WHITE TOWNSHIP – Although the Jaindl Land Company has scaled back its proposed warehouse development from a 6-million-square-foot concept to 800,000 square feet, many Warren County residents remain dismayed with the potential development.
The topic of the development has remained an active discussion, not only in White Township, where Jaindl’s President David Jaindl testified in front of the township’s planning board on Dec. 10, but among Warren County’s freeholders and municipal officials at a special meeting to discuss zoning amendments and the possible impact of traffic generated by light industrial-zoned sites.
According to Stephen Reid, a spokesperson for Jaindl Land Company, David Jaindl enjoyed the dialogue he engaged in during the planning board meeting, when Jaindl took part in the first phase of its application process for its 585-acre tract.
Previously conceptualized at 6-million-square feet, Jaindl is aiming to start by developing its 800,000-square-foot facility on 95 acres. As part of its scaled-back plan on the site at Route 519, Foul Rift Road and the Delaware River, half of the acreage, Jaindl told the planning board and public, will be dedicated to farming. He said he also plans to donate seven acres to the township as open space.
Reid described the interactions with the public, who questioned Jaindl, as one with “a lot of respect,” though Reid said there is “a lot of misinformation out there about the project and people still have negative views (about it).”
Among the supporters, were iron workers from Local 11, Reid said, who estimates there could be 200 temporary jobs as a result of the construction. Reid said at present, it is difficult to estimate the number of permanent jobs, which will depend on the final approval of the project.
Reid also said truck traffic, which the opposition group Citizens for Sustainable Development, originally estimated between 2,684 and up to 23,860 trucks daily with the 6-million-square-foot concept, is difficult to determine without a traffic study from Jaindl’s professionals. In previous statements to the New Jersey Herald, David Jaindl said the 800,000-square-foot facility, could generate “PM peak hour truck impact (between 4 to 6 p.m.) of 16 total PM peak hour truck trips, 224 total truck trips per day.” Reid said full numbers, including the daytime potential truck traffic, will be available when Jaindl’s expert has the opportunity to testify, after the New Year.
The most recent Planning Board meeting, Reid said, is one of many that Jaindl will have to attend with its experts to testify about traffic, as well as architecture, lighting and other topics.
Response from the Citizens for Sustainable Development
The grassroots Citizens for Sustainable Development has remained critical of Jaindl’s plans, regardless of the recent proposal to develop less.
“While we appreciate his (Jaindl’s) willingness to scale back his plans, bad development is still bad development no matter what the scale,” said Theresa Chapman, a spokesperson for the group. “We do not feel as though he understands the culture or people of White Township nor does he understand the concerns of its residents. Perhaps that aspect of being a good neighbor may not be on his radar yet.”
On behalf of the group, Chapman said in a statement emailed to the New Jersey Herald, Jaindl does “not bring a good track record to our area,” because of turmoil that she said has developed within the Lehigh Valley, where the company’s other developments are primarily located.
“In the recent past at a meeting of the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission, some of the Jaindl Land Company’s work was called the poster child for bad development,” Chapman said for the group.
Christopher Amato, a Lehigh Valley resident who grew up in White Township and is a board member and research chair for the Citizens for Sustainable Development, said references to Jaindl’s impact on development in the Lehigh Valley were aired during the planning commission’s April meeting. Amato said a Jaindl project in Nazareth has gained local resistance, is inconsistent with the regional plan and is not close to a regional highway.
Amato, who has lived in the Lehigh Valley for 22 years, said he has watched it turn into a congested area, where regional, comprehensive planning has not been adhered to. He said while Jaindl is one of the key players in the area, they are not the only developer to blame.
“Their choices have had and will continue to have a significant impact on the lives of hundreds of thousands of people, and not necessarily for the better,” Amato said in a statement to the New Jersey Herald. “This company is not an unreasonable land steward, but they can improve.”
Chapman said she attended both the Dec. 10 Planning Board meeting and the White Township Committee meeting on Dec. 12. At the committee meeting, Chapman countered Jaindl’s testimony from the planning board meeting, when he said it was premature to secure tenants for his planned warehousing complex, before it had been approved. Chapman said she discovered Jaindl had advertised it had space to rent, based on the 6-million-square-foot concept, on the website LoopNet, from May through July 2019. Reid did not respond prior to deadline on Monday, about that advertising.
The citizens’ group is holding an event to raise funds for an attorney. “In times like these, legal representation is beneficial,” Chapman said.
The “Celebrate to Save Warren County” fundraiser is scheduled for Saturday, Jan. 4, beginning at 6 p.m. at the Brook Hollow Winery at 594 Route 94 in Columbia. The fundraiser will feature a wine tasting, silent auction, dinner, live music and dancing.
Warren County government officials meet
The potential warehouse in White Township has sparked activity at the county level, with a meeting led by Warren County Freeholder James R. Kern III, County Planner David Dech and the New Jersey Highlands Council on Dec. 9. At that meeting, 14 municipal officials discussed areas within the county that had the potential to be developed into warehousing like the Jaindl tract, but that it is up to the municipalities to change their master plans to prevent light industrial zoning.
The Highlands Council, Kern said, is going to conduct a traffic study to analyze the potential build-out of approximately 7,186 acres or just over 11 square miles, countywide. Kern said he expects to see the results of the report by the first quarter of 2020.
Kern stressed that many have come to the freeholders about the issue of overdevelopment, including in White Township. Most of the feedback Kern said he has heard from those who have approached him about the Jaindl development, has been opposition. At the end of the day though, Kern said, the actions taken to prevent developments of this nature, fall at the local level.
Blairstown’s Mayor Stephen Lance, who attended the meeting, posted on his Mayoral Facebook Page afterwards that the Jaindl property, the BASF property in Belvidere and a site in Mansfield will greatly impact traffic in Blairstown if the plans come to fruition.
“I cannot stress enough that Blairstown residents must be informed and voice their opinions about this overdevelopment,” Lance said.
Jennifer Jean Miller can also be reached by phone at: 973-383-1230; on Facebook: www.Facebook.com/JMillerNJH and on Twitter: www.twitter.com/JMillerNJH.
