Borough rejects transit-use-only zone

The Borough Council discussed the possibility of zoning the area where the train track currently lies as a rail-transit-use-only zone at a meeting on Tuesday night.

The Council decided not to add the proposed zone to the existing ordinance but to do further research into the legality and feasibility of the idea.

Councilmember Jenny Crumiller originally proposed the rail transit zone at a meeting on Oct. 26 as a means of preserving the public right-of-way for rail transit.

“The beauty of it is that it allows the University to build its arts buildings, and it allows the beautiful campus to happen, but it also protects our right-of-way,” Crumiller explained. “Either you want to save the right-of-way for the public, for our residents, or you don’t. If you want to save it, I think this is the way to do it.”

Last summer, the Borough hired an attorney to give legal advice specifically on the legal actions it may take on the issue of the Dinky because of a conflict of interest involving the regular Borough attorney, who also represents New Jersey Transit.

The attorney, Robert Goldsmith, prepared a memo advising the Council that the rail transit zone might make the Borough vulnerable to a lawsuit for so-called “spot zoning,” or abusing zoning rights to micromanage property uses.

“I don’t think it was really as strongly advising us not to do it as all that,” Crumiller said, noting that Goldsmith’s memo only discussed the spot zoning lawsuit as a possibility.

Borough attorney Henry Chou said that, while he was not able to officially opine on the issue and had not seen Goldsmith’s memo, he thought a rail transit zone to memorialize the area where the track is now would be permissible.

Meanwhile, architect Kevin Wilkes ’83 said he felt the proposed rail transit zone may not achieve what Crumiller hopes it will. Rather than running a straight route to Nassau Street, the route zoned for rail transit would have to veer off of a straight course to avoid Spelman Halls, he said.

Crumiller said that she preferred this minor deviation from the existing path to the right-of-way drafted in the memorandum of understanding on transit negotiations between the University and the municipal governments, which has been described as the “Big Dipper” because of how it departs from the straight path to skirt the Arts and Transit Neighborhood and then returns to the “straight-shot” path.

Borough resident Kip Cherry agreed that this path would be preferable to the path proposed in the memorandum.

Chip Crider GS ’79 urged the Council to stop spending money on legal services for the issue and to drop the idea the rail transit zone.

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“How long are you going to go on shooting yourselves in the foot?” Crider asked. “It’s just another way to get at the University, and I wish you’d stop it and move it ahead.”

Crumiller revised her ordinance to state that the Council would amend the E5 zoning ordinance pending review by an identified rail law expert.

Council members voted 2-2 on this motion, and Borough Mayor Mildred Trotman broke the tie by voting no.

Councilman Roger Martindell, who voted against the motion, described it as “so vague and so general that it essentially amounts to a proposal to table the E5 zoning ordinance indefinitely.”

Despite the failure of the motion, Trotman said she would direct the Council to further consider the possibility of obtaining a more detailed legal opinion on legal consequences of the rail transit zone. Trotman tentatively set it on the agenda for the Council’s Nov. 22 meeting.

Correction

A previous version of this story stated that the Council was no longer considering the possibility of adding the rail transit zone to the existing ordinance.