Monroe Township planning board backs zoning change to allow affordable housing, limits warehouse access to Route 33

The Monroe Township Planning Board unanimously recommended the Township Council find Ordinance No. 2025-021 consistent with the township's 2022 master plan and forwarded a resolution memorializing that recommendation.

The ordinance would amend Chapter 108-6.18 (Highway Development District) to remove wholesale distributive and storage establishments from the list of directly permitted uses and place them under conditional uses with a new condition: any wholesale/distributive/storage operation that requires tractor-trailer access would need a direct driveway connection to Route 33. Planner Mika Abdi told the board the change is intended to keep heavy truck traffic on Route 33 instead of smaller residential roads.

The amendment also creates a new RA-2 (residential affordable housing) district to rezone the site identified in the ordinance (Block 3, Lots 31 and 32). Abdi said the RA-2 language would allow a maximum of 158 dwelling units on the tract and requires a minimum of 65 family rental units to be designated as affordable. "It is, in my opinion,…