Township to contribute toward greenbelt

The money, $19,500, will come from the open space tax.

By: John Tredrea
   A $19,500 contribution toward the purchase of an 11-acre segment of an envisioned greenbelt around Hopewell Borough has been approved by the Hopewell Township Committee.
   The township contribution will be 10 percent of the purchase price of the open space conservation easement.
   The purchase will be made under the auspices of the state’s Green Acres program, whose task is to preserve tracts of land in, or close to, their natural state.
   The Township Committee, at the recommendation of Edmund Stiles, chairman of the Hopewell Township Open Space Advisory Committee, voted unanimously Aug. 16 to make the contribution for the parcel, known locally as the Driver tract, in the east-central township, north of Hopewell Borough.
   The township’s contribution will be drawn from its open space trust fund, which gets its revenues from the township’s 2-cent open space tax.
   Dr. Stiles, a professor of botany at Rutgers University and a prominent player in Hopewell Valley open space projects, said the 11 acres is "an integral connector" in ongoing efforts to establish uninterrupted bands of open space in Hopewell Valley.
   The Driver tract would become part of both a greenbelt around Hopewell Borough and a band of open space that would run north from the borough to the Sourland Mountains, Dr. Stiles said.
   The greenbelt, to date, extends roughly halfway around the borough.