Thursday’s October 30th edition of the Courier News featured a lead story by Michael Deak entitled, “Mapping a Growth Blueprint.” The article reports on an 11.5-square mile Somerset County Regional Center defined in 1996, and composed of parts of Bridgewater, Somerville and Raritan Borough.
The ideal objective is for these three communities to co-ordinate efforts in an attempt to control growth and to contain suburban sprawl. For Bridgewater, the horses are largely out of the barn as to the latter. Nonetheless, rigorous, tri-partite efforts to direct growth along the 11.5 mile regional center corridor are necessary, and any further sprawl in Bridgewater should be truncated.
Ben Spinelli, an official from New Jersey’s Office of Smart Growth addressed the summit. I wish that he had explained how COAH’s state-imposed burden on Bridgewater Township for more housing units will adversely contribute to the “suburban sprawl” which he so roundly decried.
Bridgewater had already exceeded its quota for COAH housing units before the state came roaring back in, imposing even more. The most significant comment in Deak’s reporting was that made by Bridgewater’s Mayor Patricia Flannery, when she said, “The 800-pound gorilla in the room is affordable housing.”
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