Rug Mill Redevelopment Plan DOA?

The man the former rug mill in the center of Hightstown just weeks ago said Friday he no longer expects to be doing business with the borough.

Larry Regan, president of Ardsley, N.Y.-based Regan Development, has been working for months behind the scenes with borough officials, sketching out a plan to get the two remaining vacant buildings on Bank Street onto the National Register of Historic Places and turn them into between 85 and 89 affordable senior housing units. The plan would have included purchasing the property from current owner Wolfington Companies and ending that group's lawsuit against the borough. Regan brought the plan to the public at the council's Feb. 7 meeting, but he said Friday that his attorney had received a letter from the borough indicating the council would not support his proposal, and that he considered that the end of the matter.

"We're specialists at what we do, and what we do is affordable and workforce housing. And if it's not in the best interests, by the decision of the municipality, we wouldn't be pursuing it, certainly, and we wouldn't pursue any other type of development," he said.

At the Borough Council's Monday meeting, council members agreed they did not support Regan's initial proposal, which included a 30-year Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILOT) program starting at $45,000 per year. That’s more than the borough now gets from the property but less than most residents would like, according to several who spoke at the Feb. 7 meeting.

At this week’s meeting, all six council members said they didn’t think the plan was a good fit for the borough, and several took pains to tell the public it was only brought to their attention in the interest of transparency.

“I think that’s what our taxpayers want,” said Republican Councilwoman Skye Gilmartin, who asked residents to “appreciate that we are sharing things and not trying to do things, to quote people, ‘the way they’ve always been done.’

“My first thought [on the project] was, ‘Oh, great let’s do something,” she continued. “I’m an advocate for seniors, I don’t have a problem actually with middle and low-income senior housing, but I don’t think this is the project for here. I’d like to see a mix of rentals with owners and with retail and I’d like to see something that’s not a PILOT. Thirty years of PILOT is ridiculous for one of our most developable properties.”

Democrat Councilman Dimitri Musing said as one of just two large, developable properties in town, the rug mill requires careful consideration. “We should make sure we look very closely at how they will be developed,” he said. “It has to be a long-term solution that fits into the greater Hightstown as a whole. From what I’ve heard so far I’m not in favor of the proposal put forth at all.”

Democrat Larry Quattrone reacted to what he said were earlier negative comments he had received about the council allowing the matter to go before the public. “We could’ve held it in a back room, said, ‘Take a walk, we don’t want it,’ but no, we brought it to the town, we brought it to the council, and bingo, we get criticized for it,” he said.

“This is a major step forward as far as transparency on the part of the council,” said Democrat and Council President Isabel McGinty.

“I have great concerns about the low amount of funding that we’d bring in from this project and also the PILOT proposal aspect of it,” she said. But, she continued, she also supports senior housing in the borough, which is not a reason in and of itself to shoot down the project.

“Just to show down a proposal based on the nature of what is put forward, I think that would be a mistake,” McGinty said.

After the council came to an agreement, McGinty said she did not want to cut Regan out of the picture completely. “I would be concerned about shutting down entirely with Mr. Regan when I think Mr. Regan might have still some interest in coming back. I don’t think we want to be in a position of turning down any proposals that come forward,” she said.

But Regan said Friday he had interpreted the borough’s letter to mean his plans were not welcome here.

“They wrote my attorney a letter and no one's contacted me directly, so I need to take what’s coming from them as what they're saying. I haven't heard anything different, so I don't believe at this point they'd be supportive,” he said.

Asked about the possibility of doing a mixture of affordable and market-rate housing, an idea that had been floated at the earlier meeting, Regan said he didn’t think the council would accept that.

“I don't think that's of interest to them either, or else they would have come back to us and said that,” he said. “We're just assuming they don't want any type of affordable component. I think they were aware that we had offered them, if they were uncomfortable with 100 percent affordable housing, an alternative, and I don't think they're comfortable with that either or else they would have come back and said that. So we take their comments back to us as saying they're not interested.”

McGinty declined to comment Friday on Regan's latest statement.