"New Jersey has what’s called a ‘state development and redevelopment plan,’” explained  Jay Corbalis, a policy analyst with New Jersey Future, a research and advocacy agency focusing on land use in New Jersey. “It’s a plan for where we should grow and where we should preserve in the state. The plan endorsement
process is basically trying to link up the towns’ master plans with the state’s
overall vision.”

Getting the state’s plan endorsement is voluntary, according to Corbalis, but it carries some benefits, such as the town center designation, or eligibility and priority in being considered for certain grants and additional funding.

Also, while the western portion of Barnegat falls under the Pinelands Commission regulations, its eastern land is governed by the Coastal Areas Facility Review Act (CAFRA).

Receiving plan endorsement from the state would allow more development by increasing the permitted amount of paved surfaces, including parking lots, sidewalks, driveways and roads.

While the master plan is complete, according to township officials, the endorsement process is still in progress, with work on the town center designation ordinance being the next important goal.