Timeline

Kenvue’s departure has been in progress since 2024, but the operational end date matters on its own, and it is the reason the township leaned on hardest when it defended acting rather than waiting.

The township attorney said operations at the site end by the close of 2026. Mayor Singh put the numbers on the record the same night: a roughly $1.4 million annual gap in tax revenue, and E. Kahn Development signalling a tax appeal. That was not a surprise from nowhere. The developer’s own presenter told the Planning Board in September 2025 that the property was assessed at $41.6 million, was Montgomery’s second-largest tax generator, was over-assessed by more than 60 percent in his view, and that “a tax appeal will be coming,” which he estimated at a short-term reduction of $700,000 to $800,000 a year. It had in fact been filed months before the Committee met: the New Jersey Tax Court docketed an appeal of Lot 2’s 2026 assessment, in the four LLCs’ abbreviated names, on February 27, 2026 (docket 2026001145), and it was still open on October 23, 2026. The $1.4 million is about the whole annual tax bill on Lot 2, most of it school and county tax; see what the $1.4 million is.

Kenvue has been a tenant since the sale. Its quarterly SEC filings for 2026 report a separate cost line headed “Skillman sale-leaseback,” which is the lease that ends with operations.

This is the fiscal case the township made from the dais — the resolution itself recites only the statutory criteria, and the dais confirmed the same night that the study was the developer’s request — and it deserves to be stated as the township states it. A large ratable going quiet is a real municipal problem whatever one thinks of the remedy. It is also worth keeping in proportion: the appeal turns on what the property is worth, and the argument the presenter made for that was a use argument — a 1970s single-tenant office campus, he said, now trades at land value minus demolition. A redevelopment designation does not by itself replace a dollar of revenue either.

The filing. Case PB-11-26 is a “Preliminary and Final Major Subdivision of Lot 1, Block 34009”: Phase II of the Montgomery Promenade on Route 206. The applicant and owner is TGA SJC Montgomery Promenade Owner, LLC of Atlanta. The application gives December 31, 2021 as the date it acquired the property. Its attorney is Eric S. Goldstein, Esq. The application, signed September 18, 2026, proposes to divide the 27.786-acre lot into two:

	Lot A	Lot B
Area	18.452 acres	9.334 acres
Buildings	7	5
Floor area	87,756 sq ft	125,514 sq ft
Height	under 35 ft	under 55 ft
Impervious cover	about 66.67%	about 91.13%
Parking	1,044 spaces	330 spaces

The application lists the present and proposed use as “Mixed-Use - Commercial.” It cites an earlier subdivision approval (December 19, 2023) and a variance (October 10, 2022, case PB-02-22). The “variance requested” line is blank. The zone is the Planned Shopping Center Complex with its optional development alternative overlay. The township describes the original approval as 281,829 square feet of commercial space plus 34 single-family homes “that buffer the existing homes on Route 518.”

No hearing date yet. The October 12, 2026 Planning Board agenda lists the Promenade Phase II subdivision under “Future Agenda Items.” As of October 19, no hearing date had been posted, and no notice for PB-11-26 appeared on the township’s Public Notices page.

The October 15 public comment. A resident of Route 518 spoke during public comment for the Township Committee. The minutes for that meeting are not yet posted, so the account below comes from the meeting’s uncorrected captions. It is the speaker’s account; the developer’s side is not in the record.

• The resident said they and their neighbors have “agreements that we have with SJC Ventures, the Montgomery Promenade project.” The resident added that they are “very excited about this project” and “very happy about the ring roads.”
• The resident said the developer has “kind of gone outside of the guidelines of the agreements,” and that the developer’s attorney, “Mr. Goldstein, back in 2019,” said “they not only would honor to the letter, but also would be transferable” to future owners of the neighboring homes. The resident later described that statement as made “on record under oath.”
• The specific complaints: a berm built “in the wrong place”; a boundary fence that was “supposed to be installed at the same time or before the sewer line” but went in “a few months after”; and a fence that was not “24in off of our back property line as the agreement state” and “is the wrong style of fence.”
• The resident said a developer representative had said “your agreements are more of a guideline. They’re not really a legal document.” The resident said they have retained another attorney.

When the three-minute limit ran out, a voice from the dais said “we definitely want to make sure that we help our residents” and asked the resident to “please leave that with the clerk.” The Committee took no action, as is usual during public comment.

What is not yet known. This site has not seen the neighbor agreements. It has found no Planning Board action on the project in 2019; the current developer’s first application on record was heard on December 13, 2021 (that entry). Nor has it found a record of the statement the resident described, or any response from the developer or the township. The resident did not mention PB-11-26, and nothing in the record shows whether the agreements bear on the Phase II subdivision.

What residents can do. Watch the Planning Board agendas. The Board generally meets the 2nd and 4th Monday at 7 p.m. (live calendar). Watch the Public Notices page for a PB-11-26 hearing notice. The application and plat are posted on the project page. At the hearing, members of the public may ask questions and comment.

The plan so far. On November 13, 2025 the Township Administrator described the Cherry Valley tower as Phase 2 of a township effort to improve cell service. Phase 1 was a tower at the municipal complex. The proposed site is the township-owned Cherry Valley Treatment Plant property in the southwest of the township. A drone photo study tested a monopole and a “tree pole” at heights of 120 to 150 feet from 15 street locations.

That night the Committee voted 5-0 to seek sealed bids to lease about 2,500 square feet of Block 31001, Lot 191 (192 Inverness Drive) for a wireless tower (Res. #25-11-373). The resolution finds “substantial gaps in wireless communications service and emergency services communications coverage in Skillman.” The winning bidder would build the tower at its own expense, the township could put its own antennas on it, and the minimum rent bid was set at $44,000. Several Cherry Valley and Clubside residents spoke in support. They described dropped calls, including during a medical emergency.

October 15, 2026. Mayor Singh reported that she and the Administrator attended a Cherry Valley homeowners’ association listening session on October 8. Residents raised “the issue they have with cell service.” She said “there is definitely an effort by the township to get a cell tower there.” Later, according to the uncorrected captions, she said:

The cell tower can only go up when we have someone who’s going to lease. At this point … we don’t have anyone who’s taken a lease.

She said residents had been asked to help by writing to the FCC, and that the township would do the same. Committee Member Martin, a Cherry Valley resident, said residents are “looking forward to the new … cell tower.”

What came of the bids. Two bids came in under the November 2025 resolution. The Committee rejected both on January 22, 2026 and re-bid the lease (that entry), then awarded it on March 19, 2026 to Wireless Edge Towers III, LLC (that entry).

What is not yet known. Whom the Mayor meant by “anyone who’s taken a lease,” whether the Wireless Edge lease has been signed, and when construction could start.

Related. The same treatment plant is due to be decommissioned under the township’s wastewater consolidation project (see that entry). The record does not say how the two projects relate.

What residents can do. The Mayor asked affected residents to describe the coverage problem to the FCC. Any lease would have to come before the Township Committee in public.

The project. On September 3, 2026, the Township Committee authorized an application to the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs for a grant of “approximately $600,000.00” (Res. #26-9-231, adopted 5-0 on the consent agenda). The resolution describes the project:

to decommission the aging Cherry Valley Wastewater Treatment Plant and transfer flows to the Skillman Village Wastewater Treatment Plant via a new 18,000-foot force main and pump station upgrades. This project will improve wastewater treatment efficiency, reduce operational costs, and eliminate discharge into Bedens Brook.

The resolution notes that the state “may offer a lesser or greater amount.”

October 15, 2026. The meeting opened with an agenda item titled “NJ Assembly, District 16, Check Presentation Fiscal Year 2027 Funding for Wastewater Treatment Consolidation Project.” Mayor Singh thanked the district’s legislators, Senator Andrew Zwicker and Assembly members Roy Freiman and Mitchelle Drulis, for “this appropriation.” She said it would “improve reliability, protect water quality and ensure sustainable wastewater services” (uncorrected captions; the caption spellings of the names vary). Later in the meeting the Deputy Mayor said she was “really excited about the check we just received for the wastewater improvements.”

What is not yet known.

• The amount presented. It is not on the agenda and was not said aloud on the record. The state’s fiscal 2027 Appropriations Act does carry a $600,000 line, under Department of Community Affairs state aid, for “Township of Montgomery – Wastewater Treatment Plant Consolidation” (the budget entry), matching the department and amount of the township’s September application. The township has not said on the record that this is the money presented.
• The schedule and the route of the new force main. The township has put the project’s cost at $15 million; see the issue page.
• The October 15 minutes have not yet been posted. They may record the amount.

Related. The Cherry Valley plant property is also the proposed site of the township’s Cherry Valley cell tower (see that entry). The record does not say how the two projects relate.

What residents can do. Watch for the posted October 15 minutes and for any grant-acceptance resolution or construction contract, which would come before the Township Committee in public. The amount, cost and schedule can be asked about during public comment at any regular meeting. The remaining 2026 dates are November 12, December 3 and December 17 (live calendar).

Background. Montgomery runs a managed hunting program on designated township open space. It began in 2001, when, according to the township, an infrared survey found about 88 deer per square mile, against roughly 10 considered sustainable. The township’s program page cites deer-related car crashes (an average of 105 reported per year over 15 years) and tick-borne disease as reasons for the program. The 2026-27 season runs from September to February.

September 3, 2026. Committee Member Martin, liaison to the Wildlife Management Committee, reported “concerns raised about an increasing deer population in the Township and health implications from deer ticks.” He said “the concerns and possibility of a deer study in 2027 are being looked into” (minutes). On the video he added that the increase “hasn’t been verified through any kind of study” and that, with no grant money this year, a study “may have to wait until next year” (uncorrected captions). The same night the Committee voted 5-0 to add hunting areas (Res. #26-9-240): one more permit on the “Opatut” tract, and a new bow-only tract, P24 “Dutchtown,” on land recently donated to the township.

October 14, 2026: Board of Health. The agenda listed “an email … sent in by a resident regarding deer population concerns.” According to the meeting’s uncorrected captions:

• The letter asked the Board to “pass a resolution urging Township Committee to take action to decrease the deer population.”
• Members asked what data exists on tick-borne illness and deer collisions. A speaker said tick-borne diseases are “the largest segment of all of our communicable diseases” and the top subject of requests for education.
• One participant argued that culling, contraception and pesticide feeders are expensive and must be repeated, and that “prevention is what you need to do.” Others suggested checking what Princeton does and asking for the results of the township’s 2025 drone survey of the deer population.
• The Board did not vote on a resolution (“we’re not going to vote”). The concern went to the Township Committee through its liaison, Committee Member Herring.

October 15, 2026: Township Committee. Herring reported that the Board of Health had “correspondence from residents expressing concern about Montgomery’s deer population impact on public health.” He said the Board “was going to urge that the town look into additional ways to reduce the deer population” (uncorrected captions). The Board’s own agenda lists a single resident’s email.

What is not yet known. No 2027 deer study has been proposed, priced or scheduled in public. The 2025 drone survey’s count, 3,017 deer or about 93 per square mile, is in the August 21, 2025 Committee minutes, but the survey’s written report has not been posted. The Board of Health’s October 14 minutes are not yet posted.

What residents can do. The Board of Health takes public comment at its meetings, and the Township Committee takes public comment at each regular meeting (remaining 2026 dates: November 12, December 3 and December 17; live calendar). Hunting locations are on the Deer Management Program page.

The proposal. The notice says the Park Commission proposes “to change the purpose or use of 1.2 acres of Skillman Park (Block 26001, Lot 1.10 …) from open space/parkland to a park maintenance facility.” The facility is “a new 2,730 square-foot maintenance building with an associated parking lot and a bioretention basin.” It would contain “an office, three garage bays, a kitchenette, a restroom and storage space.” Because the land is public parkland, the change goes through the state’s Green Acres rules (N.J.A.C. 7:36-25.6), which require this hearing.

Where. On September 3 the township administrator said it would sit “in the vicinity of the former Maplewood house in the southern boundary of the property to the east of the Village School; not visible from the road.” The concept, the administrator said, is “to centralize operations at this facility and not use the Dairy Farm buildings.”

Township action. On October 1 the Township Committee voted 5-0 for Resolution #26-10-273, reserving 150 gallons per day of capacity at the Skillman Village Sewage Treatment Plant for the building. The Park Commission had already paid the $7,714.50 capacity charge.

What was said. The hearing was held at 6 p.m. in Room 117 of the Municipal Building. No transcript or summary has been posted. At the October 15 Township Committee meeting, a committee member who attended reported, according to the uncorrected captions, that the county said its crews are now at “THE DAIRY FARM. AND THE DAIRY FARM IS … FALLING APART,” and that the building was placed “WHERE YOU’RE NOT GOING TO REALLY SEE MUCH OF THE BUILDING.” The member also asked again for “BATHROOMS THAT WE’VE BEEN ASKING FOR THREE YEARS FROM THE COUNTY” as “A PHASE TWO ASPECT.” Another member said they had heard no objections from the Environmental Commission.

How to comment. Send written comments by October 27, 2026 to the Director, Somerset County Park Commission, 355 Milltown Road, Bridgewater, NJ 08807, (908) 722-1200 ext. 5258. Send a copy to the NJDEP Office of Transactions and Public Land Administration, Public Land Compliance Section, 401 East State Street, 7th Floor, Mail Code 401-07, P.O. Box 420, Trenton, NJ 08625-0420, Attn: Somerset County Compliance Officer. The application file can be inspected at the County Engineer’s office, 20 Grove Street, Somerville.

“The number one concern that we found through community engagement is related to mobility,” Kenyon said: residents said getting in and out of and around Montgomery is difficult. Other concerns were “housing affordability,” “aging in place” and “air and water quality over time due to overdevelopment.” Residents also asked about connecting existing homes to public water and sewer, and about a shuttle or bus link to Mercer County.

The report will add a new section on “improving public health through land use planning.” A Board member asked how it would interact with areas in need of redevelopment, where the zoning in effect is set aside. Kenyon said the report can recommend amending zoning or find it adequate, and that she would work with the township on the redevelopment section. Neither her September 28 nor her October 12 presentation mentioned the Kenvue site.

“We’re looking to complete the re exam by the beginning of November,” she said. She thought the Board would take it up in early December; the township calendar shows one December Planning Board meeting, December 14. Adoption needs a noticed public hearing.

Quotations come from the township’s uncorrected closed captions.

What happened. The Planning Board held its public hearing on the plan on September 28 and carried the vote to October 12. On October 12 it adopted “Montgomery Township’s Comprehensive Municipal Farmland Preservation Plan” dated August 2026 “as an element to the Montgomery Township Master Plan.” According to the meeting’s uncorrected captions, no board member had questions before the roll call. At the October 15 Township Committee meeting, the committee member who reported for the Agricultural Advisory Committee thanked the Board, calling the plan “a big multi year project.”

What the plan says (from the plan itself):

• Of the township’s 20,646.40 acres, 3,698.50 acres (17.79%) are identified as farmland. The plan notes that “more than half of existing farmland has been lost over the last thirty years,” mostly from the late 1980s to the mid-1990s.
• 2,281.63 acres are preserved in perpetuity on 34 farms, up from 1,136 acres in 2010. The plan gives different totals for spending on farmland preservation in the township in different places, from $13,720,035.03 “according to municipal records” to “over $16,161,737.62” from all sources.
• 852.99 acres are “targeted farms”: land that meets state soil and tillability criteria and sits in the planning-incentive project areas where preservation is a priority.
• Land in farmland assessment fell from 5,594 acres in 2010 to 4,364.32 acres in the 2024 data.
• For its one-, five- and ten-year projections, the plan uses $25,000 per acre, a figure derived from Somerset County’s range of costs.

What board members raised. At the September 28 hearing, as reported by The Montgomery News, Planning Board member Paul Blodgett said: “We are increasing the amount of farmland that we preserve, but the amount of land that’s actually farmed is going down.” He also said most fields are in hay. He asked whether the plan could do more for small farms and for food security. The township’s consultant suggested sending his food-security comments to the state.

What this does and does not do. A Master Plan element sets policy and priorities. It does not preserve any farm by itself. Each preservation still needs a willing landowner, funding from state, county and township sources, and approval in a public meeting. The plan lists the targeted farms in Attachment C and maps the project areas on Map #15.

What residents can do. The full plan (254 pages) is posted on the township website. Landowners can check whether their land appears in Attachment C. Questions about preservation go to the township’s Open Space & Stewardship office, which presented the plan with the township’s consultant.

The planner, Tara Kenyon, told the Planning Board on October 12: “We just had our last community listening session on October 8th.” She said all the data and all the community engagement were done, and that the community survey had just closed.

From here, public input goes through the Planning Board. The township has not posted the survey results, a summary of the listening sessions or Kenyon’s slides. See the reexamination, explained.

Quotations come from the township’s uncorrected closed captions.

Two different things share a name. This entry is about Orchard Road, the street that runs past the Municipal Center and Orchard Hill Elementary School. It is unrelated to the 23 Orchard Road redevelopment, which concerns a vacant office building and is covered elsewhere on this timeline.

What the township has approved. On August 20, 2026 the Township Committee hired Menlo Engineering Associates for the “Orchard Road Phases 2 - 4 Reconstruction, Pedestrian Route and Bicycle Lanes Extension Project” (Res. #26-8-223). The vote was 4-0, with Deputy Mayor Taylor Todd absent. The resolution describes:

• reconstruction of “approximately one (1) mile of Orchard Road” between Community Drive and Burnt Hill Road, “while generally maintaining the existing roadway width and horizontal alignment”;
• pedestrian and bicycle facilities, stormwater and drainage repairs, safety and ADA work, utility work and signage;
• “right-of-way acquisition” as part of the project scope;
• one continuous design, split into New Jersey Department of Transportation Municipal Aid phases: “Phases 2 (2026 award), 3 and 4 (2027 and 2028 anticipated)”.

Menlo proposed $403,165. The township left out construction-phase services ($24,000), so the contract is capped at $379,165 for design, surveying, right-of-way support, permitting, grant help and bid documents.

The phases are already moving. Phase 2, Community Drive to Opossum Road, received a 2026 Municipal Aid grant. On July 16, 2026 the Committee authorized the application for Phase 3, Opossum Road to Lilac Way (Res. #26-7-207). Four members voted yes and Committee Member Herring abstained.

What residents were shown. According to Headline News Montgomery, which cited the township, the October 5 open house (4 to 7 p.m.) covered:

• repaving and reconstruction;
• sidewalks along the south side of the road and in front of Orchard Hill Elementary;
• an improved crossing at Autumn Lane;
• shared bicycle markings.

The same report says survey crews will work along the road and “within the front-yard areas of adjacent properties,” and that more public meetings will be held as the design progresses. A township GIS map shows the proposed sidewalk running from the Municipal Center to Burnt Hill Road.

What is not yet known. The record this site reviewed gives no construction cost estimate, no grant amounts and no construction start date. It does not say which properties, if any, would lose land to right-of-way acquisition. No account of what residents said on October 5 has been published.

What residents can do. Headline News Montgomery reports that questions go to Township Engineer Mark Herrmann at 908-213-5901, and that the township recommends booking an appointment before visiting the engineering office. Owners along the corridor can expect survey crews and should watch for the further public meetings the township has promised. Any land acquisition would have to come before the Township Committee in public.

Why a new plan. The Open Space and Stewardship Director told the Board that updating the plan keeps the township eligible for the State Agriculture Development Committee’s Planning Incentive Grant program. According to the uncorrected captions, the director said the state “PROVIDE[S] 60% OF THE FUNDING FOR FARMLAND PRESERVATION. THE COUNTY PROVIDES 20%, AND THEN THE TOWNSHIP ONLY NEEDS TO PROVIDE 20%.” Work began with a 2021 state grant. A draft went to the state around 2023, and the township “WAITED ABOUT TWO YEARS FOR THE STATE’S FEEDBACK.”

What the consultant presented. The plan counts about 2,281 preserved acres and 852.99 targeted acres. Its goals are 170.6 acres by the end of 2027, then about 341 acres by 2031 and another 341.2 by 2036, at a projected $25,000 an acre. The consultant added: “THERE IS NO MANDATE THAT WE HAVE TO ABSOLUTELY MEET THESE GOALS.” Asked what preservation means, the consultant said “THE LANDOWNER, THE FARMER STILL OWNS THE LAND … WE BUY AN EASEMENT … IT CAN ONLY BE USED AS AGRICULTURE IN PERPETUITY.”

What members raised. Member Paul Blodgett, named by The Montgomery News, said the township is preserving more farmland while “THE LAND THAT’S ACTUALLY FARMED IS ACTUALLY GOING DOWN,” that most fields are in hay, and that Montgomery has many small farms. The member asked whether the plan could address food security. The consultant said there is “NO MANDATE FOR THAT” and suggested sending the idea to the state. Asked why farmed acreage is falling, township staff answered: “IT’S DEVELOPMENT PRESSURE, FRANKLY,” describing landowners who held land under farmland assessment until they could develop it.

Public comment. One resident suggested the township give priority to food crops on the township-owned land it leases to farmers. No one else spoke.

The deferral. The director said the Agricultural Advisory Committee had reviewed the plan again about two weeks earlier and urged adoption. Several members said they had not had time to read the plan, and the Chair carried the vote to October 12. The Board adopted the plan that night.

What the minutes record. Under new and unfinished business, item “State Lands – Montgomery Township School District,” the superintendent and the Board of Education vice president “appeared before the Township Committee to formally express the District’s interest in the parcel of land located adjacent to the athletic stadium which the Township is considering acquiring from the New Jersey Department of Corrections along with other parcels.” The minutes record no action.

Context. The township’s March 2026 presentation described a 188-acre Route 601 parcel that “wraps around Montgomery High School” (March 5 entry). The district’s request is one of several outside interests in the land put on the record in 2026. In July, the animal shelter SAVE described its interest in adjacent land if it becomes available (July 16 entry).

Not yet known. How much land the district wants, for what use, and whether that use would fit the township’s Green Acres application, which keeps preserved land as open space.

Resolution #26-9-259 authorizes an escrow funding agreement with GTP Acquisitions, LLC for the Country Club Meadows Redevelopment, the undeveloped portion of Block 4020, Lot 1, designated a non-condemnation redevelopment area in June 2024. It describes the project as 48 assisted living, 28 memory care, 36 independent/assisted living units and 84 independent living garden villas.

The resolution says GTP “informed the Township that it would make application for a long-term tax exemption pursuant to N.J.S.A. 40A:20-1 et seq. to assure the success of the Project.” The escrow covers “consideration of the Entity’s application for long-term tax exemption” and related redevelopment work, and the township gives no “assurance of a particular result.”

It passed 4-0: Herring, Ahn, Deputy Mayor Taylor Todd and Mayor Singh in favor, Committee Member Martin absent.

A Long Term Tax Exemption PILOT takes effect only by ordinance. The October 1 and October 15, 2026 agendas each said, “There are no ordinances for introduction.” See PILOTs in Montgomery, explained.

This entry fills in a gap this site has flagged for months. The amended plan’s arithmetic rests on Pike Run: extending expiring affordability controls on 96 of its 210 affordable family rentals earns 144 credits, and that is what let the township drop the Kenvue site. In June 2025 the owner would not agree to an extension; by November 2025 there was an agreement in principle. The adopted plan never says what changed.

On September 14, 2026, Township Administrator and Planning Director Lori Savron gave the Planning Board an update on the “Transit Commercial” site — a parcel left over from the township’s 2014 Country Club Meadows settlement, near Route 206 and Pike Run Road, long earmarked for a park-and-ride. Her account, from the meeting’s uncorrected captions:

• Through the amended Fourth Round plan, the township “identified the transit commercial site as a viable option to develop what would be the offset to the extension of those 96 apartments.”
• The project is 189 market-rate apartments, currently being discussed as “Belle Mead Station” — mostly two-bedroom (118) with 71 three-bedroom units, in three-storey buildings.
• No new affordable housing would be built there; “the affordable component would come through the extension of controls,” which she described as a greater-than-20 percent set-aside.
• The developer would build the park-and-ride, with access to the rail line for any future reactivation of West Trenton commuter service.
• Next steps: finalise the concept plan, then draft zoning regulations for it — which the Township Committee, not the Planning Board, adopts.

The adopted plan mentions the project only once, in a sentence about expected development: “a 189-unit residential development in the Belle Mead portion of the Township.” It does not connect those units to the Pike Run extension. The September 14 presentation does.

Savron did not name the developer, but the record already had. On April 30, 2026 the Township Committee authorized a memorandum of agreement with Country Club Meadows, LLC and Pike Run II, LLC — the owner of Pike Run — supporting the 189 units “in exchange for the extension of affordability controls at Pike Run” (the April 30 entry). The zoning for Belle Mead Station has not been introduced. When it is, it will come to the Township Committee as an ordinance with a public hearing.

The agenda listed Case PB-04-26 as “Preliminary and Final Major Site Plan w/ Variance.” In the uncorrected captions, the board attorney asked for two changes before adoption:

• On page two, the summary of PSE&G’s testimony should make clear that “it’s the lines coming into the substation that will be underground. The lines to the approximately 6000 residents who will be served will not be underground.”
• In the last paragraph, “clarify that it is preliminary and final major site plan approval.”

The board adopted the resolution with those changes on a roll call. The captions record only a string of “yes” votes and do not name members.

The township’s Notice of Decision for the same night describes the case as “preliminary and final minor site plan approval with variances and design waivers for the construction of a Class H electrical substation facility.” It appears to repeat the wording the attorney corrected. The adopted resolution is not online. The notice says it is “filed in the office of the Planning/Zoning Department” and open for inspection. Minutes of the September 14 meeting had not been posted as of October 23, 2026.

The resolution. Resolution #26-9-231 describes the project as:

to decommission the aging Cherry Valley Wastewater Treatment Plant and transfer flows to the Skillman Village Wastewater Treatment Plant via a new 18,000-foot force main and pump station upgrades. This project will improve wastewater treatment efficiency, reduce operational costs, and eliminate discharge into Bedens Brook, enhancing environmental water quality.

It accepts that the state “may offer a lesser or greater amount.” It also authorizes the Township Administrator to sign the grant agreement and the township to spend the funds once the agreement is signed.

The vote. It passed with Resolutions #26-9-228 through #26-9-234 on the consent agenda, 5-0 (Herring, Martin, Ahn, Deputy Mayor Taylor Todd, Mayor Singh). It was not discussed separately.

Context. The state budget signed on June 30 already contained a $600,000 line for this project under the same department.

The report. The minutes say Committee Member Martin, liaison to the Wildlife Management Committee, “shared that there have been concerns raised about an increasing deer population in the Township and health implications from deer ticks” and that “the concerns and possibility of a deer study in 2027 are being looked into.” On video he described “at least anecdotally, some reports of … an increasing deer population,” and said “that hasn’t been verified through any kind of study.” He added: “We don’t have … grant funding this year like we have in previous years to conduct a deer population study … that may have to wait until next year” (uncorrected captions).

Resolution #26-9-240, amending Resolution #26-4-141:

• adds a twelfth permit on the “Opatut” property;
• corrects a clerical error so that provisional property P11, “Stage II,” is bow only;
• adds provisional property P24 “Dutchtown” (Block 15001, Lots 99–108, and listed lots in Block 15015), with one permit, no youth permit, bow only. The minutes say the township acquired the land on July 25, 2026.

It passed 5-0. When a Committee member asked whether more land could be added, the Administrator said the Open Space and Wildlife committees review new and donated properties every year.

What is not known. No study has been proposed, priced or funded in public. The last count, in 2025, found about 93 deer per square mile (August 21, 2025).

The appointment was ratified at the September 3, 2026 meeting: Resolution #26-9-227 appointed Minchello effective August 25 through December 31, 2026, and Resolution #26-9-237 set his contract at not to exceed $150,000 for that period. Both passed 5-0.

The change matters for reading this site. Before August 2026, “the township attorney” on these pages is Wendy Rubinstein Quiroga — including the December 4, 2025 announcement that Kenvue was coming out of the plan and the August 20, 2026 statement that the “$300 million” figure was a mistake. (At Planning Board meetings, the attorney speaking is the Board’s own counsel, Karen Cayci.) From September 2026 it is David Minchello, who gave the September 17 legal updates on the housing case, the redevelopment study and the data-center suit.

Rubinstein Quiroga did not leave the matters this site follows. Resolution #26-8-225 appointed her Special Projects/Affordable Housing Attorney from August 20 through the end of 2026, and Headline News Montgomery reported the township administrator as saying she continues in affordable housing and redevelopment matters.

What the resolution says. Resolution #26-8-223 describes the project as “reconstruction of approximately one (1) mile of Orchard Road, while generally maintaining the existing roadway width and horizontal alignment.” The work comes “together with the construction of pedestrian and bicycle facilities and associated stormwater management, drainage infrastructure repairs, safety enhancements, ADA provisions, right-of-way acquisition, utility work, traffic signage, pavement markings, and other improvements.” The design is “a single, continuous design,” with construction documents split by grant phase: “Phases 2 (2026 award), 3 and 4 (2027 and 2028 anticipated).”

The money. Menlo proposed $403,165 across 16 tasks. The township left out Task 14, construction-phase services ($24,000), so the contract is capped at $379,165 and “may be amended by change order.” It was awarded without public bidding as a professional-services contract, for a 12-month term. The finance officer certified funds from four accounts. Three are capital accounts, one of which also paid for the 2023 Phase 1 construction. Menlo is already one of the township’s appointed consulting engineers for 2026.

The vote. Committee Member Ahn moved it and Committee Member Martin seconded. It passed 4-0, with Deputy Mayor Taylor Todd absent. The item takes under a minute of the video, and the meeting has no captions.

Public inspection. The resolution says Menlo’s proposal, the certification of funds and the contract “shall be placed on file in the Office of the Township Clerk, and shall be available for public inspection.”

What the ordinance says. Harlingen Associates LLC owns Block 6001 Lot 33.03 “on a Final Plat prepared for Country Classics at Montgomery, dated 1/17/2023, revised 11/14/2025, filed at the Somerset County Clerk’s Office on 5/12/2026,” “located off of proposed Dayflower Drive, and comprising 8.868 acres ±,” and “has offered to donate the Property to the Township.” The township accepts it under N.J.S.A. 40A:12-5, which allows a municipality to acquire land by gift.

The votes. Introduced August 6 with yes votes from Herring, Martin and Mayor Singh; Ahn and Deputy Mayor Taylor Todd absent. Adopted August 20 with yes votes from Herring, Martin, Ahn and Mayor Singh; Deputy Mayor Taylor Todd was absent. The minutes record: “There was no public comment.”

Where the land comes from. Country Classics at Montgomery (Planning Board case PB-07-20) is a 54-unit development: 36 market-rate townhomes, 11 affordable apartments and 7 market-rate apartments. When the Committee approved its easements in December 2025, the resolution referred to “the proposed open space and pump station lots anticipated to be dedicated to the Township.” The gift appears to be that open-space lot.

Not yet known. Whether title has closed, and whether the lot will be listed on the township’s Green Acres inventory of restricted open space.

What was approved. Case PB-04-26 asked for site plan approval, with variances and design waivers, for an electrical substation at 151 Trent Place (Block 4001, Lot 26.01). The 7.1-acre lot is in the Limited Manufacturing zone, where “public utility use is conditionally permitted.” It was created by an earlier minor subdivision and later bought by PSE&G. The township’s project page calls the facility the “Harlingen Class H Substation.”

Why PSE&G says it is needed. PSE&G’s project manager testified that the substation is intended to:

• “alleviate existing capacity constraints at the Sunnymead and Mount Rose substations”;
• “accommodate anticipated increases in electrical demand, including electric vehicle growth”;
• “provide capacity for approximately 35 MW of solar generation.”

It would serve “approximately 6,000 customers in the area, including East Mountain Hospital and the Carrier Clinic.” Board members asked whether expanding the existing substations had been considered. PSE&G answered that the site came out of its long-term planning and would cover both current constraints and future demand. The minutes do not tie the project to any single large customer.

What it will look like (from the minutes):

• An “unmanned 69/13 kV substation” with transformers, switchgear, a control house and security cameras. It will be monitored remotely around the clock. About two PSE&G employees will visit weekly for 20 to 45 minutes.
• A 10-foot security fence and a retaining wall up to about 7 feet.
• Bioretention basins for stormwater, and a sidewalk along the frontage.
• 264 new trees and evergreen buffers expected to reach 40 to 60 feet.
• Lighting shielded downward and on from dusk to dawn. Upward lighting stays off except during nighttime emergency work.

The relief granted covered setbacks for the mobile-transformer pad and accessory structures, crushed stone in buffer areas, the 7-foot wall, and disturbance in a critical area for the sidewalk.

Timing. “Construction was anticipated to begin in approximately June 2027 and continue for approximately two and one-half years, with completion anticipated by the end of 2029.”

The vote and public input. A motion to approve with conditions passed 5-0. Voting yes were Chair Campeas, Khan, Mayor Singh, Glockler and Sharma. One member of the public, T. Kharrubi, asked where PSE&G would tap the water line for a new hydrant the Fire Marshal had recommended. He was told the Fire Official would decide. No objections are recorded.

A paperwork discrepancy. The minutes describe the application as a “Preliminary and Final Major Site Plan.” The Notice of Decision for the resolution memorialized on September 14, 2026 calls it a “preliminary and final minor site plan.” The resolution itself is on file in the Planning/Zoning office. As of October 19 the project page still listed the project as “Proposed.” The Board’s attorney had corrected the draft to “major” before the vote; see the September 14 entry.

What residents can do. The approval is final at the local level. Residents with questions about construction can follow the project page, which links to the application’s files and resources. Construction is not expected before mid-2027.

What it is. The Montgomery Township Police Department uses automated license-plate recognition (ALPR) cameras from Flock Safety. Fixed cameras on poles read plates and timestamp them. On August 6, 2026, at the Committee’s request, a police lieutenant presented the program. Three members were present: Mayor Singh and Committee Members Martin and Herring. Deputy Mayor Taylor Todd and Committee Member Ahn were absent.

The program, as described (from the uncorrected captions):

• The department began with Flock software only. In September 2023 it bought four fixed cameras and one portable camera, and added fixed cameras in November 2024 and September 2025. It now runs six fixed cameras and one movable, battery-powered camera.
• The cameras are leased, not owned. The lieutenant gave a cost of $3,000 a year per camera ($3,500 for the portable one) and about $25,000 a year in total, including the extended data retention the state requires.
• The department runs a public transparency portal, linked from the police department’s page, showing its policies, camera count, searches and plate reads over the last 30 days.

Questions from the Committee. Committee Member Martin read questions on behalf of the absent Committee Member Ahn: reports of misuse by other police departments, whether use is limited to stolen vehicles, whether retention “can … be limited to six months,” where the data is stored and how it is secured, and how to limit outside agencies’ access. Martin also asked whether the data can be shared outside New Jersey, and whether the system is “worth the investment.” Committee Member Herring cited the department’s transparency portal, which showed about 252,000 plates read in Montgomery in the previous 30 days (captions; the minutes record his remark as about “the Flock System in New Jersey”).

The answers, as recorded in the minutes:

• “The data retention period is three years per the Attorney General’s Policy and the Township does not have the authority to change that period.” In the captions the lieutenant added that any change “would have to come from the State.”
• Uses include stolen vehicles, Amber alerts, missing persons “and any other criminal investigations.” A search requires “a valid case number” and cannot be arbitrary. Audits check use, and violations are handled by Internal Affairs and reported to the State Police.
• Data is stored in the cloud by Flock, under State Police security vetting. “Per State policy, the Department is only allowed to share data with other NJ agencies.” The minutes also record that “the PD has access to the national system so any information within will be shared nationally,” without further explanation.
• The cameras “only read the license plate and provide a time stamp”; there is no data on “who is in the vehicle.”

The police chief called the system “a very small price to pay for the safety of this community.” During public comment, resident Biren Saraiya asked what share of searches is audited and whether audits are internal or done by the Attorney General’s office. The minutes do not record an answer.

What is not yet known. The Committee took no action. The program does not appear in the later Township Committee minutes and agendas this site reviewed, through October 15. The minutes do not say whether the six-month retention question, or the out-of-state sharing question, will be taken up with the state.

What residents can do. The transparency portal is public. Questions can be raised at public comment during any Township Committee meeting. Meetings are generally held on the 1st and 3rd Thursday at 7 p.m., and the remaining 2026 dates are November 12, December 3 and December 17 (live calendar). The retention period is set by the state Attorney General, not the township.

What the township announced. The township’s News Flash, posted August 4, 2026, said:

• “Friday August 7: Nevius Boulevard and Bolmer Corner are expected to open to the public. No stores will be open at this time.”
• “Monday, August 10: Village Drive is tentatively scheduled to open.”
• “The restriction on left turns from Route 206 onto Route 518 will not be implemented immediately. The timing for that restriction will be provided at a later date. The intent is to give drivers an opportunity to become familiar with the loop roads before the turn restriction takes effect.”

The first loop road, Brecknell Way, opened in April 2024, according to the township. At the August 6 Committee meeting the dates were repeated: “Nevius on Friday and Village would be on the 10th” (uncorrected captions).

What will change. The township says that once the restriction starts, drivers will no longer turn left directly from Route 206 onto Route 518. Northbound drivers are to use Nevius Boulevard or Village Drive. Southbound drivers are to use Bolmer Corner. Right turns onto Route 518 do not change.

Who orders it. Route 206 is a state highway. In a June 18, 2026 resolution about a different Route 206 driveway, the township wrote that turn prohibitions require the New Jersey Department of Transportation “to promulgate a Traffic Regulation Order,” after a “Resolution of support from the municipal governing body.” This site found no such resolution for Route 206 and Route 518 in the Committee minutes posted through October 1, 2026.

Since then. On September 17, 2026, the Committee was told the Transportation Advisory Committee is collecting feedback on the loop roads and working with the state on Route 206 and the county on Route 518 on “signage and the timing of lights and other potential adjustments.” See the explainer.

What the resolution says. Resolution #26-7-207 approved application “MA-2027-Orchard Road Phase 3: Reconstruction-00594.” It covers “pavement rehabilitation, pedestrian route extension, shared-use lane bicycle accommodations, signage, striping, stormwater improvements, and miscellaneous construction on portions of Orchard Road between Opossum Road and Lilac Way.” It calls the application “a continuation” of the Phase 2 grant for Community Drive to Opossum Road. It cites the township’s Master Plan goals and Complete Streets Policy. It also cites “extending pedestrian access between the Municipal Center and schools, parks, recreational facilities, neighborhoods, transit, and other community destinations.”

What was said. According to the uncorrected captions, staff explained that state funding “doesn’t always cover the entire cost of the project.” “Stacking the applications over time” was meant to “make up for that amount,” as the township had done on Township Line Road. On bicycles, staff said: “I don’t think it’ll be a dedicated lane because we scaled back the full scope of the project.”

The vote. It passed 4-0, with Committee Member Herring abstaining. Herring was appointed to the Committee at this same meeting and abstained on every roll call that night. No reason is recorded, so the abstention says nothing about this project in particular.

What comes next. NJDOT took fiscal 2027 applications until July 1, 2026 and expects to announce awards in November. Phase 4, from Lilac Way to Burnt Hill Road, is “2028 anticipated.”

The Montgomery News reported that Committee Member Patricia Taylor Todd nominated Herring, Dennis Ahn seconded, and the vote was unanimous; Mayor Neena Singh administered the oath the same night. Herring is a local attorney and a volunteer crew chief and EMT with Montgomery Emergency Medical Services. The township’s own minutes for July 16 had not been posted when this entry was written; the August 6, 2026 minutes list him on the roll call.

Under New Jersey’s vacancy law the appointee serves only until the next general election, and Herring told the paper he would run in November for the two years that remain of the term Barragan won in 2025. Republican Chris Venis said he would also run for that seat. See the 2026 election page for the full ballot.

For this site’s vote counts, the appointment marks the line between two kinds of 4-0. Votes on June 18, 2026 were 4-0 because the seat was empty. Votes on September 17, 2026 were 4-0 because Committeeman Mike Martin was absent; Herring voted in every roll call that night.

Resolution #26-7-209 says the township applied under the county’s Open Space Preservation Grant Program “for funds to assist in the acquisition of the ‘Forbes/Rader’ property, known as Block 13001, Lot 21, located at 690 Route 601.” It says the county “has approved the Township’s application, and has awarded $125,000.00 toward the cost of the Township’s acquisition of the property, subject to the execution of a grant agreement.” The Committee authorized township officials to sign it.

The vote. Moved by Deputy Mayor Taylor Todd and seconded by Ahn. Martin, Ahn, Deputy Mayor Taylor Todd and Mayor Singh voted yes. Herring, appointed to the Committee that night, abstained.

Also that night: Resolution #26-7-204. The township bought Block 34001 Lot 40 (the “Jefferson” property) on May 15, 2024 “with funds from the Municipal Open Space Trust Fund.” Green Acres has authorized about $88,609 in reimbursement. The deed lacked the restriction Green Acres requires, so the Committee authorized adding it.

Also that night: the state lands. Under new business, officers of SAVE, A Friend to Homeless Animals, told the Committee about the shelter’s interest in “exploring expansion opportunities only if adjacent properties become available,” referring to part of the state lands the township is pursuing. A resident spoke in support during public comment.

What is not public. The purchase price of the Forbes/Rader property, its appraisal, and whether title has closed. The township began due diligence on the parcel on December 4, 2025.

The quiet item of the night, added after the ordinance everyone had come for. The resolution passed 4-0 — a four-member Committee voting, the fifth seat vacant since Vince Barragan’s resignation was announced at the start of the same meeting.

Its recitals are useful history, and they are the best primary chronology of the case on the public record: the declaratory judgment action filed January 29, 2025 (Docket No. SOM-L-153-25, from the caption read into the March 19, 2026 minutes); Judge Mennen’s March 27, 2025 order setting the obligations; the Planning Board’s adoption of the original plan on June 26, 2025; challenges filed in 2025 by E. Kahn, by Montgomery Neighbors United and by Savemontgomery.org; the Program decision of March 4, 2026 and the court’s acceptance of it on March 5; the amended plan filed with the court March 11, 2026; and Fair Share Housing Center — the statewide affordable-housing advocate that is a party to the case — finding the amended plan compliant subject to conditions.

A settlement is a real step, but it is not a judgment. And this settlement is with Fair Share Housing Center, which had asked only for more documentation — not with E. Kahn, the party that fought the plan. The judge has said he will not entertain a compliance hearing until the township sits down with E. Kahn. As of September 2026 no compliance hearing had been held and no Judgment of Compliance and Repose or Compliance Certification had issued, which is why the township’s immunity from builder’s-remedy lawsuits remained contingent.

The survey. On May 14, 2026 the Township Administrator said the Transportation Survey “will be closing with almost 600 participants.” On June 4 she reported it “is closed” and that “a report will be forthcoming.”

What was reported on June 18. According to the uncorrected captions, the Administrator said: “We only have one public transit line. Here it goes, comes up from Princeton and turns around at Orchard Road. That’s the New Jersey Transit 605 bus.” On the county’s paratransit service she said: “of those that responded that they … access and use the paratransit, 92% experienced some issue with paratransit, whether it’s limited service hours, coverage area, long waiting times or difficulty to book or schedule rides.”

The written minutes say “92% of Montgomery residents reported experiencing some issue with the County paratransit system.” The captions show the figure is for survey respondents who use paratransit, not all residents.

The minutes also record that Somerset County’s Division of Transportation had announced a public hearing for July 8, 2026, and that “Montgomery will be in attendance in addition to submitting written comments.” Whether it did is not recorded.

Still pending. A “Transportation Survey Results” presentation remained on the Committee’s future-agenda list on September 17 and October 15, 2026, with no date. See the explainer.

Barragan had been re-elected only seven months earlier, in November 2025, and had sat as Deputy Mayor through the whole period in which the Kenvue site came out of the housing plan — though he was absent from the March 19, 2026 meeting that endorsed the amended plan. The minutes record the resignation as effective June 18, 2026 and give no reason. From the dais that night, the newly sworn Deputy Mayor Taylor Todd said Barragan had moved out of town and had said so in his resignation letter. Dennis Ahn nominated Patricia Taylor Todd as Deputy Mayor, Mike Martin seconded, and she was elected and sworn in that evening.

This small piece of housekeeping is worth knowing because of what it does to the vote counts on this site. Every roll call taken on June 18, 2026 — including the adoption of Ordinance #26-1779 and the Fair Share Housing Center settlement resolution — is a 4-0 vote because the fifth seat was vacant, not because anyone was absent. By September 17, 2026 the seat had been filled by Douglas Herring, and the 4-0 votes taken that night are 4-0 for the opposite reason: Committeeman Mike Martin was absent.

Two identical tallies, two different explanations. Anywhere this site writes 4-0, it says which one applies.

Completeness is an administrative finding, not an approval: it means the application contains the documents the ordinance requires, so the board can hear it. The June 9 date itself is Patch’s reporting; what is on the record is E. Kahn’s lawyer telling the Township Committee nine days later that “the application is deemed complete.” It matters here for two reasons.

First, it was the basis of the argument that lawyer made to the Committee that night — that the by-right application had already been deemed complete, so the data-center ban could not reach it. He asked the Committee to table the ordinance, objecting both to what the ban forecloses in the future and to the ban itself as lacking a reasonable relationship to a legitimate zoning objective.

Second, nothing has happened since. The township attorney told the Committee on September 17, 2026 that the by-right application is at the Planning Board but has not been scheduled, because of the issues being worked through in the affordable housing case. The Planning Board’s own future-agenda list on June 8, 2026 did not include it either.

Before a governing body adopts a zoning amendment, the Municipal Land Use Law requires it to refer the amendment to the Planning Board, which must report back within 35 days identifying any provisions inconsistent with the master plan. The board did that in about twelve minutes. Board Attorney Karen Cayci framed the motion in two parts — find the ordinance consistent with the Master Plan, and separately recommend that the governing body add language exempting the Montgomery Township Police Department, whose own holding cells appeared to fall within the draft definition of a detention center. The vote was 9-0.

The minutes state the finding in terms: “The Board found the ordinance to be consistent with the Master Plan.”

What is fair to the developer’s side is that the finding was stated rather than argued — the discussion was about definitions and a police carve-out, not about which master plan goals a ban serves. Whether a court treats a stated finding as sufficient is an open question. The recommended police exemption did not make it into the adopted ordinance.

The Department of Community Affairs received Resolution #26-4-138 on April 24, 2026. In its letter, Commissioner Jacquelyn A. Suárez explains why no state approval step was needed: the site is “in a PA-3 Fringe Planning Area with sewer service where development and redevelopment are encouraged.” Under N.J.S.A. 40A:12A-6b.(5)(c), she wrote, “the redevelopment area determination took effect after transmission to the Commissioner of DCA.”

The letter adds one request for the plan: “Please ensure that any resulting Redevelopment Plan gives proper consideration to the wetlands located on the southern side of the property.”

The letter is dated May 18, 2026. It first appeared on the township’s Redevelopment page in October 2026, along with certified copies of Resolutions #25-10-329 and #26-4-138. No redevelopment plan for the site has been drafted.

Resolution #26-5-161 authorized the Mayor and Clerk to sign a Second Amendment to the Construction Sequence Agreement with “TGA SJC MONTGOMERY PROMENADE OWNER LLC, f/k/a Princeton Promenade, LLC, with respect to the Montgomery Promenade Development, Phases 1 and 2.” Ayes: Martin, Ahn, Taylor Todd, Deputy Mayor Barragan and Mayor Singh.

In the uncorrected captions, the Township Administrator explained that construction sequence agreements “come following when the Planning Board memorializes a resolution,” set out the “literal sequencing of how the project will be constructed,” and can be “modified and amended through the life of a project.” This one was “first adopted in 2023,” with “a first amendment in 2024.” The developer asked for three changes:

• the open space park at the rear of Phase 1 is to be completed as the buildings behind it are built, rather than first, so visitors do not cross an active construction zone;
• the bus shelters, which the agreement required before the first building’s certificate of occupancy, can come later, because the shelters were expected to arrive after the Whole Foods certificate of occupancy;
• temporary generators can light parts of Nevius Boulevard until permanent power is connected.

A resident asked earlier in the meeting what the resolution was about, according to the minutes. The June 20, 2024 First Amendment, in the captions, reorganized “some of the pre-work as permits are awaiting and deeds to be filed.”

Neither amendment, nor the 2023 agreement, is posted online.

The ordinance was introduced April 30 and adopted May 14, 2026, both times 5-0 (Martin, Ahn, Taylor Todd, Deputy Mayor Barragan, Mayor Singh). The minutes record: “There was no public comment.”

Line (a) of Section 3 reads: “Acquisition of new sports utility vehicle, mobile vision cameras, automated license plate reader, digital audio video interview recording, desk top computers, server/ MIS equipment, radar, body armor, and other police equipment for the Police Department.” The line is $100,300, of which $95,270 may be borrowed. The 2024 capital ordinance, #24-1730 (adopted May 2, 2024), has a line of the same size that also names an “automated license plate reader.”

What is not known. The Flock cameras are leased, and the lease is paid from the police operating account named in the 2025 Flock resolutions. The ordinances do not say whether the bond-funded “automated license plate reader” is a Flock camera or other equipment, such as a car-mounted reader, or what it costs.

The township’s announcement says the grant “will support the municipality’s efforts to strengthen the connection between public health and land use planning.” Montgomery is one of six towns in the program’s first round.

The money pays for the reexamination report, prepared by planner Tara Kenyon of Kenyon Planning, along with an update of the Land Use Element and a climate-related hazard vulnerability assessment, which a second, not yet named consultant will prepare. New Jersey law requires a reexamination at least every ten years; the last was dated August 2017. Kenyon told the Planning Board on October 12 that “everything has to be done by March of 2027 because of the grant.”

PSE&G’s application (Case PB-04-26) was deemed complete on April 15, 2026. It then went through the township’s Site Plan/Subdivision Committee, which met on it on May 5 and June 2. Each body’s memo is posted on the project page. Highlights:

• Landmarks Commission (May 4). The name “Harlingen” honours a longtime pastor and is “synonymous with the Harlingen Church and historic Harlingen village,” now a State and National Register district. “It is NOT an appropriate name for the new substation. The Landmarks Commission respectfully requests PSE&G come up with a better name.” At the August hearing PSE&G’s witness called it the “Trent Place Class H Substation,” and the sign shown in the plans reads “PSEG Trent Place Substation.” The township’s project page still says “Harlingen.”
• Board Engineer (May 4). The project is a “major development” under the state stormwater rules. Two bioretention basins handle peak flows and water quality, but “soils … were not conducive to infiltration … thus no recharge is provided.” Outside approvals listed: Somerset County Planning Board, the Soil Conservation District, the Delaware & Raritan Canal Commission, NJDEP wetlands and holding-tank permits, and NJ American Water.
• Environmental Commission (May 4, June 29). Asked for downward, shielded, warm-coloured lights under the township’s dark-sky policy. It counted 237 required trees, to be planted or paid into the Tree Bank. The Shade Tree Committee (June 18) asked PSE&G to swap non-native spruces for native evergreens.
• Open Space Director (June 24). Noted habitat for the state-endangered little brown bat, which can bring tree-clearing limits. Recommended “significant buffering” because of the Charles H. Cook Gentleman’s Farm, a local landmark next door at 107 Route 601.
• Fire Official (June 18). Recommended “bringing in a water line for fire hydrants to protect the facility in the event of a fire involving the control house or the fuel oil storage for the transformers.”
• Police Traffic Safety Bureau (April 20). “Traffic patterns will be minimally affected once the substation is built.”
• Board of Health (June 22). Endorsed a permanent sewage holding tank. The site is outside the sewer service area. Final approval rests with NJDEP.
• Board Planner (July 6, revised July 20). Listed six bulk variances and two design exceptions. It found the 10-foot fence and ten 45.5-foot lightning masts allowed as required “safety devices.” PSE&G had cut the masts from eight at 50 feet. Where the fence sits on a 7-foot retaining wall, the total height along the rear line is 17 feet.

Township Administrator and Planning Director Lori Savron presented the concept. The minutes record that the township is “considering transforming the long-vacant office building into an Innovation Center supported financially by the construction of luxury rental apartments.” Her slides put it the same way: the “owner has proposed luxury rental apartments” to “provide financial resources to update the office building.” They give no unit count. They also note that the site was “previously considered for Round 4 plan; not in amended plan,” and that its 2025 and 2026 assessments followed a 2024 tax appeal settlement.

The owner, Tom Scannapieco, told the Board the building could offer startups an affordable price point and needed “a clear vision” before it could be marketed. Representatives of two tenant companies and the building’s leasing manager spoke in support of an innovation hub.

Residents asked for specifics:

• Devra Keenan of Skillman asked that the cost of upgrading the building be “clearly identified,” warned that the apartments could be built without the building being improved, and asked for an affordable set-aside above 20 percent.
• Greg Kaganowicz asked for stronger environmental requirements and also asked for more than 20 percent affordable.
• Ed Silverman said the innovation hub should come first and the apartments second.
• Nancy Castelino asked for the project’s overall cost.

Board member Paul Blodgett said the draft objectives were “largely boilerplate,” doubted that apartment revenue would cover the building’s upgrades, and recommended a request for proposals for the planner. The Board then postponed, unanimously, a resolution authorizing Clarke Caton Hintz to prepare the redevelopment plan.

What has happened since. The Board decided to hire an economic adviser first. On September 28 it appointed eConsult Solutions, Inc., of Philadelphia, for “consultative economic development advisory services associated with 23 Orchard redevelopment” through December 31, 2026, at up to $65,500, paid from an escrow posted by the owner. eConsult advises; it is not writing the plan. As of October 23, 2026 no planner had been appointed to write it, no draft had been released, and no PILOT or redevelopment agreement had been proposed in public.

Why it matters beyond Orchard Road. It is the closest precedent for the Kenvue study — same statute, same planner, a referral less than a year earlier — and it shows where public interest arrived: nobody spoke at the March 23 designation hearing, but eleven people spoke once the subject was what would be built.

The resolution’s own recitals give the whole sequence, and it is short:

• October 16, 2025 — Resolution #25-10-329 directs the Planning Board to investigate whether the roughly 44-acre site, “with a large office building and solar array structure,” meets the statutory criteria.
• March 2026 — Clarke Caton Hintz delivers its Preliminary Investigation of an Area in Need of Redevelopment (Non-Condemnation), presented by planner Michael Sullivan.
• March 23, 2026 — the Planning Board holds the required public hearing. The resolution records that “no members of the public provided comment.” The Board finds the site meets “one or more criteria.”
• April 13, 2026 — the Board memorialises that finding by resolution.
• April 16, 2026 — the Committee designates the site 5-0 (Martin, Ahn, Taylor Todd, Deputy Mayor Barragan, Mayor Singh) and directs the Planning Board to “cause a redevelopment plan to be prepared.”

The resolution states that the designation does not take effect until the Commissioner of Community Affairs has reviewed it, and is deemed approved if the Commissioner does not act within 30 days. Owners served with notice had 45 days to challenge it. The state later said no review was needed: in a May 18, 2026 letter, the Department of Community Affairs wrote that, because the site is in a PA-3 Fringe Planning Area with sewer service, the designation “took effect after transmission” to the Commissioner.

Two things are worth carrying forward to 199 Grandview Road. The first is pace: from referral to designation took exactly six months. The second is who showed up: nobody spoke at the hearing that decided it. The Kenvue study runs through the same steps — report, noticed Planning Board hearing, recommendation, Committee resolution — and the hearing is where objections become part of the record.

The 23 Orchard Road process has since moved to the plan stage. On September 28, 2026 the Planning Board hired eConsult Solutions, Inc. — interviewed by a Board subcommittee, and described from the dais as independent of the Board’s usual planner — to advise on the economic viability of options for the redevelopment plan, not to exceed $65,500, paid from an escrow posted by the property owner.

Resolution #26-4-132 rescinds Resolution #24-11-376 of November 14, 2024. It says “Green Acres provided incorrect information regarding the 2024 grant funding amount of $900,000, and should have reflected the funding amount of $700,000.”

Resolution #26-4-133, the Green Acres “enabling resolution for open space acquisition,” says the township “has obtained a Green Acres loan of $0.00 and a Green Acres grant of $7,825,000.00” for project “#1813-96-004 Open Space Acquisition 5.” It adds that the state and the township “intend to increase Green Acres funding by $1,700,000.00, to increase Green Acres funding to a total of $9,525,000.00.” The township “agrees to provide its matching share … in the amount of $9,525,000.00.”

Why it matters. Green Acres, part of the state Department of Environmental Protection, is the main state partner for the township’s open-space purchases. The township has named it as the funding partner for the Department of Corrections lands. The resolutions do not list which properties the grant covers. Land bought with Green Acres money carries a deed restriction that keeps it as open space.

What the resolution does. Under Section 9-9 of the township code, it lists 15 “main” hunting properties and a set of “provisional” tracts. For each it gives the block and lot, the state deer zone (12 or 14), the acreage, the number of permits and youth permits, and whether firearms are allowed or only bows. Hunting follows the state’s “High Regulation Set” dates:

• Bow: fall bow from September 12 to October 30; permit bow from October 31 to December 31 (except December 25); winter bow from January 1 to February 20, 2027.
• Firearms: the six-day firearm season runs December 7 to 12; permit shotgun and muzzleloader seasons run on listed dates.

Sundays are excluded. Owners within 500 feet of a designated property get individual notice. Hunters who take two or more antlerless deer and return the end-of-season survey keep their property for 2027-28.

The vote. 5-0: Martin, Ahn, Taylor Todd, Deputy Mayor Barragan and Mayor Singh.

The last season. Environmental Commission minutes from April 7, 2026 report: “2025-2026 Deer Management: Season total was 204, which is less than previous years.” Staff attributed this to extreme cold and six weeks of snow cover. The year before, the total was 236.

Later change. On September 3, 2026 the Committee amended this resolution to add a bow-only “Dutchtown” tract (that entry).

This is the route the township said was open to the owner all along. After the Planning Board declined to hear a general development plan — Montgomery has no ordinance authorizing GDP review — counsel told the February 2026 Planning Board that the applicant retained the right to file a site plan or seek an informal concept review. The zoning is limited manufacturing — a distinction resident Dave Leonard corrected from the floor that September, telling the Township Committee “multiple times people say light manufacturing, that’s not what the zoning is.”

It also fixes the rules the application is judged by. Under New Jersey’s time-of-application rule, an application for development is generally reviewed against the ordinances in force when it was submitted, though later ordinances relating to health and public safety can still apply. E. Kahn’s lawyer told the Township Committee in June that because the application had already been deemed complete, the data-center ban would not reach it.

As of September 17, 2026 the Planning Board had not scheduled it. The township attorney said that was because of the issues being worked through in the affordable housing case.

Section 5 of the law covers automated license-plate recognition data. A government entity “shall not sell, share, or transfer” such data “concerning the operation of a person’s motor vehicle,” except:

• to another government entity “when permitted by law”;
• under a valid judicial order or judicial warrant;
• with the person’s written consent; or
• “to a law enforcement agency of another jurisdiction for the purpose of a criminal investigation,” if that agency certifies that the data will not be used “for any purpose related to civil immigration enforcement,” will not be re-shared or made searchable, and that it is bound by New Jersey’s rules.

Other provisions:

• Sharing agreements are public. Agreements with out-of-state agencies are government records under the Open Public Records Act.
• Penalty for misuse. The Attorney General may cut off an agency that misuses the data.
• Vendors. Using a vendor such as Flock does not count as “sharing,” as long as the vendor does not pass the data on except under these rules and with the agency’s permission.
• Notice. When disclosure is compelled by a court order, a warrant or federal law, the person must be told within 90 days, unless notice would compromise a criminal investigation.
• Policies. Agencies must review their policies “no later than one calendar year” after the law takes effect and publish them “prominently” on their websites.
• Lawsuits. A person whose data is knowingly misused may sue for damages in Superior Court.

Locally. On August 6, 2026, Montgomery’s police cited the law in their presentation to the Township Committee. They said the department shares its data only with New Jersey agencies. The department’s written policy is not posted on the township website.

The request. In a March 20, 2026 letter to the chair and ranking member of the House Appropriations Committee, Representative Bonnie Watson Coleman (NJ-12) requested funding for “the Cherry Valley to Skillman Village Wastewater Treatment Plant Consolidation in Fiscal Year 2027.” The recipient is Montgomery Township. The letter says the money “would be used to improve wastewater treatment efficiency, reduce operational costs, and eliminate discharge into local waterways.” The member’s request page lists $3,000,000.

Not yet known. A request is not an appropriation. This site has not found whether the request was included in any House or Senate fiscal 2027 spending bill.

The plan document on the township’s website carries both dates on its cover: adopted March 9, 2026 and endorsed March 19, 2026. The reason the two dates are ten days apart is on the March 5 record — the February hearing lost to the blizzard.

With endorsement, everything Montgomery could do by itself was done: a plan adopted, an implementing ordinance rewritten, a spending plan, an administrative agent, an affirmative marketing plan, and $1.1 million appropriated to pay for the extensions the plan relies on. What remained was not in the township’s hands. The plan still needed a court, and six months later it had not had one.

The second hard date in the Round Four schedule. Having missed the February 23 hearing to a blizzard, Montgomery adopted the amended plan on March 9 and told the Planning Board the document would go to the state within 48 hours and no later than March 16.

The governing body’s endorsement could not be squeezed in before the deadline, so the township expected to ask the court for the extra days and endorsed the plan on March 19. The township attorney said on March 5 that Montgomery was far from the only municipality asking for that accommodation. Nothing in the record we have reviewed suggests the delay cost the township anything.

The application. Case PB-06-25 sought amended site plan approval for signs across the shopping center and for a model home and sales center with a temporary parking lot. Eric Goldstein, Esq. appeared for the applicant. An NVR land development manager and SJC Ventures’ chief operating officer testified. The Board approved it 7-1 (Battle, Blodgett, Khan, Mani, Schuldiner, Singh and Glockler yes; Roberts no). The resolution was memorialized on April 13, 2026. It is filed in the Planning/Zoning Department and is not posted online.

What the neighbors said. The minutes record five residents of Route 518:

• One asked for better communication with the speaker and “those adjacent neighbors who have agreements with the Applicant regarding installation of improvements for sewer, water, fencing and sidewalks.”
• One “supports the project but also requested better communication with the Applicant regarding compliance with its agreement” for installation of improvements.
• One said there had been no communication from the applicant about compliance with that resident’s agreement, and that “the fencing was installed improperly” on the resident’s property.
• Two more supported their neighbors’ comments.

In the uncorrected captions, the first speaker said the agreements were first worked out with Madison Marquette. The speaker said that after SJC took over, its attorney stated “on record” that “they would honor these agreements.” The speaker said the last contact before the week of the hearing had been in August, that the neighbors had retained a lawyer, and that the agreements “are directly related to any final approvals or CO’s.” Another speaker said a fence crew arrived unannounced and set the fence on the property line rather than two feet off it.

The response. A Board member said, in the captions, “I didn’t know there was a lack of communications going on” and called it “really concerning.” A representative for the applicant apologized and said communication would improve. The Board attorney’s summary of conditions covered the model-home signs and their removal and the signage changes. The neighbor agreements were not read as a condition.

Township Attorney Wendy Rubinstein Quiroga’s account: Program Judge Miller had sent his recommendation to Judge Mennen, no consensus was reached with the objectors, the recommendation was to give deference to the municipality on the plan it chooses, and the next step is a fairness hearing on the new plan before an order issues. She added that the adjudicator had indicated the plan appears compliant, while noting it had only been filed in February.

The Monty News reported this stage as the dispute resolution program recommending approval and finding the plan constitutionally compliant. That framing is the newspaper’s; the township’s own minutes describe what is set out above, and no program recommendation document is posted on montgomerynj.gov.

The Committee also adopted Ordinance #26-1771 and Resolutions #26-3-100, #26-3-101 and #26-3-102 — the spending plan, the administrative agent and the affirmative marketing plan — all 5-0. The machinery moved; the case did not close.

What the minutes record. Under “Orchard Road – Pedestrian, Bicycle and Roadway Project Progress Update,” the presentation by Township Engineer Mark Herrmann and Open Space and Stewardship Director Lauren Wasilauski listed:

• “Connects municipal center to Burnt Hill Road”;
• “Sidewalk proposed on south side of Orchard Road with pedestrian safety enhancements at crosswalks”;
• “Proposed road reconstruction and widening”;
• “Project Status – feasibility study complete”;
• “Next Steps – land survey of project areas; public information session”;
• “Funding: 2026-2028 Engineering Department capital budget requests; NJDOT Municipal Aid 2026 grant award: $537,522; 2027 and 2028 to be determined”;
• “Connectivity – Orchard to Opossum; Opossum to Lilac; Lilac to Burnt Hill.”

Why the south side. According to the uncorrected captions, staff chose “the Rock Brook School side of the road.” They cited “environmental constraints on the north side,” including “two ponds,” and a county bridge replacement just to the west that had already put a sidewalk on the south side.

What it would cost. A slide showed estimated costs, but its figures are not in the minutes or the captions. Staff said the amounts “include design, surveying, construction, utility relocation … widening” and “property acquisition,” and that the road “would actually have to be reconstructed.” Asked for the gap between grants and cost, staff said: “Right now that’s difficult to determine because we’ve obtained one grant so far.” Staff said splitting the work into segments “increases the percentage of funding.” Grants usually have to be used, or the work bid, “within two years,” so the segments were “closely staggered.” Building it all at once would usually cost less in total, because the contractor would not be “mobilizing three times.” One option was to build only the first segment and defer the rest.

The $3.5 million figure. A township news post the same day said “the township has received $3.5 million in state grant funding” for sidewalk projects reaching Route 206 at Village Drive and “west along Orchard Road to Orchard Hill Elementary School.” The minutes show where that total comes from: a $3 million state infrastructure grant for the separate Route 206 path and the $537,522 Orchard Road grant. Only the second is for Orchard Road.

The township itself announced, at the February 9, 2026 information session, that the Planning Board would hold the public hearing and adopt the amended plan on February 23. It did not happen that day. The meeting is listed as cancelled on the township’s Agenda Center, the March 19 Township Committee minutes record that the hearing was postponed by a blizzard, and there is no meeting video for that date because there was no meeting.

The township re-advertised with the full ten days’ notice required, which pushed the hearing two weeks. The consequence was procedural but real: because the Planning Board had not adopted the plan, the Committee could not endorse it before the March 15 filing deadline, and expected to ask the court for the extra days. The township attorney told the Committee on March 5 that Montgomery was far from the only municipality in that position.

The presentation covered the same ground as February 9: Round Four runs 2025 to 2035 with a state midpoint review in 2030; the obligation is 260 credits; the amendment meets it by extending controls on existing units rather than by zoning new inclusionary development. The planner noted the township’s Third Round plan, adopted in 2008, had been amended in 2010, 2018 and 2020 — precedent for amending a fair share plan mid-round.

Introduction of Ordinance #26-1771 passed on four ayes: Ahn, Taylor Todd, Deputy Mayor Barragan and Mayor Singh. Committeeman Martin was absent; Committeeman Ahn arrived at 7:06 p.m., before the vote. Township Attorney Wendy Rubinstein Quiroga described the ordinance as adopting the state’s model language so the statutory citations are current, not as a substantive change.

Answering Nancy Castilino, who asked the Committee to leave the existing light industrial zoning alone, the dais said nothing in the housing plan contemplates a zoning change at the site, and that any change would require an ordinance, a noticed hearing and written notice to every owner within 200 feet.

Township Administrator and Planning Director Lori Savron explained the basics first: a housing plan element sits inside the master plan, and a master plan is policy — it does not itself rezone anything. Staff then went through the credit arithmetic, development by development, against a 260-credit obligation, with bonus credits capped by the state at 25 percent of the allocation.

The amendment followed eight months of public objection, and Planning Board Chairman Dave Campeas said from the dais that the public had been heard. The township’s own stated reason, given from the podium on February 9 and again on February 19, was narrower: since the June 2025 plan was adopted, circumstances had changed to let the township extend controls on existing units instead.

Campeas, quoted by The Monty News on the amendment: “The public spoke and we listened. We came up with a different plan that hopefully … makes a lot more sense for the township.”

Staff also laid out a schedule — draft posted February 13, ordinance introduced February 19, Planning Board hearing February 23, Committee endorsement March 5 — and were clear about the limit of all of it: removing the site from the housing plan does not decide what gets built there.

The resolution says the township’s consultant worked with the Administrator, the CFO/QPA and the Township Attorney. They “evaluated the overall bid results and market conditions and recommended revising the bid specifications to enhance competitiveness.” The Committee rejected all bids under N.J.S.A. 40A:12-14(a). It then authorized a new advertisement “with revised specifications reflecting the adjusted scope and term.” The vote was 4-0, with the Deputy Mayor absent.

On video, the Administrator said the township expected “slightly more favorable financial terms.” The Administrator also called it “a time sensitive matter” because of what residents had described, and said the rebid was “not causing … any major delay” (from uncorrected captions).

What the record does not show. The minutes do not name the two first-round bidders or give their amounts. They also do not say what “scope and term” changed. Both are in the bid file, which can be requested from the Township Clerk.

The township’s cell tower consultant for 2026 is Ace Telecom Consulting Group, appointed on February 19, 2026 for up to $20,000 (minutes).

What the resolution says. Resolution #25-12-387, “Authorizing Land Purchase Agreement (Block 13001, Lot 21 – ‘Forbes/Rader’),” authorizes the Mayor and Clerk “to take such actions and execute agreements as needed to conduct due diligence investigations related to the potential acquisition” of approximately 11.42 acres at 690 Route 601, for “agriculture, open space, recreation, conservation, public pathway and other municipal purposes.”

The vote. Moved by Deputy Mayor Barragan and seconded by Ahn. Martin, Ahn, Deputy Mayor Barragan and Mayor Singh voted yes. Taylor Todd was absent.

What it is not. Lot 21 sits on the same tax block as part of the former Kenvue holding, but it is a different parcel with different owners. The Kenvue holding is Block 14001 Lot 2 and Block 13001 Lot 15. Lot 21 is also not one of the “targeted farms” in the township’s 2026 Farmland Preservation Plan.

What came next. On July 16, 2026, Somerset County awarded $125,000 toward the purchase (Resolution #26-7-209). The price, the appraisal and whether title has closed are not in the public record.

The award. The state’s fiscal 2026 round gave out $150 million. It drew 591 applications from 537 municipalities, asking for $363 million in all, and every applicant received something. Montgomery’s line reads: “Orchard Road Phase 2: Reconstruction, Widening, Pedestrian Route and Bicycle Lanes Extension | Pedestrian Safety | $537,522.00.” The township’s 2026 budget carries the same amount as an NJDOT grant.

How the money works. According to NJDOT, the state pays 75 percent of a grant when the town awards a construction contract and the remaining 25 percent when the project is finished. The program handbook says the construction contract “must be awarded by the municipality within 24 Months from the date of grant notification.” It also says engineering and right-of-way costs are generally not eligible, apart from up to five percent of the grant for design.

The gap. On July 3, 2025, staff had described the request as “about $1.4 million.” The award was a little over a third of that. When a Committee member asked about the gap between grants and cost on March 5, 2026, staff said it was “difficult to determine because we’ve obtained one grant so far” (uncorrected captions).

The session was held by Zoom shortly after the November 13 meeting, with the parties in separate breakout rooms and the substance confidential. What the township attorney reported publicly on December 4 is that Montgomery had written to the program and to all interested parties saying it would amend its plan.

The reason was a verbal, unexecuted agreement in principle with the owner of Pike Run to extend affordability controls on at least 96 rental units. Ninety-six, she said, “does get us to the full plan” — which is why no other development needed to stay in it. The full plan also counted the 54 ownership-unit extensions the Committee had approved on November 13 and additional senior rentals at McKinley Court.

The same owner had been approached in 2025 and, staff told the Planning Board on June 23, “were not able to agree to extend the controls.” By November 13 that had already changed: the attorney told the Committee there was an agreement in principle with the owner of Pike Run, and the mayor described the earlier difficulty in the past tense. Why the owner’s position changed is not stated anywhere in the public record, and this site will not guess at it.

She also set out the posture of the case, and it is worth keeping straight. Fair Share Housing Center had not objected to Montgomery’s plan. Two citizen groups objected to the inclusion of the Kenvue site. The site’s purchaser objected to those objections. No party had yet been declared right or wrong about anything.

This is where the alternative to building on the Kenvue site stopped being an idea and became a budget line. Ordinance #25-1766 appropriated $1,100,000 — $650,000 from the township’s COAH (affordable housing) trust fund plus authorization to issue $450,000 in bonds or notes — to fund payments to owners of deed-restricted homes whose affordability controls were expiring.

Resolutions #25-11-374 and #25-11-375 extended controls at Montgomery Hills (McKinley Court) and Montgomery Glen: 35 and 19 owner-occupied units. The mechanics matter for anyone who owns one. Controls are extended under the township’s existing right in the original deed restriction whether or not an owner opts in; opting in is what earns the additional $10,000 the bond pays for.

Resolution #25-11-376, “Ratifying Settlement Agreement,” was adopted with a short explanation that it memorialized in open session terms discussed in closed session. Which case it settled was never stated when the vote was taken.

The site. The township owns a 5.275-acre parcel, Block 31001, Lot 191 (192 Inverness Drive), which holds the Cherry Valley Wastewater Treatment Plant. The resolution offers about 2,500 square feet of it, which it says is “not needed for public use.” The Administrator said the likely spot is “right outside the fence” by the plant’s electrical service, but that it could shift once the builder is on site.

The terms.

• Bids are under the Local Lands and Buildings Law (N.J.S.A. 40A:12-14), with a minimum rent of $44,000. The township may reject all bids.
• The tower and its support facilities are built “at the sole cost and expense of the successful bidder.”
• The township keeps “the right to locate its antennas” on the tower.

The presentation. The Administrator described the tower as Phase 2 of a township effort to improve cell service. Phase 1 was a tower at the municipal complex. Staff flew a drone at 120, 130, 140 and 150 feet and photographed it from 15 street locations. The tower was visible from two of them: the Bedens Brook Club, and Bedens Brook Road across from Congressional Court. The Administrator said there was “no performance difference” between a plain monopole and a “tree pole,” only a visual one.

In September the Administrator had told the Cherry Valley HOA that “the Township goes to bid for the vendor to build the tower then that vendor contracts for the carriers.” In other words, the township picks a tower company, and carriers then rent space on the tower from that company.

Public comment. All four speakers supported the tower:

• Rich Smith, president of the Cherry Valley Homeowners’ Association, described “extremely poor service” and life-safety concerns in the 55+ section.
• Craig Rogers spoke for the 89 Clubside homes, favored “the highest structure,” and said a neighbor’s call for emergency help “dropped twice.”
• John Kelsey of Clubside asked that the project be expedited.
• Former Mayor Devra Keenan welcomed the project.

The election came four months into the argument over the Kenvue site, and it did not change the Committee. The Monty News reported that registered Democrats outnumber Republicans in Montgomery roughly two to one, and that it had been nearly nine years since township voters elected a Republican.

The membership did change later, and not at the ballot box. Vincent Barragan resigned from the Committee effective June 18, 2026; Patricia Taylor Todd was elected Deputy Mayor that night. By September 2026 the Committee was Mayor Neena Singh, Deputy Mayor Taylor Todd, Dennis Ahn, Mike Martin and Douglas Herring.

The steps that took the Kenvue site out of the housing plan fall in the weeks after this election: a bond ordinance introduced nine days later and adopted in December, the first mediation session on November 14, and an amended plan the Planning Board adopted in March 2026. The same five members did all of it. That is the order the events came in; nothing on the public record says the election produced them, and this site does not claim it did.

This entry exists because of what it says about September 2026. The Township Committee’s order for a redevelopment study of the Kenvue site looks like a first for Montgomery. It is not.

Township Administrator and Planning Director Lori Savron told the Planning Board on February 9, 2026 — and repeated it to the Township Committee ten days later — that in October 2025 the Committee had already authorized and directed the same Planning Board to conduct a preliminary investigation into whether 23 Orchard Road meets the criteria for designation as a non-condemnation redevelopment area, with the board expected to review the completed study around March 2026. Same statute, same kind of resolution, same absence of eminent-domain power. The resolution, #25-10-329, was adopted 5-0 on October 16, 2025.

The Kenvue study is not even the township’s first non-condemnation designation. In June 2024 the Committee designated the undeveloped portion of Block 4020, Lot 1 in Belle Mead (Resolution #24-6-221), where a redevelopment agreement now covers a continuing-care senior community.

23 Orchard Road is the site the June 2025 housing plan had carried at 180 units, 36 of them affordable, and which the 2026 amendment also removed. A redevelopment designation is a tool Montgomery uses; whether the criteria are met on any particular property is a separate question, and it is the question the Kenvue study now has to answer.

How it ended. The planner’s report came back in March 2026, the Planning Board’s hearing on March 23 drew no public comment, and the Committee designated the site 5-0 on April 16, 2026. See the designation entry for the full sequence.

The administrator, the chief financial officer and the township’s PILOT consultant presented the two Village Walk financial agreements under the Long Term Tax Exemption Law.

• Phase I, Village Walk 1360 Urban Renewal, LLC (1360 Route 206, Block 28007, Lot 2): a retail building. Thirty years at 10% of annual gross revenue. The minutes record the land’s current tax as $6,279 a year, a projected year-one charge of $25,650 and about $1.1 million over 30 years.
• Phase II, Village Walk 1330 Urban Renewal, LLC (1330 Route 206, Block 28007, Lot 1): “fifty-two (52) rental apartments (including twelve (12) affordable housing units)” and about 21,360 square feet of retail. Thirty years at 11% of annual gross revenue for 15 years, then 12%. The minutes record current tax of $18,636 a year, a projected year-one charge of $151,535 and $10.1 million over 30 years.

Both ordinances find that “without the exemption, the Redeveloper would not be able to finance, reclaim and construct the Project.” The consultant’s presentation, as the minutes list it, gave the split as “95% Township; 5% to County,” with the 2% administrative fee going entirely to the township.

The minutes record then-Deputy Mayor Barragan expressing “concern regarding developers seeking PILOTs” and Committee Member Martin expressing “concern regarding the burden of cost to the schools,” with a reference to Princeton sharing PILOT revenue with its school district. Their exact words are quoted in PILOTs in Montgomery, explained.

Ordinance #25-1763 had been introduced September 18, 2025 (3-0; Ahn and Barragan absent). At its public hearing on October 16 “there was no public comment,” and it was adopted 5-0. Ordinance #25-1764 was introduced 5-0 the same night and adopted 5-0 on November 13, 2025, when the township attorney added “that there is an additional $50,000 payment for EMS in the PILOT agreement.” The executed financial agreements have not been posted.

A general development plan is a New Jersey mechanism for approving a large project in phases. Counsel later explained why developers like them: a GDP requires less documentation than a site plan and, in towns that have adopted the enabling ordinance, can shield a project from later zoning changes for years.

Montgomery has no such ordinance, and therefore no standards to review a GDP against. Adopting one is not mandatory. On counsel’s advice the Planning Board declined to hear the application, telling the owner it remained free to file an ordinary site plan or to bring an informal concept plan for feedback.

E. Kahn’s later complaint against the data-center ban gives the dates: the application was filed “on or about October 6, 2025,” and the Board dismissed it on December 8, 2025. E. Kahn sued the Planning Board over the refusal on January 22, 2026, as The Montgomery News reported. The complaint gives that case’s docket number as SOM-L-000096-26. At the February 9, 2026 meeting counsel said the township had not yet been served. The case was still live in June 2026, when the Board went into closed session on it, and again on September 14, 2026, when the Board’s closed-session resolution listed it by name. One resident called the dispute unnecessary confrontation; the board’s position was that it was a technical legal limit, not a choice.

The sale. The deed is dated September 29, 2025 and was recorded with the Somerset County Clerk on October 1 (Instrument 2025027230). It conveys Block 4001, Lot 26.01, “commonly known as 151 Trent Place,” from 601 AND READING, L.L.C., a New Jersey company with a Hillsborough address, to Public Service Electric and Gas Company for “THREE MILLION and No/100 ($3,000,000.00) DOLLARS.” The realty transfer fee was $33,775. The lot measures 309,043 square feet, or 7.095 acres, with 608 feet on Trent Place.

The prior owner. The deed says the land is part of the property 601 and Reading bought by deed dated January 2, 2006. The account number on the deed is “QFARM,” a farmland-assessed account. The seller keeps the remaining roughly 97 acres as Lot 28. The board planner wrote in July 2026 that Lot 28 is listed in the township’s open-space data “as unrestricted open space and as a potential acquisition.”

What PSE&G took subject to:

• a 30-foot access easement for the seller’s remaining land;
• a driveway easement along the western edge serving a neighbouring home (Lot 27);
• two driveway agreements recorded right after the deed. Both bar using PSE&G’s lot for the neighbours’ stormwater facilities.

Road dedications. The subdivision approval required 601 and Reading to dedicate right-of-way at Reading Boulevard and Trent Place. That deed was recorded September 25, 2025. The Township Committee accepted it by Ordinance #25-1762, adopted 4-0 on August 21, 2025, with Committee member Taylor Todd absent. A separate dedication went to the Somerset County Planning Board for County Route 601.

Taxes. In January 2026 PSE&G’s permitting staff told the township that the company “closed on the property in September.” They said the first tax bill for the new lot was expected in July 2026.

The record. EPA’s ECHO database, which carries NJDEP’s permit data, lists for the Cherry Valley plant (permit NJ0069523):

• four state inspections: November 2021, August 2022, February 2024 and June 2025;
• a state Notice of Violation dated April 24, 2024;
• a state penalty administrative order and settlement agreement dated September 26, 2025, with a $2,000 penalty.

ECHO also shows effluent results over the permit limits: total suspended solids in June 2024 and March 2025, BOD (a measure of organic pollution) in April 2024 and February 2026, and E. coli in May 2025. Discharge reports were flagged late in most quarters. The plant has not been in “significant noncompliance,” EPA’s most serious category, in the last three years.

The township’s 2026 resolution describes the plant as “aging” and the consolidation as supporting “regulatory compliance.” It does not mention these records.

Not yet known. ECHO does not say which violations the settlement covered or what it required. The settlement and the 2024 notice can be requested from NJDEP.

The Skillman Village plant, which would take Cherry Valley’s flow, had its own $1,000 state penalty order on August 7, 2025, after a March 19, 2025 notice (ECHO).

Chairman Dave Campeas opened by setting limits: no formal submission, no township professionals to review anything presented, no board opinion on the merits. Eli Kahn introduced himself and partner Matt Adams as “equitable owners” — under contract, not yet closed — and said they had bought the campus for its industrial zoning, not to build housing.

Adams compared four scenarios: roughly 1.6 million square feet of flex light-manufacturing space plus 13 residential lots built by right over 10 to 15 years; a mixed-use plan; a 617-unit all-residential concept; and the township’s 417-unit plan. The by-right figures given that night were 402 truck trips and more than 8,000 total trips per 24 hours at full build-out — the developer put the car share at roughly 7,600, and the same traffic memo had been read into the record in June 2025 as 7,820 car trips — and impervious cover rising from about 36 acres to about 102. The trip counts, truck counts and impervious-cover figures were all the developer’s own, from consultants it hired — Kahn said so himself, “we didn’t come up with these numbers, we used consultants” — and residents called the report cherry-picked and designed to scare them.

That is the September 2025 concept, and it should never be quoted as if it were the current one. At an informal neighbours’ meeting that November, reported in February 2026, the developer was presenting a smaller by-right scheme — roughly 1.2 million square feet plus 9 single-family homes, with 300 to 400 truck trips a day. Two different concepts, two months apart, on the same parcel.

Two things from that night mattered later. The developer flagged a coming tax appeal, saying the property is over-assessed; one was filed in the Tax Court in February 2026. And asked what happens if the township meets its obligation another way, the answer was that it would fight to stay in the plan — and failing that, build some version of the industrial project.

The resolution. “Authorizing Agreement with Flock Group, Inc. for One Additional Fixed Camera.” It follows Flock’s Quote Q-143569 of July 24, 2025: a “24-month subscription term at a total cost of $7,650.00,” billed as $4,150 at signing and $3,500 at the start of the second year. The resolution notes that the amount is below the public bidding threshold, but that “contracts exceeding 12 months require authorization by the governing body.” The money comes from the same police account as the main contract. The vote was 4-0 (Ahn, Taylor Todd, Deputy Mayor Barragan, Mayor Singh), with Martin absent.

What was said (uncorrected captions; the captions do not name the speaker):

• The system “connects to our computer system so the police can manage it. And it’s also connected with other towns that use the Flock Safety. And it’s not just towns, but private property owners.”
• “Montgomery Promenade has agreed to purchase one of the cameras … they’ll be paying for the contract on the camera, the install and the maintenance through Flock Safety. But it will be tied into the system that we have.”
• Asked where new cameras would go, the official said cameras are in “various locations in the town” and offered to have the lieutenant return with an update. A Committee member suggested a report “maybe in September.”

What is not known. The record does not show whether the Promenade camera was installed, who owns its data, or whether it is one of the seven cameras on the department’s transparency portal. Under the Attorney General’s directive, a private company may give its plate data to police but may not receive police data.

The fight in June had been at the Planning Board, which adopts the housing plan. This was the first time the governing body heard it at length.

Edward Silverman argued the adopted plan rested on two findings he considered false: that no architecturally important building would be affected, and that the site is underutilized. Shellie Jacobson, a Grandview Road resident since 1978, pointed to the two-lane bridges on Grandview and asked members to drive the road themselves. Dave Leonard asked for a written alternative plan within thirty days.

From the dais, officials corrected the figure residents kept repeating: the township’s entire Round Four obligation is 260 units, not 250 low-income units on one site, and 70 affordable units were proposed at Grandview Road. Counsel explained that towns that put forward a lower number mostly moved it by six to ten units, and that the window to challenge comes only once every ten years; one committee member added that filing a challenge would have cost Montgomery its immunity. A member called the plan a living document — “always part of a master plan,” and subject to change.

What the resolution says. Resolution #25-7-232 approved application “MA-2026-Orchard Road Phase 2: Reconstruction-00514.” It described “pavement rehabilitation, widening, pedestrian route extension, bicycle lanes, signage, striping, and miscellaneous construction on portions of Orchard Road.” Deputy Mayor Barragan moved it and Committee Member Taylor Todd seconded. It passed 5-0.

What was said. According to the uncorrected captions, staff explained that the project would be done “in segments to apply for grants,” with “about three segments total … from where we left off here at the Community Drive to Burnt Hill Road.” Meanwhile the township would pay for design and permitting “in tandem.” Staff added: “This phase is Orchard to Opossum Road … it’s about $1.4 million that we’re applying for.”

What happened next. NJDOT awarded $537,522 in November 2025. By 2026 the township had dropped the word “widening” from the project’s description (see the July 16, 2026 and August 20, 2026 entries).

What the resolution says. The consolidation project “requires compliance with” the New Jersey Freshwater Wetlands Act and the New Jersey Register of Historic Places Act. Because “the project will receive federal funding from the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) through the NJDEP’s Water Bank,” it must also go through Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act.

A Phase 1 study “studied various locations along the project limits within the Blawenburg Historic District and Maplewood historic property.” It found nineteenth-century archaeological deposits at:

• the Maplewood (John A. Voorhees House) Site, Block 26001 Lot 1.08, which needs a Phase 2 study to test whether it qualifies for the state and national historic registers; and
• the Fernwood (J. Voorhees House) Site, Block 26001 Lot 1.10 (Skillman Park), which is to be avoided during construction with engineering controls and matting.

The NJDEP and the State Historic Preservation Office must approve the Phase 2 work plan before fieldwork starts.

The vote. 5-0: Martin, Ahn, Taylor Todd, Deputy Mayor Barragan and Mayor Singh.

Why it matters. This is the most specific public description of where the new force main goes: through the Blawenburg area and Skillman Park. The survey results are not public.

This date explains most of what happened in June 2025, and it deserves to be stated fairly. The 2024 legislation replaced the old COAH process with a schedule of deadlines, each of which a municipality must hit to keep its protection from builder’s-remedy litigation — the suits in which a developer asks a court to approve a project a town’s own zoning does not allow. Towns that lose that protection can effectively lose control of their planning.

Montgomery’s professionals told the Planning Board that putting a ten-year plan together in ninety days was, in their words, extremely unheard of, and the resolution adopting the plan records the Board’s objection to the “unfair timeline” the state had imposed on municipalities. Round Four itself runs from 2025 to 2035, with a state midpoint review in 2030.

The resolution. “Authorizing Award of Contract to Flock Group, Inc. for Flock Safety Automated License Plate Recognition (ALPR) Cameras.” Flock Group, Inc. of Atlanta “is the sole manufacturer and developer of the Flock Safety ALPR camera, as well as the sole provider of the comprehensive monitoring, processing and machine vision services.” The Police Chief recommended the award “for an amount not to exceed $36,000.00 for a two-year term commencing on August 1, 2025.” The Chief Financial Officer certified funds in the police operating account, #01-201-20-240-200. The Township Administrator was authorized to sign the contract.

The vote. Motion by Deputy Mayor Barragan, second by Taylor Todd. Ayes: Martin, Ahn, Taylor Todd, Barragan and Mayor Singh.

At the meeting (uncorrected captions): the official introducing the item said the program had run successfully for two years, and that “the only change is the cost has increased.” The first two-year period cost “$31,600,” and the next two years “would be $36,000.” A Committee member praised the police for placing cameras in neighborhoods worried about car thefts.

What it means for the timeline. The contract term runs to about July 31, 2027. That date is inferred from the stated start and length. The contract document itself is not posted.

Headline News Montgomery dates the legal notice to June 12, 2025. The township’s own account at the June 23 hearing was that the plan went up on the township website on June 13, the day after the legal notice ran in the Courier News — ten days before residents would be asked to comment on it.

That gap became the first grievance of the whole dispute. Residents said the legal ads in a county paper few of them read reached almost no one, and pressed on whether anyone living near the proposed sites had been mailed notice — the answer was that mailed notice comes later, when a builder files. The township’s answer was accurate as far as it went: for a master plan hearing state law requires publication in a designated newspaper plus service on neighbouring clerks and the county, which the clerk said had been done, and the 200-foot mailed notice residents expected attaches to zoning changes and site plan applications, not to adoption of a housing element.

The choice of route. On March 6, 2025 township staff showed four ways to “connect residential, retail centers at 206/518 node to Municipal Center.” The minutes say “Option 4 was the least restrictive; least costly; and eligible for the most grant opportunities,” and “It was the consensus to proceed with Option 4,” the Route 206 route. Committee members “expressed concerns for safety along the 206 corridor and inquired about a bike path.” The Township Engineer said “the intent is to make the pathway as wide as possible to accommodate bikes.” A slide listed “$3M grant secured from NJ Department of Community Affairs.”

The contract. On May 15, 2025 the Committee adopted Resolution #25-5-177. It hired Environmental Resolutions, Inc. for “surveying, permitting, design services, bid document preparation, construction assistance, and other services necessary to construct a pathway connection along Route 206 from Village Drive to Orchard Road,” for “a sum not to exceed $277,000.00.” The vote was 4-0, with Committee Member Taylor Todd absent.

Where it stands. A March 5, 2026 update described a “Sidewalk connection Orchard Road to Village Drive,” “Approximately ¾ mile,” on the “West side of 206.” The status was “finalizing concept; meeting with NJDOT to discuss concept, permitting, stormwater management.” Funding was listed as a “$3M 2024 infrastructure improvement grant; other grant opportunities.”

Not yet known. The total cost, the construction schedule and the exact grant program have not been made public. This path is separate from the Orchard Road reconstruction. See the explainer.

Why. Resolution #25-5-179 says every town is “required by the 2023 Municipal Separate Storm Sewer System (MS4) permit to develop a Watershed Improvement Plan (WIP) to reduce flooding, reduce water pollution” and meet pollution limits. The regional plan is meant to “identify potential locations, projects and costs within the watershed to reduce water pollution and reduce flooding.” The work group was organized by The Watershed Institute beginning in October 2024.

The money. The contract is $254,300. In May 2025 Montgomery’s share was capped at $85,000. On December 18, 2025 Resolution #25-12-418 (4-0, Deputy Mayor Barragan absent) named eight participants: Montgomery, Franklin, South Brunswick, Manville, Princeton, Hopewell Township, Hopewell Borough and Rocky Hill. It set Montgomery’s share at up to $89,683 (35.27%) and made Montgomery the lead agency. It also said a state Water Quality Restoration Grant, paid as reimbursement, could fund “the entire Watershed Management Plan for all participating municipalities.”

Where it stands. A public session was held on July 14, 2026. On July 16 the Administrator said a draft would be released “for formal public comment sometime in the Fall.” As of October 23, 2026, no draft had been posted.

The resolution. Resolution #25-5-184 states that “as a result of Hurricane Ida in September 2021, there was extensive damage to several properties” in the township, and that NJDEP “has agreed to acquire the Properties as a part of the Blue Acres Program.” Once the state buys them, the properties “shall be managed by the Township.” They “may be managed for open space purposes,” such as “pathways, picnicking and birdwatching” and “reforestation and invasive species control.” The resolution does not list the properties.

The vote. 4-0: Martin, Ahn, Deputy Mayor Barragan and Mayor Singh. Committee Member Taylor Todd was absent.

What followed. On December 18, 2025 the Administrator reported four homes in state demolition work orders: two to start in late February 2026 and two in “late October-November” 2026. The Environmental Commission recorded on May 5, 2026 that the first two had been demolished. Purchase prices have not been made public.

Under the 2024 law that replaced the Council on Affordable Housing, a municipality that wants protection from builder’s-remedy litigation files a declaratory judgment action and joins the Affordable Housing Dispute Resolution Program. Montgomery did both on January 29, 2025, two days after the Township Committee accepted its numbers by Resolution 25-1-54. The case is Docket No. SOM-L-153-25, and it is the case everything since has run through — the one named, meeting after meeting, in the Township Committee’s executive-session resolutions on affordable housing from February 2026 onward.

The order setting the obligations followed. Every plan, hearing and settlement described further down this timeline is measured against the two figures it fixed: 73 units of present need, meaning rehabilitation of existing substandard housing, and 260 units of prospective need for 2025 through 2035.

Two township records date the order slightly differently. The recitals of Resolution #26-6-194, adopted June 18, 2026, give March 27, 2025; the recitals of Resolution #26-3-113, adopted March 19, 2026, give March 26. We use March 27, the date given in the later of the two recitals, and note the discrepancy rather than hide it.

Why a subdivision came first. The site sits on Block 4001, Lots 26 and 28 on Trent Place (County Route 601), “just over 100 acres in total,” zoned Limited Manufacturing. Lot 26 showed on the tax map as its own parcel, but the minutes say a title search found it had never been legally perfected. PSE&G was “contract purchaser of Lot 26.” It needed a legal lot before it could close on the land and file a site plan.

January 13, 2025. The board granted PSE&G two submission waivers, 8-0 with one abstention. PSE&G did not have to supply a wetlands Letter of Interpretation or Board of Health soil approval for the 97-acre remainder, which the seller keeps and where “no development” was proposed.

March 10, 2025: the hearing. The application was a minor subdivision “to create a 7.095 acre lot for the future development of an electrical substation.” PSE&G’s planner asked to skip a sidewalk along Trent Place, calling it a “sidewalk to nowhere.” The Chair pointed to the township’s sidewalk and pathway plan.

Two residents spoke, according to the minutes:

• Kevin Wilkes of Reading Boulevard said he supported the substation. He raised concerns about the existing driveway and truck traffic on Reading Boulevard.
• Michael Soltis said he was “concerned about the location of the future substation to his home and possible radiation exposure and asked who the substation would benefit.” The minutes record no answer.

Board member Taylor Todd said “there are a lot of unanswered questions” about the substation and asked PSE&G to give “a high level of detail” in the site plan. The board attorney said the sidewalk waiver applied to the subdivision only, and “This is not an approval for the substation.” The vote was 7-0: Mani, Roberts, Singh, Taylor Todd, Campeas, Glockler and Kahn.

The resolution was memorialized 6-0 on April 14, 2025. No video of the March 10 meeting appears in the township’s Swagit archive.

One wording problem. The January 13 minutes describe that motion as one to grant the waivers “and approve the application for a minor subdivision.” The video shows the board attorney telling members the subdivision hearing would come later. The approval was on March 10.

What the minutes record. The Township Administrator “continued that the State is initiating the sale of state property known as the ‘dairy farm’ located at the intersection of Burnt Hill Road and Orchard Road and some land by the high school to the Township.” Mayor Singh “recognized the Governor’s Office” for “their assistance as well with the sale of the ‘dairy farm’ to the Township.”

The Administrator’s column, published the same day in The Montgomery News, said staff had “conducted a site visit with state officials” the month before, and that “the state has deemed the land surplus.” It said the acquisition “is ultimately approved by the NJ State House Commission, which approves any sale of state land.”

The lots. On May 15, 2025, the Committee’s closed-session resolution named the land as “Block 25001, Lot 27 and Block 27001, Lot 7.01 (‘NJ Department of Corrections’).” It was removed from that night’s list “as there were no updates.”

What followed. The first public presentation came on March 5, 2026. See the state lands explainer.

What the minutes record. Township Engineer Mark Herrmann and Open Space and Stewardship Director Lauren Wasilauski gave a presentation on reaching the Municipal Center on foot and by bicycle. One slide reads: “February 2025 kickoff meeting for Orchard Road Feasibility Study to study connectivity to the Municipal Center from the public schools; about one-mile connections; and tie in to pathways.”

What was said. According to the uncorrected captions, a presenter said the township had held “our kickoff meeting with the consultant.” The presenter added: “If you’ve seen people outside in yellow vests, they’re doing all kinds of work to measure the existing right of way … and see where we’ll need, you know, property acquisition, where we can fit bike lanes, where we could fit sidewalks.” A Committee member said Rock Brook School, on Orchard Road, had needed a bus to reach the library.

What the record does not say. The minutes do not name the consultant who did the feasibility study or give its cost, and the study has not been posted.

What happened. The township’s notice says the survey ran “from mid-February 14 through early March 2025,” with drones flying “from dusk to dawn on nights when the weather permitted” across the whole township. Environmental Commission minutes record that Raritan Valley Community College “completed the Drone Density Survey March 2.” On March 6, 2025, the Mayor told residents who had asked about drones overhead that they were “being used to conduct a deer population study.”

Who paid. The 2024 NJDEP Community-Based Deer Management grant gave the township “$5,000 to offset butchering costs and $14,874 to fund a new population density survey” (Environmental Commission minutes, February 4, 2025).

The results. The township’s survey page does not publish them. They were presented to the Township Committee on August 21, 2025: 3,017 deer, or about 93 per square mile (that entry). The college’s written report has not been posted. Residents can request it from the Township Clerk under OPRA.

The award. The township sought sealed bids (Bid No. 01-2024) to lease ground at the Municipal Center (Block 20001, Lot 10.05) to a company that would build a tower and rent space on it to wireless carriers. It received two bids:

• SectorSite Tower Assets, LLC (Rockleigh, NJ): $41,000 a year, plus 30% of rent from the second broadband subtenant onward.
• Diamond Towers V, LLC (Springfield, NJ): $41,111 a year, plus 25% from the third subtenant onward, plus a $25,000 one-time fee.

The resolution says the township’s consultant, Ace Telecom, and its professionals recommended SectorSite “as it will generate the higher revenue over the term of the lease.”

The approval. The tower did not go to the Zoning Board. On October 14, 2024 the Planning Board heard it as a “capital review” of a township project and voted 9-0 to recommend it. SectorSite’s engineer described a 135-foot monopole, extendable to 150 feet, built for four carriers. The minutes record that “Verizon will take the top spot and Dish will be located two levels below,” and that the bid required emergency communications equipment on the tower.

The result. By July 2026 the Administrator described the tower as “constructed.” In April 2026 the CFO said it brings in $41,000 a year, and that the township’s older towers at the baseball fields bring in about $200,000 a year (from uncorrected captions).

Why it matters for Cherry Valley. In November 2025 the Administrator called the Cherry Valley tower “Phase 2.” Staff ran its photo simulation with “the same procedure that we did for Phase One” (uncorrected captions). The record does not say whether the municipal-complex tower improved service in Skillman.

The campus at 199 Grandview Road had been a Johnson & Johnson research and headquarters property. Residents told the Township Committee on July 17, 2025 that its late-modern office building was designed by Henry N. Cobb and W. Steven Wood of I.M. Pei & Partners with oversight by Pei himself — an attribution the township’s own 2025 housing plan did not acknowledge, having stated that there are “no historic or architecturally important sites or buildings on the property.” That plan puts the site at 382.771 acres, comprising Block 14001 Lot 2 and Block 13001 Lot 15; the Limited Manufacturing core that holds the buildings is about 257 acres. Reading the assessor’s records aloud at the June 23, 2025 Planning Board hearing, former Mayor Devra Keenan put about 160 of those acres in the commercial (class 4B) assessment, at a net value of roughly $41 million, with a further 97 acres nearby carried as farm-qualified. For years the site was one of the township’s largest taxpayers.

The relocation itself was disclosed in a 2023 SEC filing. What 2024 held was the wind-down: 51 layoffs filed under the WARN Act in February, and a long-term lease on a Summit campus beginning in 2025. When Kenvue said it was leaving, a large, well-serviced industrial property — with its last employees due out by 2026 — became the obvious candidate for several different questions: where Montgomery could put state-mandated affordable housing, what a developer could build by right, and what the township could afford to lose from its tax base. Those three questions have been argued over ever since.

Resolution #23-12-335 authorized a Sewer Capacity Reservation Agreement with “TGA SJC MONTGOMERY PROMENADE OWNER LLC, f/k/a Princeton Promenade, LLC, related to sewer capacity in the Stage II Sewage Treatment Plant for the Montgomery Promenade Development Phases 1 and 2, … and for 7 existing residential lots along Route 518, Block 34001, Lots 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 81, and 82.” The vote was 3-0: ayes Taylor Todd, Deputy Mayor Singh and Mayor Keenan; Committee Member Ahn abstained and Committee Member Barragan was absent. The video shows no discussion.

Why it matters to the neighbor dispute. In 2021 the Planning Board required the developer to “comply with any agreements with neighboring owners regarding installation of sewer.” On March 9, 2026, Route 518 residents told the Planning Board they hold agreements with the developer “regarding installation of improvements for sewer, water, fencing and sidewalks,” according to the minutes. This resolution is the township’s record that sewer service for those seven lots was planned as part of the project. The agreement’s terms, including who pays for the connections, are not posted.

The 2023 minutes are scanned images. The quotation is from a machine text conversion (OCR) of that page.

PJM runs the regional power grid that includes New Jersey. Utilities report their own local “supplemental” projects to its Transmission Expansion Advisory Committee (TEAC). PSE&G first presented the need on September 5, 2023 and the solution on October 31, 2023, under Need Number PSEG-2023-0009, “Harlingen Area.”

The stated problem (2021 figures):

• Sunnymeade substation, “in the Hillsborough area,” serves “over 21,400 customers” with a peak load “over 63.4 MVA” against a capacity of 61.43 MVA. “Contingency overload is 103.2%.”
• Mount Rose substation serves “over 11,800 customers” with a peak “over 65.0 MVA” against 61.47 MVA. “Contingency overload is 105.7%.”

The proposed fix: a new 69-13 kV station with two transformers, built by cutting into two existing 69 kV lines, Bennetts Lane-Montgomery and Montgomery-”Customer Sub.” A second 230-69 kV transformer would go in at Bennetts Lane. Estimated cost: $105.1 million for the package. PSE&G also listed an alternative with a new 69 kV line from the Montgomery substation, at $152.1 million.

PSE&G submitted the selected solution for its 2024 Local Plan on February 26, 2024 as project s3090, “Engineering and Planning,” projected in service in December 2029. That date matches what PSE&G told the Planning Board in 2026. The PJM record does not name the site. The 7.1-acre lot at 151 Trent Place came out of a 2025 subdivision.

The groundbreaking was set for September 26, 2023, The Montgomery News reported.

Resolution #23-10-277 authorized the Mayor and Clerk to sign a Construction Sequence Agreement with “TGA SJC MONTGOMERY PROMENADE OWNER LLC, f/k/a Princeton Promenade, LLC, with respect to the Montgomery Promenade Development, Phases 1 and 2, referred to as Stages 1 and 2 within the agreement,” subject to the Township Engineer’s and Township Attorney’s approval. It passed 4-0, with Committee Member Barragan absent. The township code makes a phased shopping complex depend on a phasing plan “approved by the Township Committee as part of a developer’s agreement.”

Resolution #23-11-308 (November 9, 2023) authorized easement agreements. Its recitals list the instruments the Planning Board approvals require to be recorded with the county, “including but not limited to the easements or deed restrictions for sight triangles, sidewalk or public pedestrian access, emergency access, roadway, drainage or storm sewer, sanitary sewer, … utility, landscaping buffer and/or screening, conservation, temporary construction, and cross easements (all as applicable).” It passed 4-0, with Deputy Mayor Singh absent.

The agreement was amended in June 2024 (Resolution #24-6-226) and again in May 2026 (Resolution #26-5-161). Neither the agreement nor its amendments is posted online. Whether it sets the timing of the boundary fence, berm or screening along the Route 518 homes is not known.

The 2023 minutes are scanned images; the quotations above are from a machine text conversion (OCR) of those pages.

What the minutes say. Captain Silvio Bet and Lieutenant Andrew Perry “gave a power point presentation on the use of the Flock Safety Automatic License Plate Reader fixed camera system.” The cameras “monitor ingress and egress into the municipality twenty-four hours a day” to help with crime investigations, missing persons and stolen vehicles. The system “does not utilize facial recognition and is not used for traffic enforcement,” and “the data is owned by the municipality and will not be sold or utilized by a third party.” A transparency portal was “coming soon.” The mayor asked that the presentation be posted on the township website.

What the captions add (uncorrected):

• The department had already used car-mounted plate readers for about ten years. The new cameras were fixed, solar-powered and on their own poles. “We currently have four cameras in place.”
• Plates are checked against the national crime database. An alert reaches officers in about 8 to 35 seconds.
• On retention, the lieutenant said that data “not tied to any active crime or active investigation after 30 days” is “deleted and purged from the system.”
• Camera locations go to the State Police, which approve them. The local policy “mirrors” the Attorney General’s October 2022 directive. Officers retrain every two years, and the department sends the state an audit each year.
• A Committee member said residents had been asking, “are they keeping tabs on us?”

Why the retention line matters. The Attorney General’s directive, in effect since January 23, 2023, sets a three-year retention period. In August 2026 the police said Montgomery keeps data for three years and pays Flock extra for it. The record does not say when the setting changed.

No vote was needed or taken. Two months earlier, on July 20, 2023, the Committee had approved Resolution #23-7-202. It donated an older ELSAG plate reader that was “no longer needed for public use” to the Somerset County Sheriff’s Office.

What was built. According to The Montgomery News, the sidewalk “starts at Community Drive and connects to the sidewalk across Route 206 to Bridgepoint Road,” with “a crosswalk to Autumn Lane.” The paper also reported that the road “from Route 206 past the municipal center up to 88 Orchard has also been repaired and resurfaced, as well as striping painted to add bicycle lane segments.” It said NJDOT “awarded almost $380,000, which is covering nearly 80 percent of the project costs.” The township has not published a final cost.

What was still to come. The last link was a safe crossing of Route 206, which depended on NJDOT’s work on the traffic signal there. On August 1, 2024 the township administrator told the Committee that work was “near completion,” with sidewalks, ramps and pavement markings remaining.

What came next. Township Engineer Mark Herrmann told the paper the project was a building block for “future connections to the public schools, Skillman Park, residential neighborhoods.” That is the corridor west to Burnt Hill Road now being designed as Phases 2 to 4.

The amendment. Resolution #23-5-138 extended Kleinfelder’s work, based on an April 19, 2023 proposal, to include:

• “a Level 2 Environmental Planning Report and associated work required by NJDEP”;
• NJDEP freshwater wetlands and flood hazard area applications;
• “additional surveying, design, and permitting work to modify the sewer servicing Bedens Brook Country Club and prevent the need to construct a new pump station at the existing Cherry Valley WWTP site”;
• a Delaware and Raritan Canal Commission (DRCC) application and stormwater design;
• a Cultural Resources Investigation;
• “coordination and permitting with Green Acres and Somerset County Parks”;
• changes to pump station 6A, and permit fees.

The contract rose from $717,601.00 to no more than $794,723.00. The vote was 4-0, with Committee Member Ahn absent.

Why it matters. The environmental planning report is the planning document for New Jersey Water Bank financing. The Green Acres and county parks steps suggest that the pipe crosses preserved or park land. The township has not published the route.

What was approved. Bid #B10-2022, “Orchard Road Improvements (State Aid Project),” drew ten bids, which were opened on January 10, 2023. They ran from $458,771.39 (DeSantis Construction, Inc. of Somerville) to $710,743.69. One bid was marked incomplete. Resolution #23-1-53 awarded the contract to DeSantis as “the lowest responsible bidder.” Resolution #23-1-54 recommended the same award to the New Jersey Department of Transportation, which has to approve state-aid contracts. Both passed 5-0.

How it was paid for. NJDOT’s fiscal 2022 Municipal Aid list gives Montgomery $379,500 for “Orchard Road Improvements.” The rest came from township accounts listed in the resolution, including capital account 04-215-55-901-1686B. That same account is one of those charged for the 2026 design contract for the later phases.

Why it matters now. This was the first piece of the corridor. The township now calls it “Phase 1, 2023.” Phases 2 to 4 continue the work west to Burnt Hill Road.

The directive is the rulebook Montgomery’s police cite for their camera program. Its main points:

• Retention. “Records and ALPR data covered by this Section shall be retained for three years.” Data not tied to an active investigation or a pending case is then purged.
• Searches. Stored data that did not trigger an alert can only be searched for a listed purpose: checking a “be on the lookout” plate, investigating a specific indictable crime, or an approved crime-trend analysis. Every access is logged.
• Sharing. New Jersey agencies share through a statewide system. Sharing with an agency outside New Jersey needs a written agreement approved by the State ALPR Coordinator. Private companies cannot receive police ALPR data.
• Ownership. The data belongs to the police agency, “not any ALPR vendor.”
• Audits. Each agency audits its own program by January 31 every year and certifies, among other things, “that a random survey of ALPR accesses revealed no misuse.” County and state coordinators may audit at any time. The state publishes the results each year.
• Complaints. Citizen complaints about an agency’s program go to the County Prosecutor.

The State Police’s first statewide audit, covering the second half of 2023, lists the Montgomery Township Police Department among 517 agencies that completed it. It found two significant violations statewide and no citizen complaints.

This is the approval the 2026 Phase II subdivision builds on. The township project page lists PB-02-22 as “In Construction” and describes: “Phase I contains 11 mixed-use/ retail buildings containing approximately 162,200 square feet and 29 residential dwellings. Phase II contains 5 mixed-use/retail buildings containing approximately 125,500 square feet and 5 residential dwellings.” The board planner noted that the plans in fact put all 34 homes in Phase 1.

What the review memos raised about fences and buffers. The board engineer’s June 20, 2022 memo listed waivers for “an 8-foot-high round top stockade fence … east of residential Lot 20” and “a 6-foot-high board on board fence … along the perimeter of the proposed northern residential lots.” It noted that “Lots 6 through 20 depict a 30 FT proposed rear frontage buffer along with a 20 FT sanitary easement,” said the buffer should be 50 feet, and noted “a fence is proposed with in the sanitary easement.” It asked the applicant to testify “as to the status of compliance with all conditions of the prior approvals.” These comments concern the project’s own new home lots. The memos do not say whether they are the same fence and sewer line the Route 518 neighbors later described.

The township’s open space coordinator, in a June 22, 2022 memo, reported that the applicant proposed to use the Phase 2 area temporarily as passive open space with a walking path “while they evaluate the commercial/retail climate.”

Not online: the minutes and the resolution. The video has no captions. The resolution date of October 10, 2022 comes from the owner’s 2026 application, not from a posted resolution.

The new developer. Princeton Promenade, LLC applied in October 2021 as “the contract purchaser” of the site, according to the board planner. Its application lists Eric S. Goldstein, Esq. of Nehmad Davis & Goldstein as attorney. A later filing gives December 31, 2021 as the date the SJC entity acquired the property.

The decision. The Board approved building the project in two phases. The Montgomery News reported that Board members insisted the central promenade be in the first phase. The first phase includes the promenade, the Whole Foods and the loop roads. The Board’s resolution was memorialized January 24, 2022.

The conditions. The resolution itself is not posted online. The board planner’s June 2022 memo quotes its 13 conditions. Among them:

• Condition 4: all Master Plan roads and Route 206 and 518 improvements in Phase 1 to be completed before Phase 1 certificates of occupancy.
• Condition 7: “The applicant shall comply with any agreements with neighboring owners regarding installation of sewer.” The planner deferred comment on it “to the Township Attorney and Township Engineer.”
• Condition 13: “All conditions of the Prior Approvals shall remain in effect” except as changed.

Condition 7 is the only place found in the posted township record where the private agreements with the Route 518 neighbors appear in a Planning Board approval.

Not in the record online: the minutes, the full resolution, and what was said at the hearing. The video has no captions. In October 2026 a Route 518 resident said the developer’s attorney promised “back in 2019, I believe it was, when they took over the project” to honor the agreements. The posted record shows the SJC entity’s first appearance before the Board at this December 2021 hearing. It does not show whether such a statement was made then or at another time.

What the record says. The December 2020 minutes are not in the township’s online Agenda Center. The resolution is known from the recital of a 2023 amendment, which says that by Resolution No. 20-12-245, adopted December 17, 2020, the Committee hired Kleinfelder for “Engineering Design, Permitting and Financing Assistance Services for Consolidation of the Cherry Valley and Skillman Village WWTPs, including but not limited to preliminary design, final design, permitting, financing assistance, meeting attendance and project administration … as well as additional design services for upgrades at the Skillman Village WWTP” for $717,601.00.

Why it matters. The plan to close the Cherry Valley plant goes back at least to 2020, nearly six years before the 2026 state grant. Kleinfelder is also the township’s yearly consulting engineer and designed the Stage II and Pike Brook plant projects.

Not yet known. The 2020 vote and any discussion that night. The original proposal can be requested from the Township Clerk.

Resolution #18-3-70 authorized “the execution of a PILOT agreement with PIRHL Acquisitions, LLC in connection with the affordable housing project at Block 28004, Lot 7.” The sponsor proposed “a 86-unit affordable family apartment community” under the New Jersey Housing and Mortgage Finance Agency Law of 1983 (N.J.S.A. 55:14K-1 et seq.).

The resolution provides that “from the date of execution of the Agency mortgage, the Project, including both the land and improvements thereon, will be exempt from real property taxation,” provided “payments in lieu of taxes for municipal services supplied to the Project are made to the Township in such amounts and manner set forth in the Agreement for Payments in Lieu of Taxes” attached as Exhibit B. That exhibit is not in the posted minutes, so the percentage and term are not public in this record.

The vote was 4-0: Graham, Trzaska, Madrid and Conforti in favor, Jaffer absent.

The building, The Apartments at Montgomery Crossing at 9 Hartwick Drive, appears in the state’s PILOT database as “Montgomery LIHTC, LLC,” billed $62,400.63 in 2025 against $530,654.40 in “taxes if billed.” Because it was approved by resolution under the housing-finance law, it does not follow the Long Term Tax Exemption Law’s ordinance requirement or its 5% county share. See PILOTs in Montgomery, explained.

The township’s Planned Shopping Complex zoning option, which allows a large shopping center at this corner, was first adopted in 2003 and amended several times, most recently in 2017, according to the board planner.

On January 29, 2018 the Planning Board approved MM/PG Montgomery Properties, LLC’s major subdivision and preliminary and final site plan, with bulk variances and design exceptions. The resolution memorializing that vote was adopted on March 5, 2018. On November 19, 2018 the Board approved amendments: changes to Building E, removal of Buildings F and R, reconfigured Buildings B, C and D, and a bus stop on Nevius Boulevard. That resolution, PB-04-17, is dated December 17, 2018.

The township describes the project as about 281,800 square feet of commercial space anchored by Whole Foods, a one-acre community space, new loop roads to relieve the Route 206/518 intersection, and “34 single-family detached homes that buffer the existing homes on Route 518 and the new shopping center.”

In 2019 the board planner’s office reviewed the developer’s revised plans for compliance with the 2018 conditions. Its December 20, 2019 memo found the planning conditions satisfied. The planner’s project history lists no further Planning Board action on the project until December 2021.

Not online: the 2018 resolutions and minutes. The township’s posted Planning Board minutes begin in 2023, and the 2018 videos have no captions.

How it started. According to the township, deer numbers grew in the 1980s and 1990s as farms and woods gave way to housing. The program began in 2001, after a township-wide infrared survey found “approximately 88 deer per square mile.” At an August 2025 presentation, the chair of the township’s Wildlife Committee said that count was made by flying over the township (uncorrected captions). The exact month the program began is not in the sources found, so this entry gives only the year.

How it works. Chapter IX, Section 9-9 of the township code lets the Township Committee pick, by resolution each year, which township parks and open spaces hunters may use and on which dates. Hunters must hold a New Jersey licence, carry $1 million in liability insurance, pass a police background check and attend a safety orientation. They hunt from elevated tree stands and check in with police before each outing. State safety zones apply: 150 feet from a home for bows and 450 feet for firearms. Hunting is not allowed on Sundays. The township says the program has had no accidents.

Who runs it. The Wildlife Committee, formed in 1992 as the Hunting Committee, is an ad hoc committee appointed by the Mayor. It includes liaisons from the Township Committee and the police. It recommends tracts and rules to the Township Committee, which votes on them.

Later counts. A 2021 thermal survey found 69 deer per square mile. A 2025 drone survey found about 93 (the August 21, 2025 entry). The three counts were made by different vendors with different methods.

The sale. The law let the Treasury, “on behalf of the Department of Corrections,” sell “the 77+ acre parcel of land, and the improvements thereon that include the former McCorkle Correctional Facility for Young Men, fronting on Somerset County Route 601,” a portion of Block 25001 Lot 27. Terms were left to the State House Commission.

The carve-out. The parcel “was, and is deemed to have been, excluded from the perpetual restriction” of the 1988 law, “because the parcel was not used for agricultural purposes on October 5, 1988.” That restriction “applies and will continue to apply to the remainder of Block 25001, Lot 27.”

The school easement. The law let the Treasury grant “the Montgomery Township Board of Education an easement” north across Lot 27 to Route 602, “for the purpose of providing additional access to the parcel for safety purposes.” The easement is free of the 1988 restriction “for only as long as the parcel is developed and used as a public school facility.”

Today. The law does not name a buyer. The remaining state land in Lot 27, about 188 acres, “wraps around Montgomery High School,” according to the township’s March 2026 presentation. See the state lands explainer.