Second time's a charm for DCA grant approval Council approved the state grant to study Oak Tree Road BY TOM CAIAZZA Staff Writer One month after narrowly rejecting a state grant for future planning on Oak Tree Road, the Edison Township Council gave its consent, on June 13, to the grant that would provide $50,000 for the study. The state approved the grant the following day, according to Jerry Barca, a spokesman for the mayor, after allowing the administration one last crack at wooing council support. "We're very thankful to the state Office of Smart Growth ... for extending the deadline," Barca said. "Regardless of what the council's position on this in the past, what's important is the grant funds are available now for the township." The state would not allow the administration to continue without council approval. Councilwoman Antonia Ricigliano was the lone holdout, not voting the way she had four weeks earlier. Her reasoning then was that Oak Tree Road was not the best place for the grant to focus on. There are larger areas of concern and she felt that a grant should be commissioned for parking and pedestrian improvements in the Clara Barton section as opposed to Oak Tree Road. The grant was put back on the agenda at the June 13 meeting in order to clarify that it was to study, in a much larger scope than parking, the Oak Tree Road area between Grove and Wood avenues in northern Edison. The grant would cover revitalization of the 1.1-mile stretch of road. The grant would come from the state Department of Community Affairs (DCA) and would encompass future planning of the area, something that Councilman Robert Diehl (who voted for the grant both times) said was something that had been lacking in Edison previously. "A lot of the problems we face today we can point back to poor planning," Diehl said. "I believe in looking into the future and planning the best we can for our township." There was a concern that the scope of the study would include possible residential components. It was something that was not agreeable to the council. Councilman Anthony Massaro said that it worried him to see words like revitalization, urban mobility, smart growth and mixed use, because as Massaro put it, he did not want to be "the tip of the wedge" that allows more residential to come into town. "It worries me to see those items," Massaro said. "I've been burned too many times." The council had concerns that the grant language did not specifically rule out looking into residential, and the council wanted it made clear that was not what the council intends to have happen. Brandy Forbes, the township planner, said that while the language was not specifically there, it is understood that the study would not be for housing. She insured the council that the grant would allow them to choose the firm that does the study, thus setting the parameters of what they can and cannot look into. Township Attorney Jeffrey Lehrer said the council had the power to put the residential condition into the resolution for hiring the firm to do the study. When the grant was originally defeated, Mayor Jun Choi vowed to continue seeking the grant, even without the council's approval. At the time he called the council "obstructionist" and said it was "outrageous" that the council would turn down free money from the state.