Morristown's Future: Develop and Preserve Neighborhoods

Morristown Moving Forward’s charrette week began last week with charts and maps of the town. The public was invited to voice their opinions and write comments on a large maps with sticky notes. After two public input sessions at the Hyatt HQ Plaza and two days of a pop-up design studio on the Green, there were plenty of post-it notes and input from the community.

“Whether it was negative or positive response to their issues, the opportunity to just be able to express their opinion was what was overwhelmingly positive throughout the day,” said Daniel Hernandez, Morristown director of planning, adding that there would be battling post-it notes at times. “We need to define what the compromise is.”

“It’s been a great turnout on the Green. We’re thrilled. I don’t think you’ll find this anywhere else in the state of New Jersey … to my knowledge,” Mayor Tim Dougherty said.

Janet Jenkins, of Vanasse Hangen Brustlin, Inc., addressed Morristown Green traffic and presented what charrette week has produced: four possibilities for traffic flow around the Green.

“Preservation and development … It’s not about one or the other. It’s about creating great places through development and preservation,” said Hernandez. “This town is about community engagement … and we’ll continue to do that through right of ways.”

Here's a quick look at public input by the Numbers:

• 145—Number of participants at the Jan. 23 Kick-off meeting
• 143—Number of active participants on MorristownMovingFoward.com
• 229—Number of ideas on MorristownMovingFoward.com
• 114—Number of Facebook Page likes
• 76—Number of Twitter followers
• 78—Number of participants at the April 22 charrette Kick-off meeting
• 90—Number of participants at the April 23 Design Studio
• 98—Number of participants at the April 24 Design Studio

Morristown Master Plan

Here's a look at the major components of the master plan:

• The Town’s vision
• Circulation and mobility
• Land Use / Urban Form
• Public Realm / Urban Design
• Plan for Places / Redevelopment plans

 Land Use

Some of the highlights of land use included:

• Locations of permitted uses and desired neighborhood character
• New land uses (light manufacturing / live-work)
• Building heights (downtown)
• Neighborhood transitions
• Neighborhood Centers, schools and community uses

“How far does that urban downtown extend? We’re proposing some extension of that urban form so that … (we connect) in a more deliberate way the train station and the town Green,” said Hernandez pointing to the areas of the map in red. “We’re allowing for 2-6 stories to happen within that space, but we also … wanted to preserve that quality and create barriers between that urban downtown forms and the neighborhoods.”

He said that they would look closely at smoothing the transition of urban to neighborhood.

“You begin staggering the urban forms, the softer urban forms and the neighborhoods behind them to transition them,” he said.

He also explained neighborhood centers as a residential area that may have one or two shops or restaurants.

“People thought they were great and didn’t want them to go away. They’re still a neighborhood scale, but allow for that small restaurant or market.”

Public Input

“It’s been an honor working with everybody through this process. I’m looking forward to seeing what the final product is,” said Mary Dougherty, Morristown's Democratic Committee Chair.

Councilwoman Rebecca Feldman has been involved in the process since the January meeting and said that she hopes more townwide polling and input can be done as well "so that we can hear from every neighborhood."

"I think having broad public participation in the creation of the new master plan is essential, that's how I did outreach to a thousand of my own constituents that this was going on," she said.

"I was on the planning board in the early 2000s, when we adopted the previous master plan and since then we haven't had any planning efforts, but I think here since we're starting by integrating mobility and land use together, we're going to come up with an end result that is going to lend itself much better to getting the Morristown we want it to become." 

She added that the presentation should be brought to different neighborhoods and different sections of town to help spread the word and get more input from those that may have missed charrette week.

"I thought it was a good presentation and gave a good overview. It's a long time frame to get portions of it done. They'll need a lot of cooperation and a lot of money," said Steve Grow, a former Morristown commercial owner and a current residential owner who has been involved with the town for about 25 years.

"It's good they had a vision. There will be people who don't agree with it, but it's a starting point. Since Morristown is so diverse, that will probably cause some slow down. I hope they will have more of these focus groups ... and start forming a direction."

"So many ideas were brought to the table," said Jennifer Wehring, Morristown Partnership Director of Marketing. "You like to see more people having a voice in this process."

"I hope it leads to good (ideas). Large areas of the town that can be improved, like around the train station and Washington Street," said longtime resident Timothy Schmitt. "Washington Street is filled with a lot of cool old houses. The trafifc problems have been around since 1740 ... we're stuck with being the traffic center. Morristown is a a speed bump for people going to Mendham." He said that he was concerned with pedestrian safety for children and the seniors. 

"I think before they implement the master plan, I think it's a good tool to get input from the people who live here," said Ed France of Coccia Realty who was born and raised in Morristown. He added that his biggest issues are affordable housing, traffic flow and crime. "We need to have more police officers walking the beat. We just hired seven new police officers, there's no reason why they can't be walking the beat.

Now What?

Now, they will be in the design stage for a few more weeks.

A lot of what was done during charrette week will be compressed into a document. This document will then be "synthesized into a final document when we come back to (the public) ... not for big new thinking, but to refine things from existing thinking," said Hernandez.

Hernandez thanked Hyatt for allowing them to use their facilities "basically gratis" as well as the storefront owner at 18 N. Park for the pop-up studio and the Morristown parking authority.

Related Patch articles:

• Four Morristown Green Traffic Flow Options (Video)
• Morristown Talks 'Traffic Congestion' and Land Use
• What do You Want to Change About Morristown?