K. Hovnanian Reduces Units, Eliminates Age-Restricted Housing from Marlboro Site

K. Hovnanian Homes brought site revisions for a 244-home development on 75.5-acre property on Tennent Road before the Marlboro Township Planning Board Wednesday.

The new site plans would reduce the number of available housing units from 218 age-restricted houses to 194 single family homes with 50 affordable units on the property, which also has frontage on Church Lane and Route 79. The three-bedroom single-family homes would start at $470,000.

The community would house 588 people would live in the community, including more than 150 students that could be added to the school system: 63 preschool students, 78 elementary school aged students, and up to 53 middle to high school students.

Citing the 2009 housing conversion act, developers looked to gained board approval for the new housing development. The act permits the conversion of certain age-restricted housing developments to housing without age restrictions, subject to approval by a municipal planning board or zoning board.

In 2008, Orleans development company received site plan approval to subdivide the property and build an age-restricted neighborhood but the company went bankrupt and K. Hovnanian purchased the home. Today, the lot is vacant and wooded.

The two major concerns for the site are traffic and storm water management, said Michael Herbert, the planning board’s attorney.

David Fisher, K. Hovnanian’s vice president of governmental affairs, said they met the standards for parking, traffic and drainage management. Including completing a traffic study in which they found that the increase trips that would be between the age restricted housing and single family housing would be an average of 60 trips during the evening and morning hours.

Developers also cited adding close to an extra 500 extra parking spaces on site.

When the meeting opened for public comment, resident Tim Tierney expressed concerns that the runoff from the homes would overflow the wetlands and cross a stream that would lead to further flooding in his property.

Fisher said once pipes currently running through the property, which are now half-filled with silt, are emptied, the flooding would recede.

While K. Hovnanian presented all of its witnesses and testimony, the board was not ready to make a decision. The vote for the approved plans was deferred until the first item on the agenda for the July 17 meeting. There will not be a public discussion concerning the K. Hovnanian property.