By Barbara A. Preston for The Montgomery News | Posted Feb. 16, 11 am
Montgomery Township’s Fourth Round Prospective Affordable Housing obligation (2025-2035) of 260 units will be addressed with extension of expiring controls and Fourth Round bonuses, according to a new plan that was posted online on Feb. 13.
Township Committee is expected to introduce the affordable housing ordinance at its Thursday, Feb. 19 meeting. The Montgomery Planning Board will hold a public hearing and adoption vote on plan on Monday, Feb. 23.
The Montgomery Township Planning Board presented a significant amendment to its Fourth Round Affordable Housing Plan during its regular meeting on February 9, 2026, shifting focus from new inclusionary development sites to the preservation of existing affordable housing units. Planning Director and Township Administrator Lori Savron informed the board and the public that the revised plan, covering the 2025-2035 Round Four period, will remove three previously proposed inclusionary development sites:
The EKahn Site (formerly Kenvue, formerly J&J, on Grandview Road in Skillman)
23 Orchard Road (the current Montgomery Innovation Hub site)
Thrive Assisted Living (credits to be claimed in a future round)
In its place, the Draft 2026 Amended Fourth Round Housing Plan will prioritize extending the affordability controls on existing units, a mechanism that maintains the units as affordable housing for an additional 30 years.
The most notable addition to the amended plan is the inclusion of the Pike Run development. The plan now claims:
Pike Run: Extension of controls on 96 existing rental units, resulting in a total of 144 claimed credits (including 48 bonus credits). Pike Run has 210 affordable family rental apartments, with the township potentially seeking to extend additional units in the future.
The plan also retains the extension of controls on home ownership units at McKinley Commons (35 units) and Montgomery Glen (19 units), which remain unchanged from the June 2025 adopted plan.
Additionally, the plan modifies the accounting for McKinley Court's 60 affordable senior rentals. While the township plans to extend all 60 units, they will claim 58 credits for this round due to a state-mandated cap on senior age-restricted units. With bonus credits, this development will contribute a total of 75 credits.
"The public spoke and we listened," Planning Board Chairman Dave Campeas, said. "We came up with a different plan that hopefully ... makes a lot more sense for the township."
The decision to pivot was made after a significant number of residents objected to the township's original plan. The adapted plan maximizes the preservation of existing affordable units in the township, which the NJ Fair Housing Act supports as being "just as important as the creation of new affordable units." The units targeted for extension are set to expire during the current Round Four period, making their preservation a time-critical priority.
Montgomery Township's Original Round 4 Housing Plan has four challengers, including two non-profit residential public interest groups (Save Montgomery and Montgomery Neighbors United), the Fair Share Housing Center (a nonprofit advocacy organization that uses legal, policy, and community-building strategies to fight for housing justice in New Jersey), and the developer EKahn Development.
The NJ Fair Housing Act (NJSA 52:27D-302) established an Affordable Housing Dispute Resolution Program, known as "The Program." It is basically a court-based oversight consortium of retired judges who will hear the formal objections, disputes, or challenges that were filed in June — including the four mentioned above.
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Jennifer Winell, a member of Save Montgomery, asked the Planning Board about the challenge filed by Eli Kahn, the new owner of the Kenvue site.
"I'm curious about the appeal that E Kahn (Development) has with judge," she said. "What is our backup plan if the judge decides that he can build the housing there?"
Montgomery Township Attorney Wendy Rubenstein answered: "If circumstances change, we'll be back with a new plan."
Photo by Barbara A. Preston
Another member of the public, Chip Crider of Princeton, asked the Planning Board to "explain in detail what Kahn's latest lawsuit is about?"
"I guess the guy owns it, from what I read," Crider said. "What did he try to do? What did you deny? What do you want to do on this [Kenvue] site now. The way I read it, he [Kahn] just wanted to have a general discussion about what he had in mind for the property, and then proceed with the details. I always thought we could do that. I believe you can do that in Princeton. It seems like an unnecessary confrontation."
Planning Board attorney Karen L. Cayci explained that the township, "Has not been served yet. But we understand that Mr. Kahn is objecting because the Planning Board would not allow him to present what is called a General Development Plan (GDP). The Planning Board, based on the advice of their attorney, advised (Kahn) that the township has no ordinance that would authorize the planning board to hear it. It is not mandatory that a township have such an ordinance.
"A GDP is very general. Its purpose is to provide that a developer will develop a large site in sequence. So they would come to the board and say, 'in phase one we would like to do x, y, z. And in phase two, we are going to develop this portion.'
"Developers sometimes want to come in with a GDP because ... it's less documentation that they have to provide. And, if a town has an ordinance, frequently it would protect them for many years from a change in zoning," Cayci said.
Planning Board Chairman Campeas explained, "It is a technical legal issue. We don't have an ordinance that allows someone to come before us and present a GDP. We ask everyone to follow the ordinances that we do have, which is to come in with a site plan and to go through the process."
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"Kahn does not agree with that approach. And that is why he has filed a lawsuit, in which he says our Planning Board was wrong, and says our legal position is wrong. So Kahn is free to file a site plan anytime he wants to. But, apparently, he does not what to do that right now."
Kahn has some other redevelopment ideas for the 382-acre former Kenvue site, which he now owns. At an informal community discussion in November regarding the future of the Kenvue (previously Johnson & Johnson) corporate campus in Skillman, Kahn noted that the township declined to hear his GDP. He said , "I think we're on our way to litigating that, because it's part of the state law. "
"We're frustrated because we're trying to get input and trying to get some ideas from them as to what they would accept, what residents would like to see here. — Developer Eli Kahn
Kahn discussed three options:
This plan calls for approximately 1.2 million square feet of "light manufacturing flex buildings," which are explicitly not bulk distribution warehouses. This represents an addition of roughly 400,000 square feet to the existing structures on the property.
Traffic: The plan is projected to generate an estimated 300 to 400 truck trips per day on local roads and is anticipated to be a 20-year buildout.
Flexibility: The developer stressed that due to the property's existing "limited-manufacturing" zoning (in place since 1975) and environmental constraints like wetlands, there is "not a lot of flexibility" to reduce the size of the industrial development.
E Kahn's residential plan featured 417 total units, including 70 affordable units. However, Kahn said the township recently "kicked us out of the Round 4 plan," leading to the re-focus on the industrial use.
Kahn's Mixed-Use Concept included 332 residential units along with retaining the large existing industrial building. This plan was noted by several residents as their preferred option at the November informal information session, and one speaker noted it would bring in fewer children to the school district while retaining ratables for the town.
"So in the mixed use plan, when we showed this ... the township mentioned the need for alternative spaces for gyms and indoor sports and those types of things," Kahn said. "So you do see those in flex buildings, not necessarily zoned for that today, but we were open to a concept, potentially, where you could have different types of users come here.
"Can we open up an indoor soccer facility? So just to get you an idea, it was a mixed-use concept too, as it relates to the limited industrial designing. You might have a coffee roaster next to a gymnastics next to a dog training facility, et cetera. On this plan, it could satisfies a lot of uses and get to use a building that's existing."
Kahn said, "I will also tell you that we have listened to people talk about the IM Pei office building. The building that people are describing is a 1980s suburban office building. [Kahn Development] owns millions of square feet of office buildings. From our perspective, there's nothing special about it.
"We are actively involved in marketing this site. I want everybody to know, even though Kenvue was unsuccessful finding the next big corporate user, and it is a needle in a haystack. We continue to market this site to another corporate user that could come in, change the sign out front, and everybody goes their merry way. It is literally one in a million that that's going to occur.
"So we can't, as developers, just put all our eggs in that basket, because that's not where the market is. Again, these kind of campuses are vacated and vacating all across the country. Tens, if not hundreds of millions of square feet, of this type of real estate is sitting vacant."
“Something’s going to happen to this property. Let’s try to make something that works for the majority of the people.” — Eli Kahn
Feb. 13, 2026: Amended Plan posted to the Township website.
Feb. 19, 2026: Township Committee to introduce the affordable housing ordinance
Feb. 23, 2026: Public Hearing and Adoption of the Amended Plan by the Planning Board.
March 5, 2026: Public Hearing and Adoption of the companion Affordable Housing Ordinance by the Township Committee.
>> Click here to Listen to the Planning Board's Feb. 9 information session on the amended plan online.
