By ROBERT LINNEHAN
Borough commissioners did not budge as several residents asked them to reconsider the wording on the published Request for Proposal for a new planning firm for the Bancroft property.
Several residents expressed their displeasure last week with the RFP and asked commissioners to take out wording that authorizes the new planner to investigate a continuing care retirement community option for the property.
The previous planners used by the borough — Heyer & Gruel Associates — were recently let go after Commissioner Ed Borden cited the need for a clean slate at the Bancroft property. An RFP for a new planner was crafted and bids are due by Dec. 2.
However some residents aren’t happy with the way the document has been prepared, namely that it still includes the controversial CCRC option. Chris Maynes, an opponent of the CCRC and local resident, said enough money has been wasted on an option that has proven to be a bad fit for Haddonfield.
Since 2005, the borough has paid Heyer & Gruel about $172,000 for its work, Maynes said. The report created by the firm was based around a CCRC at Bancroft, Maynes said, which has not had much support from residents and the Planning Board.
“We’ll have more money wasted developing a scenario (the CCRC) that isn’t possible,” Maynes said.
Maynes questioned the validity of having the next planner spend more of the borough’s money and its own time investigating an option that will likely not work at the site and that doesn’t have much support in town. The CCRC would have to be too large and too dense to be an economically viable option for the property, he said.
Borden said that the work Heyer & Gruel put into the report was not just for the CCRC, but it also developed data that the next planning firm will be able to use in its research.
“I don’t think we should take any reasonable idea off the table at all,” Borden said.
According to the RFP the future planner will look at the feasibility of a number of plans for the property, including open space, mixed use, and market rate senior housing that includes a CCRC.
The first task for the new planner, Borden said, will be to meet with local residents and members of the neighborhoods near Bancroft to listen to their ideas and their concerns.
Janet Hallahan took it a step further and asked commissioners to reconsider the redevelopment designation for the property entirely. She accused commissioners of not listening to the concerns of residents by including the CCRC in the RFP.
Commissioner Jeff Kasko refuted the claim.
“I don’t know if your concerns fall on deaf ears. They do not for this commissioner and I’m sure they don’t for my fellow commissioners,” he said.
To view the complete RFP visit Haddonfield’s Web site at Haddonfieldnj.org.
In other news, Mayor Tish Colombi thanked the Dark family for their donation of an evergreen tree to the borough for its holiday decoration at Library Point.
The tree is fully decorated and lighted after last Friday’s holiday tree lighting ceremony.
The borough needed a new tree for the holiday tree lighting ceremony as the previous tree had to be removed because of the construction at Tanner Street. One of the utility pipes that needed to be replaced ran directly under the old tree.
