Possible tools include zoning changes and short-term tax breaks.
EDISON -- The Clara Barton neighborhood in west Edison is the closest thing that this sprawling township has to a city center with a critical mass, but it still lags other areas like downtown Metuchen, Garwood and Cranford.
At 7:30 p.m. Thursday, the town is holding an open meeting to unveil some of its plans to change that.
"Our goal is to create a more vibrant neighborhood; to increase foot-traffic along Amboy Avenue by encouraging new construction and rehabilitation of existing buildings in that area, with mixed retail, restaurant and residential uses; and to ensure there is sufficient parking available," Mayor Thomas Lankey said in an emailed statement.
The meeting will be held at the Clara Barton First Aid Squad building.
Stretching roughly from the Route 1 overpass to the Turnpike overpass along Amboy Avenue, the Clara Barton neighborhood has become a special focus for town planners hoping to capitalize on the new trend of higher-density developments. It's a growing trend in New Jersey, as younger people are fleeing the suburbs toward areas like Hoboken and Jersey City. Nearby Metuchen, too, is undergoing major changes. In the past few months, a towering parking garage was constructed with remarkable speed on Pearl Street. New homes and a Whole Foods will follow.
In Edison, the Clara Barton neighborhood could be deemed as an "area in need of rehabilitation," which would give the town certain tools, like short-term tax breaks and zoning changes, to encourage development. It's still early in the process, and any move in that direction would require Town Council and Planning Board review. A rehabilitation area is a lower-level type of plan than an "area in need of redevelopment," which would dramatically alter the neighborhood.
The town has already made some changes to Clara Barton. For example, last year, it eased building height requirements to allow developments with a third floor for housing units. It also added a new requirement that new developments put in an adequate number of parking spaces, something that hadn't been in place at all in the past.
(Clara Barton was a Civil War nurse and the founder of the American Red Cross, but she has no known connection to Edison.)
The vision, town planners say, is for a stretch of new and improved developments, with retail and office locations on the first floor and residential units on the floors above. That, town planners believe, would attract the young professional set, without encouraging large families that could strain Edison's already-crowded school district.
Right now, the stretch of Amboy Avenue has several businesses like pizza shops, convenience stores and gas stations, abutted by residences on side roads.
The talk of redevelopment has already stoked interest. For example, neighborhood resident Esther Nemitz said at the Town Council meeting Monday night that the town needed to be more transparent about its plans for the area.
To that end, at its public meeting Thursday, the town will present a rendering of the redevelopment area, drafted by the town's planner, Susan Gruel of Heyer, Gruel and Associates. The map includes the Tano Mall in the west to the Turnpike overpass in the east. It also stretches north and south from Amboy Avenue to include some nearby residential neighborhoods.
Brian Amaral may be reached at bamaral@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @bamaral44. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
