Council Appoints Transit Village Planner

At the December 20th Mayor & Council meeting, the governing body appointed Topology NJ, LLC as a Special Planner to Perform Transit Village Community Visioning Special Planning Services. The Newark-based planning firm was appointed to complete Roselle Park’s Vision Plan within 12 months for $30,750 so it could apply to be designated as a Transit Village.

The Transit Village Initiative was created by the New Jersey Department Of Transportation (NJDOT) and NJ Transit to, according to their website, “bring more housing, businesses and people into the neighborhoods around transit stations” while increasing transit ridership (link). A designated Transit Village is a municipality that has worked on revitalizing and redeveloping the area around – in this case – the train station into mixed-use neighborhoods with a strong residential component using design standards of transit-oriented development (TOD).

A designated Transit Village provides a municipality with the following benefits:

Priority funding from some state agencies.
Technical assistance from some state agencies.
Eligibility for grants from the NJDOT.

A municipality is designated a Transit Village after it has met the Transit Village Criteria and completed a Transit Village application which includes a vision plan. As of 2017, there are 33 municipalities in the state that are designated as Transit Villages including Cranford, Elizabeth (Midtown), Linden, Plainfield, Rahway, and Summit.

Topology NJ in its proposal has laid out a four-phase plan – with time frames, objectives, and fees – to complete the borough’s objective:

Phase	Time Frame	Cost
1. Organize	2 Months	$1,500
Work Product: Draft Project Schedule Kickoff Meeting and Site Visit Template for Bimonthly Progress Report Project Brief Meetings (2) with Project Team and Coordination Committee to Develop Parameters for Neighborhood Snapshot Final Neighborhood Snapshot Working Meeting with Project Team and Coordination Committee to Draft Public Engagement and Communications Plan Final Engagement Strategy and Communication Plan
2. Learn	5 Months	$19,250
Work Product: Meeting with Coordination Committee Public Workshop #1 Public Workshop #2 Public Workshop #3 Field Engagement (four (4) stakeholder meetings) Final Neighborhood Snapshot Coordination Committee Meeting Draft Strategy Grid Public Workshop #4
3. Create	3 Months	$8,000
Work Product: Preferred Alternative Selection Process Preferred Alternative Development Meeting Draft Transit Village Community Vision Meeting Communications with Stakeholders and Participants Regarding Draft Master Plan Re-examination Final Public Workshop Final Plan Review Meeting
4. Finalize	1 Month	$2,000
Work Product: Borough Council Presentation Public Notice Planning Board Public Hearing Planning Board Adoption Hearing

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