Why I Oppose the Allen Road Project: Then, Now, and On the Committee

My position on 150 Allen Road has never changed. I opposed Signature Acquisitions’ plan from the start. I oppose it today. And if elected to the Township Committee, I will keep opposing it.

This is not a close call. The proposal would tear down an office building and replace it with two light-industrial and manufacturing buildings on a residential road. It would bring tractor-trailers onto a stretch with a hill, a blind curve, and Mount Prospect School nearby. Our teenage drivers
learn on these roads. Our kids walk and ride on them. No traffic study changes what a loaded truck does on a blind curve.

The environmental cost is just as clear. The plan called for clearing hundreds of trees, more than 400 by residents’ count, with far fewer replacements than our ordinance requires. We already have drainage and stormwater problems near Allen and Martinsville. Removing that canopy
makes them worse, permanently.

Then there is density. Our zoning allows a floor area ratio of 15 percent. The applicant asked for nearly 20. That is not a minor adjustment. It is a request to put more building, more traffic, and more noise on land that cannot carry it.

Our Zoning Board heard 18 months of testimony and voted 6 to 0 to deny the application. Residents showed up by the dozens, night after night. The process worked, and the answer was no.

Now the matter is back before the board. My answer is the same. A revised plan that keeps the same basic use in the same place does not fix the underlying problem.

On the Committee, I will:

- Support the board’s denial and a vigorous legal defense of it
- Back zoning that ends light manufacturing as a permitted use in residential-adjacent areas, which the Committee has already moved to do
- Keep residents informed and heard at every step

Bernards Township’s charm is not an accident. It is the result of decisions made by people who cared enough to protect it. I intend to be one of them.

Paul Humbert

P.S. Before you vote, make sure you know where each candidate for Township Committee stands on this critical issue. If they won't tell you now, you know what they'll do if elected.