This was the school board’s fourth extension to the township planners on Back Timberlane. At the suggestion of school board member David Goldschmidt of Pennington, the document OK’d by the board Monday night states that this extension will be the last
By: John Tredrea
The Hopewell Township Planning Board has until Nov. 13 to come to a decision on a proposed complex of 10 athletic fields on 48 acres on the western end of the grounds of Timberlane Middle School.
The township’s planners are involved in the decision-making process because the school is located on land located in Hopewell Township.
The Hopewell Valley Regional Board of Education voted unanimously Monday night to extend to Nov. 13 the planners’ deadline for making up its mind on what is known to the community as "Back Timberlane."
It was the school board’s fourth extension to the planners on Back Timberlane. At the suggestion of school board member David Goldschmidt of Pennington, the document OK’d by the board Monday night states that this extension will be the last.
Scheduled to be held at 7:30 p.m. on Nov. 8 is a special Hopewell Township Planning Board meeting on the Back Timberlane plan.
By mutual agreement of the planning and school boards nearly three months ago, the Back Timberlane plan was sent back to the drawing board after four lengthy Planning Board meetings dominated by much public comment both for and against the plan.
The school board’s president, Sally Turner, said Tuesday that the Back Timberlane proposal that will go before the Planning Board Nov. 8 has been scaled down significantly from the proposal considered earlier by the planners, with a wider buffer separating the fields from neighboring properties and some of the fields reduced in size.
The school board’s Back Timberlane application to the township Planning Board is for a capital project review of the proposal to build the athletic fields, President Turner said Tuesday.
This means that, although the Planning Board does not have the power to reject the Back Timberlane application, any recommendations the Planning Board might make on Back Timberlane would have to be included in the documents sent to the state Department of Education (DOE) by the school district. The DOE could require the district to act on those Planning Board recommendations.
If the Planning Board does not make its recommendations by the Nov. 13 deadline stipulated Monday night by the school board, recommendations from the Planning Board will not go to the DOE, Ms. Turner said.
The idea of Back Timberlane was conceived over many months by a community-wide group including, among others, recreation league leaders and government officials that sees the complex as a way to address the needs of the Valley’s recreational sports groups as well as the need of the school district for more athletic fields to serve current and future school populations.

