Tabernacle resident Fran Brooks was driving down Carranza Road recently when she came across two gruesome scenes.
A disemboweled doe lay on the side of the road with an unborn fawn carcass nearby.
Drivers ignoring the posted speed limit signs probably caused the deer killings, she said.
Brian Husted lives on Goosepond Road, a connecting road between Butterworths Bogs Road and Chatsworth Road, which has a posted speed limit of 25 mph.
That limit is ignored and is causing an issue on his street, he explained, since there are several children living in the area.
He attended Tabernacle’s regular committee meeting on Monday, June 25 to ask for solutions.
Tabernacle’s Mayor, Richard Franzen, said that the first step would be for the township to contact the state police to see if more patrols can be acquired for that area.
Husted’s issue comes on the heels of a traffic ordinance that will be introduced on first reading at the Monday, July 23 committee meeting at Town Hall.
The ordinance is going to “need some teeth,” expressed Brooks.
“We are updating what we have for traffic regulations,” said township administrator Doug Cramer.
Once the ordinance is adopted, all of the township’s traffic regulations would reach enforceable standards, he said.
In some cases, speed limits may change, but that possibility will remain unknown until after the township’s engineer, Frank Morris, conducts a survey.
“It’s an ongoing process,” Cramer said. “We’ve done stop streets previously.”
Internal streets begin and end within township lines. For those streets, Morris will set standards based on state standards.
For streets that span between communities, the Department of Transportation will be involved.
“The ones that we can do through the engineer’s survey will be done right away,” he said.
Currently, some streets are not in compliance with state standards.
The state approved a rural residential speed limit of 35 mph.
“Some of our roads have adopted that, some of them haven’t yet,” Cramer said.
There are approximately 88 miles of roads in the township, he added.
Clustering ordinance reaches public hearing
The clustering ordinance moved forward at the meeting. The second reading and public hearing will be held at July 23’s meeting at 8 p.m. in Town Hall.
“It only applies to forest area, which is a zoning term…and rural development,” said Cramer. It doesn’t apply to every zone.
“We don’t have a super large forest area,” he added.
Clusters group buildings together to create more open space in the track of ground, he explained.
The goal is to promote more open space.
“It’s an option for the developer,” he said.
According to the Pinelands Commission’s booklet released in 2004, Clustering Opportunities in the Pinelands, there are advantages and disadvantages to clustering.
One of the advantages is the neighborhood feel that evolves from clustering. A disadvantage, on the contrary, is the public perception of a “denser development.”
View the entire booklet at www.state.nj.us/pinelands/infor/broch/clustering.pdf.
Compliments for Volunteer Day
Committeemen Joseph Barton and Joseph Yates complimented Franzen for his speech at Volunteer Day on June 16 in the township as part of their committee reports.
“All went very well that day,” Franzen added.
