Howell residents stand to lose in plan for new street in Ramtown

The Hidden View development in Wall Township will be dumping 300 cars per day into the Ramtown section of Howell.

The original plans for this development specified that Cherry and Red Bud lanes in Howell would serve as access roads. Howell fought this plan in court and lost.

It’s unfortunate that the residents in and around Cherry and Red Bud lanes are faced with the traffic from this development.

The Howell mayor and Township Council have devised a plan for a new "T" intersection into Jacob Drive to serve as the only access road into the development.

This new access road will cost the taxpayers in Howell well in excess of $3 million, destroy wetlands, disrupt two water retention basins, take a half-mile of trees out and condemn or by eminent domain steal property from two development associations who will not sell them the land.

The only reason for this new grand plan is votes. The original access road area has 200-plus homes and the new area has 85 homes.

Why else would the council propose a new plan that will cost taxpayers $3 million when the original plan would cost nothing? Why would you try to put the access road in an area with even narrower roads that is less capable of handling the added traffic?

At the township meeting on June 29, Councilman Joseph DiBella chastised the residents of Jacob Drive about not turning this into a Cherry and Red Bud lanes vs. Jacob Drive fight.

We didn’t; the council did this by trying to shift the burden to another area to buy votes with taxpayer dollars. The council (DiBella particularly, who will be running for mayor) needs to be chastised by the voters in Howell at the next election.

The mayor and council turned this into a Howell vs. Howell issue instead of Howell vs. Wall Township.

Frederick J. Preziosi

Howell