Politics & Government

Honeywell Hearings Begin This Week

Public will get first chance to speak Wednesday after ordinance was re-introduced on Aug. 1

The much-anticipated public hearings on the zoning ordinance to allow Honeywell to develop its property for mixed-use will begin Wednesday.

Residents can comment or question the ordinance for the first time that will let the Fortune 100 company move along with its master plan amendment that was . The plan would develop 235 townhomes and office and work space on the 147-acre property by Columbia Road and Park Avenue.

The meeting will begin with presentations from the township financial and traffic experts. The financial expert will interpret Honeywell's fiscal analysis that is posted on the Morris Township website, which some residents said they have been long awaiting for.

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The hearing, which is a regular township committee meeting and was originally scheduled to be the third public hearing on the ordinance, was delayed two weeks because Committeeman Jeff Grayzel after township attorney John Mills discovered Grayzel's wife is a former employee of Honeywell and still holds a pension fund and retiree savings plan.

During a special meeting Aug. 1, which was originally set to be the first hearing, the ordinance was reintroduced without Grayzel's vote.

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Grayzel, who expressed his diappointment about this potential conflict of interest at the Aug. 1 meeting, will be able to speak at the hearings during the public comment session.

While residents have already expressed concern over several issues involved in the redevelopment plan—mainly about the traffic, open space, fiscal and environmental impacts—over the course of two years and over 40 public hearings, another concern was brought to light at the July 18 meeting.

Due to affordable housing unit obligations created by the Honeywell redevelopment plan, there is a possibility that the township would have to build low and moderate town home units on the other side of the township off the Honeywell property.

Township Planning Board Attorney Brian Burns said at the July 18 meeting that there has been another site already identified in the township slated for construction of town homes.

When resident Lee Goldberg asked Burns at the Aug. 1 meeting where the construction site would be, he said it would be by West Hanover Avenue and Ketch Road, which is off the Honeywell campus.

Goldberg has been issuing a flyer (attached to this article) to residents about the affordable housing obligation to urge residents to come to the Aug. 15 meeting to question the proposed project and "have input before it's too late," because he fears that residents who live by West Hanover Avenue and Ketch Road aren't aware that they could also be impacted by Honeywell's redevelopment.

The township committee will decide on Wednesday if more public hearings are deemed necessary. Mayor Mancuso said he expects there to be more hearings until everyone gets the chance to have their voice heard.

"There's so much more to be said about this," Mancuso told Patch in July. "It's just a beginning of a process. You know that we will do everything we can as a township committee to do what's good for Morris Township."


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