CLIENT: TOWNSHIP OF HOLMDEL

Overview

Building areas under old zoning

Holmdel Township, a suburban community in central New Jersey’s rapidly growing “wealth belt,” was faced with the imminent development of its last 500 acres of unprotected rural lands in an environmentally sensitive area surrounding a historic hamlet center. The existing zoning required a minimum lot size of four acres, which would have resulted in large-lot sprawl that would not have fulfilled longstanding Township objectives to preserve open space and protect the character of the hamlet. The Township, with the assistance of a Smart Future grant from the State of New Jersey, retained Phillips Preiss and A. Nelessen Associates to create a design program and accompanying zoning regulations that would maintain the same total lot yield while utilizing neotraditional and conservation cluster subdivision design principles to create a new model of suburban development, including a small mixed-use project adjacent to the historic hamlet. After working closely with developers and other stakeholders, the result was a master plan amendment and form-based conservation zoning regulations that specified the location and typology of buildings, public spaces and conservation areas.

Building areas under form-based conservation zoning

The public benefits will be significant: sixty-five percent of the area is to be preserved as open space, greenway trails will be provided to link the developments to one another and to the village, and several new parks will be built, all tightly integrated into the design of the projects. Most of all, the new regulations preserve forever the important natural areas surrounding the hamlet while providing for a contextual extension of the hamlet. The program was the recipient of a Monmouth County Planning Board Merit Award.

CLIENT: TOWNSHIP OF BLOOMFIELD

Overview

The Township of Bloomfield is a fully developed, transit-accessible municipality located just west of New York City. Phillips Preiss has provided a full range of planning and redevelopment services to the Township for over two decades. Most recently, Phillips Preiss led the preparation of the 2025 Bloomfield Master Plan, a forward-thinking, community-driven document that was officially adopted in April 2025. The Plan was honored with the 2025 New Jersey Planning Officials Achievement in Planning Award.

Phillips Preiss continues to provide strategic guidance and technical expertise to the Township on its compliance with New Jersey’s affordable housing obligations and various planning efforts. Phillips Preiss has also played a central role in advancing the Township’s redevelopment goals. Over the years, the firm has conducted numerous Area in Need of Redevelopment Studies, prepared Redevelopment Plans, guided implementation strategies, and has advised on open space and development projects.

CLIENT: TOWNSHIP OF TEANECK

Phillips Preiss led the preparation of a new comprehensive Master Plan for the Township of Teaneck in close collaboration with a Master Plan Steering Committee and the Planning Board.

Overview

The planning process included a public outreach process through bilingual online surveying, community forums and workshops, interviews with community and institutional stakeholders, and extensive public comment opportunities. The Master Plan recommended that new development be concentrated along existing bus routes and commercial corridors. It also recommended best practices for future redevelopment planning processes.

The Master Plan addressed wide-ranging land use, design, economic development, mobility, and historic preservation topics, providing detailed objectives and implementable recommendations to achieve them.

The Planning Board unanimously adopted the Master Plan in January 2025. The Plan subsequently received the 2025 New Jersey Planning Officials Achievement in Planning Award.

The Borough of Highlands, located along Sandy Hook Bay and the Shrewsbury River, has a compact main street (Bay Avenue) with small-scale lots anchoring the downtown, ferry service to New York City, a substantial waterfront, and easy access to Atlantic Ocean beaches. However, nearly the entire downtown lies within the FEMA AE flood zone, making ground-floor retail  prohibitively expensive. Many properties were badly damaged by flooding from Hurricane Sandy in 2012, and few businesses have reopened. In 2018, the Borough overhauled the downtown zoning, hoping to spur more restaurants, retail, and activity through mixed-use development. However, onerous parking requirements and restrictive height and FAR limits, combined with stricter floodproofing requirements, continued to make it nearly impossible to build a mixed-use building with ground-floor retail. Most recent construction and renovations have been single-family homes with front garages, resulting in less pedestrian activity on downtown sidewalks.

Examples of recent home construction and renovations to place living spaces above the Design Flood Elevation, resulting in a growing “garagescape” along Bay Avenue, the retail spine of Highlands. Some homes have a more friendly appearance than others.

Example of a house with its living areas raised above Design Flood Elevation, with a friendly second floor porch that is linked to the public sidewalk with a prominent staircase.

Through a competitive bidding process, Highlands retained Phillips Preiss to determine if a redevelopment approach could be used to spur new investment across downtown. After careful analysis of existing zoning, built form, building heights, and patterns of recent construction and renovations, the firm suggested a series of dramatic changes. Parking ratios were reduced, FAR was removed as a factor, and maximum permitted building coverage was increased. Most significantly, the firm created an optional height bonus program for several overlay areas where larger-scale new construction could be added downtown without unduly impacting adjoining single-family areas. The two-tiered bonus program awards higher heights in exchange for features that contribute to active, inviting, downtown-style streetscapes, including attractive, landscaped front “pocket parks” or plazas to create “breathing room” along the narrow, constrained Bay Avenue sidewalks and active uses on a floodproofed “Lowest Floor” – either the ground floor or the second floor. The additional heights will allow for more residential units on upper floors, creating more foot traffic and helping support new restaurants and retail.

The bonus program requires that if the active use is provided on the second floor, over an open level of parking, a front porch or deck with a substantial staircase or a series of terraced ramps is required within the front setback to maintain an inviting connection to the public sidewalk. In addition, front setback areas must have porous paving and landscaping for infiltration as well as seating areas to foster activity. The top floor of buildings must be stepped back to help reduce the perceived height and bulk. The Plan was well received and unanimously adopted in May 2022.

Aerial view of downtown Highlands, showing the narrow lots and regular grid of pedestrian-friendly streets.

Client: New Jersey Transportation Planning Authority (NJTPA)

Downtown Raritan Vision Plan

Raritan Vision Plan

Phillips Preiss was part of a project team led by FHI Studio that was selected by the North Jersey Transportation Planning Authority (NJTPA) to prepare a sustainable economic development plan for the Borough of Raritan, New Jersey as part of NJTPA’s Planning for Emerging Centers Program. Conveniently located in Somerset County’s core in central New Jersey, the Borough sought to create a plan that would allow them to maintain and expand existing downtown employment and economic activity, while retaining their historic, small-town character and capitalizing on their highly connected street network and potential waterfront connections to the Raritan River. Phillips Preiss’s primary role was to evaluate economic and market conditions within and around the Borough in order to provide insights and recommendations that would advance the goals of the plan, which presented a community-driven 10-year economic, land use and multi-modal vision for the Borough with a focus on supporting both existing and new residents and businesses. The Raritan Sustainable Economic Development Plan was honored with a 2021 Excellence in Planning Award by the Somerset County Planning Board.

Phillips Preiss has provided planning services including fiscal and community impact analyses to Rockefeller Group with regard to its master planned redevelopment of a 268-acre former Exxon-Mobil corporate campus site in Florham Park known as The Green at Florham Park. The development is now home to the BASF North American Headquarters, Summit Medical Group, and The New York JETS . The Green at Florham Park is also the future home of AVE Florham Park, which provides 256 corporate suites, The Archer Hotel, a sophisticated 161-key boutique hotel, Summit Medical Group / MD Anderson Cancer Center, providing world class cancer care, and a residential community. 

The firm prepared a Master Plan Reexamination Report for the Township of Morris in 2017. Phillips Preiss worked closely with the Planning Board to catalogue progress that had been made on the Township’s previous plan, describe the changes experienced in the municipality over the last ten years, and to develop recommendations for future land use. The recommendations were broken down into a short-, medium-, and long-term implementation schedule.

Client: Fort Monmouth Economic Revitalization Authority (FMERA)

Since 2011, Phillips Preiss has provided ongoing planning consulting services to the Fort Monmouth Economic Revitalization Authority (FMERA). FMERA is the entity responsible for overseeing the redevelopment of Fort Monmouth with an emphasis on job creation, economic development, conservation of natural resources, and housing creation. Phillips Preiss has provided planning advisory services to FMERA including the preparation of redevelopment plans, amendments to the Reuse and Redevelopment Plan, and open space analyses among other tasks.

Client: City of Bethlehem, PA

Overview

The City of Bethlehem retained Phillips Preiss to reexamine and refine its existing historic resource surveys, establish criteria and an action plan for additional landmark designations, and explore the idea of using tools outside of designation to preserve its rich architectural and cultural heritage. The strategies in the Preservation Plan dovetail with other City initiatives, so that preservation works to further – rather than restrain – economic development, neighborhood revitalization, environmental sustainability, affordable housing, and other desired goals.

Clients: Members of the New Jersey State Legislature

Overview

Phillips Preiss provided planning and economic analysis services in support of “The Meadowlands Regionalization, Efficiency and Property Tax Relief Act of 2010” (bill number A2939/S2078), a municipal consolidation bill for part of southern Bergen County. The bill proposes to dissolve the Borough of Teterboro (a municipality with 67 residents), modify the boundaries of other municipalities, and rationalize the tax-sharing agreements for the Hackensack Meadowlands District. Phillips Preiss advised two of the primary sponsors of this law, Senator Robert M. Gordon and Assemblywoman Connie Wagner.

Results

Although the bill has not yet been passed by the Legislature, it has helped bring municipal consolidation issues to the forefront. Related legislation has been passed to ease municipal consolidation efforts.

Client: Township of Montclair, NJ

Overview

Phillips Preiss was retained by the Township of Montclair to assess the potential impacts of a major downtown mixed-use project. Notably, the development was proposed to include housing for approximately 1,000 students from a nearby state university, as well as retail, office, hotel and/or residential components. The Phillips Preiss study analyzed aesthetic, community, economic and traffic impacts and outlined a variety of possible benefits and challenges, which helped lay the groundwork for a productive discussion between the applicant, the Township and the greater Montclair community.

Results

The student housing project did not move forward, due in part to concerns about potential impacts uncovered by Phillips Preiss' study. The Township of Montclair subsequently hired Phillips Preiss to prepare a redevelopment investigation for the study area, as well as a redevelopment plan.

Client: Township of Cranbury, NJ

Overview

As the Township Planner, Phillips Preiss prepared Cranbury’s Master Plan, which recommended amendments to the Zoning Code to help preserve the Township’s rural character and historic Village center while ensuring a fiscally-sustainable future for the Township by encouraging non-residential development opportunities in appropriate locations (e.g., in the vicinity of Route 130).

Results

Following the adoption of the plan, Phillips Preiss worked with the Township Committee on the preparation of zoning amendments to implement plan recommendations and strategies.