East Windsor wetlands agency approves North Winkler multifamily plan with turtle-management condition

The East Windsor Inland Wetlands Watercourse Agency voted to approve IWWA-28-2025 on Dec. 3, 2025, allowing North Winkler EW LLC to build a multifamily community at 173 North Road and Mullen Road after experts testified the project would avoid adverse impacts to wetlands.

Chair Rebecca Davis opened the public hearing and read the notice for the application, which proposes four apartment buildings totaling 152 units and eight rows of townhouses totaling 37 units on a roughly 30-acre parcel. Attorney Andrea Gomes, representing the applicant, said the project team had revised plans to address town engineering comments and told the commission, "the commission will find that there is no adverse impact here."

Tom Daley, a professional engineer with SLR Consulting, described the site plan and stormwater protections: the design clusters development to keep about 63% of the site undeveloped, uses oversized culverts and a 24-foot-span precast structure to span the largest watercourse, and relies on underground chamber systems, level spreaders and vegetated basins to meet DEP stormwater standards. Daley said the plan would limit direct wetlands disturbance to a small area and emphasized layered erosion controls during construction.

Matthew Sanford, senior wetland scientist and registered soil scientist with SLR, described the wetland delineation and functions. He said the team identified three wetland areas (about 11.4 acres total), documented soils and vegetation during fieldwork in 2023 and 2025, and estimated direct wetland impacts of roughly 5,948 square feet. Sanford said the design and proposed mitigation—an approximately 8,500-square-foot wetland-creation area plus about 11,500 square feet of upland restoration—would preserve principal wetland functions including groundwater discharge, nutrient assimilation and sediment retention. He concluded, "the design ... will not have an adverse impact to the wetland 1, wetland 2, or wetland 3 on this project."

Neighbors asked about property-boundary accuracy, construction access, and potential effects on wells and buffers. Rob Anderson of 34 Bass Drive said the maps used in the presentation differed from his deed and GIS maps, telling the commission, "the maps that you have there are not correct as far as the property boundaries." Applicant counsel and the project's surveyor said plans were based on a licensed field survey and offered to have surveyors communicate directly with concerned neighbors. Consultants said construction access will be defined by installed silt fence and inspected, and that contractors must remain within approved disturbance limits.

Several residents asked about wildlife protections. Sanford said eastern box turtles are an upland-dependent species and described NDDB (Natural Diversity Database) best-management practices: an on-site herpetologist during initial construction, perimeter silt fencing, routine sweeps and relocation of turtles found inside the fenced area. The commission added a formal condition to require turtle-management best practices as part of the approval.

After the presentation, a commissioner moved to approve IWWA-28-2025, referencing the plan's mitigation, stormwater design and erosion controls. The motion, which included the 14 standard conditions and an additional Condition No. 15 requiring turtle-management best practices, carried on a voice vote.

The approval is limited to the wetlands-related regulated activities before this agency; planning and zoning review of buffers, building design and other land-use approvals will proceed separately. The commission noted that any material change in the approved bounds of disturbance would require return to staff and potentially a new wetlands application.