Boyd,
The Lazy Eye Distillery is welcomed by Richland residents like myself. It is a privately owned establishment, on privately owned land. Their appearance did not require Chiarello's 5-year redevelopment tax abatement incentives. The distillery didn't need to invoke redevelopment eminent domain. Their arrival here has little to do with government intervention - but is in fact a private enterprise success story. Free enterprise is our (the residents) vision of what it means to move forward in economic growth. The Township Committee Chair shamelessly uses the distillery's story as proof of redevelopment's efficacy, but it isn't.
What Chiarello leaves out is that the distillery announced its arrival in Richland after Richland Village redevelopment was rescinded in Ordinance No. 8-2013 by the 2013 Committee. Richland redevelopment is dead. Right now there is no Richland Village, a novel name for Richland coined to court developers. The 2014 Township Committee will attempt to rescind the 2013 rescission, with a hearing set for February 10. How they plan to put the toothpaste back into the tube after it has been squeezed out is legally dubious. The Committee must go back to the beginning to reinstate redevelopment, but that act would further waste taxpayers' money.
Making matters trickier is the fact that most of the township-owned redevelopment land was recently sold (56.89 of 71.59 acres or 79.5% of the land), making the original redevelopment plan obsolete (Richland Village: Growing Smart into the 21st Century). Two of the sold properties were slated for package sewer plants, which were critical components of the original redevelopment plan.
Without the potential for sewering, the high density redevelopment building overlay Chiarello (and the Pinelands Commission) wanted is impossible, effectively making redevelopment untenable. Chiarello, let the private market do what you couldn't after 10 years of trying, and quite frankly mismanaged. Get it right; Giacomo’s foundered after Richland redevelopment began, the Lazy Eye Distillery appeared after Richland redevelopment ended.
S-M