Township Committee — July 17, 2025
The first regular Township Committee meeting after the Fourth Round housing plan was adopted. Nothing about the Kenvue site was on the agenda, yet roughly 80 minutes of public comment was about it — the headquarters building slated for demolition, which speakers that night attributed to Henry N. Cobb and W. Steven Wood of I.M. Pei & Partners against the plan's finding of no architecturally important buildings on the site; Grandview Road traffic, flooding, and repeated demands for an alternative site. Officials corrected the unit numbers, explained why the township did not challenge its state obligation, and promised August town halls.
- Affordable housing
- Kenvue site
- Process
Meeting recording
Recording plays on the township archive
This meeting does not play on this page. The township's recording is complete and plays in full — the chapter links below will open it at the right moment.
Worth watching
Before the first speaker, the chair announces that the township will hold one or more affordable-housing town halls in early August 2025, with "the right experts" and Township Committee members present.
Same moment on the township archiveResident Edward Silverman reads the adopted plan's claim that no historic or architecturally important buildings are on the site, and argues the housing would require demolishing a significant late-modern headquarters building designed within I.M. Pei & Partners with landscape work by Laurie Olin.
Same moment on the township archiveDave Leonard notes the township's own January 2025 presentation put Montgomery's developable land at 202 acres, and asks how the plan can then add roughly 382 acres at the Kenvue site. He also asks the Committee to direct staff to draft an alternative plan within 30 days.
Same moment on the township archiveShellie Jacobson, a Grandview Road resident since 1978, asks how many committee members have driven the road, describes the one- and two-lane bridges, and calls the planned demolition of the J&J-era buildings shameful.
Same moment on the township archiveAn official corrects the "250 low-income units" framing repeated by speakers: the township's whole Round Four obligation is 260 units, only part of it at this site, and site infrastructure would be paid by the developer. Kenvue, he adds, is leaving regardless — the township cannot force a business to stay.
Same moment on the township archiveGeorge DeSanctis asks why Montgomery, unlike Hillsborough, accepted its obligation. A township professional answers that towns whose numbers moved were mostly "within 6 to 10 units," and that Montgomery's number was driven by income rather than land. A Committee member adds that challenging the number would also have meant losing the township's immunity from builder's-remedy suits.
Same moment on the township archive
What happened
What happened
This was the Township Committee’s first regular meeting after Montgomery adopted its Fourth Round Housing Element and Fair Share Plan ahead of the June 30, 2025 statutory deadline — the plan that placed 417 residential units, 70 of them affordable, on the former Johnson & Johnson / Kenvue campus at 199 Grandview Road.
Mayor Neena Singh did not answer the roll call and cast no votes; Deputy Mayor Vincent Barragan chaired, with Committee Members Ahn, Martin and Taylor Todd present. Every roll call that night was therefore 4–0 among the four members present.
The business was routine. Chief Financial Officer Michael Pitts presented the second-quarter 2025 financials: a budget adopted May 1, and an overall tax bill for the average home rising 1.82%. Ordinance #25-1761, adjusting one-way streets, stop intersections and speed limits on Township Line Road, passed first reading with the public hearing set for August 7, 2025. The consent agenda — Resolutions #25-7-238 through #25-7-240, including a resolution supporting the state’s proposed Resilient Environment and Landscapes (REAL) stormwater rule — was adopted, as were Resolution #25-7-241 (review of the 2024 annual audit) and Resolution #25-7-242 (payment of bills). There were no ordinances for final adoption, no minutes to approve, no new business and no executive session.
Nothing about the Kenvue site appeared anywhere on the agenda. Public comment ran roughly 80 minutes of the two-hour meeting, and almost all of it was about that site. Opening the item, the chair announced the township would hold one or more affordable-housing town halls in early August.
Why it matters
June’s fight had been at the Planning Board, which adopts the housing plan. July 17 was the first time the Township Committee heard, at length and on the record, that residents regarded the plan’s own findings as wrong. The Committee took no action on housing that night, but one member said “the words done deal are not appropriate,” another said the township would keep looking at contingency plans, and a township professional reminded the room that the plan is “a living document” and part of the Master Plan, subject to change. Those contingencies eventually materialized: after mediation in late 2025 the township moved to remove the Kenvue site, and the amended plan adopted in March 2026 replaced it with preservation of existing affordable units. That case is not finished — the amended plan has not yet been certified by the court.
Worth watching
- 21:53 — Public comment opens, town halls promised
- 22:20 — The plan’s historic-resources statement is challenged
- 28:40 — The land-capacity math
- 31:20 — Grandview Road traffic and the demolition question
- 38:20 — The township corrects the unit numbers
- 43:00 — Why Montgomery did not challenge its state number
Public comment
Edward Silverman argued that the adopted plan rested on two statements he considered false: that no historic or architecturally important buildings would be affected, and that the site is “underutilized.” Shellie Jacobson, a Grandview Road resident since 1978, described the narrow bridges and asked the Committee to drive the road before deciding; a longtime J&J employee said tearing the buildings down would be a shame. Chris Dollard urged R&D reuse or open space, citing the Bell Labs site on Carter Road in Hopewell. Dave Leonard pressed the land-capacity arithmetic and asked for a written Plan B within 30 days. Several speakers raised flooding. Sean Buckley asked why the site could not attract returning pharmaceutical manufacturing; the answer from the dais was that the township had tried.
Not everyone was opposed to the obligation itself. Paul Blodgett said affordable housing is a moral duty as well as a legal mandate and praised Montgomery’s record, then criticized a Round Four process he said sidelines local voices in favor of planners and developers, urging smaller distributed sites and adaptive reuse. Mike Pisauro of The Watershed Institute thanked the Committee for the REAL-rule resolution (50:30). Former Mayor Keenan told the room the state numbers were already binding, and that any challenge to the plan had to be filed by August 31, 2025 (1:23:10).
Officials answered several questions directly. Asked how many low-income units the Kenvue site would hold, staff said 70 on site, with the balance of the obligation met by extending affordability controls on existing units elsewhere in the township (1:13:20). Counsel explained that the housing plan is an element of the Master Plan and does not itself set zoning, that flood and stormwater analysis would come later but would be required, and declined to discuss how the township would respond to a legal challenge. Residents also raised unrelated township matters, including odor and noise from the Stage 2 sewage treatment plant construction and regional flood mitigation.
Note on sourcing: no township minutes for this meeting were in the material we collected, so the vote counts above come from the meeting recording itself.
Agenda index
Full transcript
The township publishes a transcript of this meeting alongside the video. In a meeting that runs for hours it is the quickest way to find where a subject came up; the chapter links above jump the recording to each agenda item.