Developer To Present Revised One Westfield Place Proposal At Meeting

WESTFIELD, NJ — HBC Streetworks, the development group behind the One Westfield Place proposal, will present revisions it made to the Lord & Taylor redevelopment plan at a council meeting Tuesday night.

In response to feedback from the public, Streetworks announced a number of changes to the highly controversial project — from reducing the number of apartment units to including more parking spaces.

Streetworks will make a formal presentation at the council meeting, which begins at 8 p.m., about the proposed changes, and Westfield's finance professionals will also present at the meeting.

According to Mayor Shelley Brindle, the purpose of these presentations is to give the elected officials a chance to ask questions ahead of the Jan. 31 introduction of the Redevelopment Plan ordinance.

The mayor also hosted a second financial presentation on the project last week, along with members from the development team and financial experts, on Facebook Live. The full presentation can be viewed here.

Significant changes to the project include reducing the number of residential apartments on Clark & North Ave. from 34 apartments to 16 townhomes. As a result, there are 18 fewer units.

Streetworks is also removing one floor from two planned office buildings on South Avenue to further reduce density.

As lack of parking is a common concern, the developer revised its parking plan to include drop-off spaces for ride-share services, as well as a create 16 on-street parking spaces on South Avenue for retail businesses.

In addition, Streetworks added plans to enhance the development's public space by adding a public dog run, a community garden, a bike path along the NJ Transit line and a pedestrian footbridge over Rout 28.

Read more about the changes here: Developer Revises Housing, Parking Plans For One Westfield Place

Many residents have still expressed their dissatisfaction with the project, despite these changes.

Westfield Advocates for Redevelopment, a group of residents that launched a petition against the project, is encouraging people to attend the council meeting Tuesday night.

A second petition, called "P-A-U-S-E This Process. Right-Sized Alternative Needed" was posted by the group Tuesday morning.

"The scale and size of this project is TOO big for this small town and the infrastructure impacts haven’t been fully vetted," Westfield Advocates states. "For example, our traffic engineers comments and questions remain to be answered as of yesterday afternoon."

More than 1,700 people have signed the petition as of Tuesday morning.

You can view the full agenda for the town council meeting on Tuesday here. The meeting will also be live streamed on town's Facebook page.

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