The Planning Board's Choice

On May 20, the Hopewell Borough Planning Board heard sworn testimony from two expert witnesses retained at significant cost by community members who have spent years following this proposal. The Board heard from residents who know exactly where the water goes when it rains and where the traffic backs up when it gets busy. They heard a record and case built carefully, on the facts, by people who care about this town.

And then the Planning Board asked no questions of the sworn experts. Not one.

That silence tells you something. It tells you what residents have suspected for a long time: that this process has been treated as a formality, that the outcome was assumed before the testimony was given, and that the people most affected by this proposal have been heard the way you hear background noise — dismissed without acknowledgement.

Let's be clear about how we got here. For years, residents who raised concerns during the master plan and redevelopment plan modification process were told by the Borough Council that it was not the right time, that our real opportunity would come at the Planning Board review. Council then rubber-stamped these fundamental changes, giving the applicant exactly what they asked for. The mayor, whose law firm represents the applicant, has properly recused, but the Planning Board he appoints is now the body residents were told would hear them.

We are not here to relitigate Council's votes. We are here because the Planning Board is the only local body left who can actually listen to residents' concerns, as we were promised.

The Planning Board has repeatedly retreated behind the claim that it is handcuffed, that "the process" leaves no room to act. This is false. Under New Jersey law, the Planning Board has an explicit duty to hear and evaluate expert testimony, to make findings of fact based on the evidence, and to determine whether an application complies with applicable standards based on substantial evidence in the record. The board has agency. The board has authority. The board has responsibility.

And the record before this board does not support approval of the applicant's plan. The applicant's case has not been made:

• The applicant's traffic study failed to address real-world conditions and pedestrian safety, as pointed out time and again by witnesses. The original report contained over 50 transcription errors, a sure sign of shoddy phoned-in work.
• HCA's retained environmental and floodwater expert identified factual risks and shortcomings in the applicant's plan — to this community and to the property itself — that the applicant has not answered.
• The borough's own engineering consultant, Boswell Inc., has placed before the board a technical memo identifying 26 unresolved deficiencies in the applicant's stormwater design, including an unanswered question about whether the developer has even applied for the required state permits.

That last point is not a detail. On July 20, New Jersey's new flood resilience rules (called the "REAL" rules) will take effect. Projects without completed state applications by that date will face tighter standards designed to address exactly the kind of flooding our community has documented for decades, including on Lafayette Street, a history that 117 residents formally raised in a 2024 petition still in the public record. A vote on June 10, before the developer has demonstrated state compliance, locks in approval for a design the borough's own engineer says doesn't yet work, under rules that may not apply to it for another month.

Planning Board members: Council gave you a gift. By telling residents that our voices would be heard during your process, they granted you the explicit authority to act in the best interests of the community, explicitly reinforcing the agency the statute already gives you. You have now heard those voices from the community. You have heard expert witnesses under oath. You have a memo from your own engineer listing 26 reasons the current design isn't ready.

In your heart of hearts, you know this is an inappropriate development plan for Hopewell Borough.

Your duty is not to "close this process out." Your duty is to weigh the record. That record does not support a finding of conformance. It supports, at minimum, deferral until the state permitting question is resolved and the borough engineer's 26 deficiencies are answered. It supports, on the merits, rejection.

Do your duty. Vote your conscience. Vote NO.