Council and public hear Hartz Mountain proposal Council argues need for closed session meetings; residents vet redev. plan BY TOM CAIAZZA Staff Writer EDISON - After several months of relative quiet, representatives of Hartz Mountain Industries presented their vision for the former Ford Motor Co. site to the township council and the public at a special meeting on Feb. 8. Walter Smith, of Hartz Mountain, emceed a mutli-media presentation of the "lifestyle center" that Hartz is proposing to build. The center would be a contiguous, pedestrian-friendly retail and office complex that Smith said would allow people to park their cars and stay for the day. "This would be the first one in the state of New Jersey," Smith said of the lifestyle center project. "Its center would be designed specifically with a mix of entertainment, restaurant and retail uses designed to get people out of their cars and on their feet, pedestrian friendly." Prior to the meeting, the council and the mayor met in closed session with members of Hartz Mountain to discuss contract negotiations. This is at least the second time these two entities have met in closed session for this purpose, which has raised concern from residents about the transparency of the Hartz Mountain negotiations. Joseph Baumann, redevelopment counsel for the township, tried to put some of those concerns to bed when the meeting opened. "The council and the administration [are] very concerned and we feel that it is very important that we continue to make this process as open as possible," Baumann said. "And at the same time, what we're trying to struggle with is that we are in the midst of a negotiation of one of the most important redevelopment projects that ever has happened in Edison." Baumann said that the council, as representatives for the redevelopment entity, Edison Township, is responsible for negotiating with the developers on Edison Township's behalf. Negotiations would not work well if all parties were entirely in the open. "It's just the way negotiations work best; it's just the way we operate in order to do things in the best interest of the township and the citizens," Baumann said. Some of the topics being negotiated, according to Baumann, would be the amount of land that Hartz Mountain would donate to the township to build a community center to work in tandem with the proposed Edison Towne Square. That does not mean that the public will be left out while the plans are hashed out behind closed doors. "The council wants to try and keep the citizens of Edison involved in the process as much as possible," Baumann said. "There will be a lot of opportunity as we go through the process for people to give their opinion and share their thoughts and ask questions." Baumann asked the public, during the public comment portion of the meeting, to keep at bay any questions regarding specific negotiating points that are still up in the air, in order to not taint the township's negotiating capability. "My advice to the council is that there are appropriate times to have closed session," Baumann said. Baumann called it necessary to not negotiate in the open and asked for a bit of community trust. "These are parts of the process that you cannot be a part of," Baumann said. "We look to you to trust us." Members of the public addressed the council and Hartz Mountain representatives, offering suggestions and concerns about the proposed project and the state of the land that had previously been found to contain toxins left from the Ford Motor Co.'s automotive plant. The site had previously tested positive for concrete tainted with polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB) and a cleanup program was put into place by Ford Motor Co. to remediate the site. According to Smith, the process is nearly complete, and Baumann said the township expects a letter of "no further action" from the DEP to be issued as soon as March. A "no further action" letter would be the state's way of saying the site is cleaned to a point where development can safely begin. Wells to test the groundwater are already in place and will begin testing in the next few weeks. Richard Nemeth, a resident, proposed replacing the proposed movie theater, which would serve as the anchor for the development, with a cultural arts theater, stating that with current technology, theaters are becoming obsolete and a cultural arts facility would attract a more mature clientele. "Why not build a theater?" Nemeth asked. "It will bring more money into the restaurants because there will be a more mature crowd and they will spend money." Nemeth said that Hartz's proposal creates a downtown-like atmosphere and cited Hartz's statement in the presentation that it wanted to mirror the town centers of the 1940s and 1950s. "Before there was a movie theater," Nemeth said about the movie houses of yesteryear, "there was a theater." Bob Spiegel, executive director of the Edison Wetlands Association, brought up the idea of large, contiguous open space swaths being preserved on the site. He recommended at least 20 percent of the site be preserved as open space. "Real open space," Spiegel said, "not just some strips of green." He is also a proponent of the cultural arts center in lieu of a movie theater, stating that the mall is a hangout for kids, while a cultural center will draw families, which is a much more desirable draw for Edison. Steven Shuey agreed with the need for open space, saying the proposal was not green enough. "There is too much concrete in this design," Shuey said. "It looks like corporate park meets Flash Gordon."