An outfit as large and generally as fine as the National Park Service should be able to do a better job of getting important information about proposed development at Sandy Hook out to the public.
The Park Service plans to enter a 60-year agreement as early as this summer with Sandy Hook Partners, LLC, to lease to the company 36 buildings at Fort Hancock, a historic former Army base located in the Sandy Hook unit of Gateway National Recreation Area, for renovation and development.
To reach the public about this project, the Park Service wants to rely on its Web site. But neither the Sandy Hook Partners’ plan for development of Fort Hancock nor the Park Service’s promised environmental assessment of that plan is available for widespread review by those interested in them, because the Web site is down and has been for some time.
The reason, we are told, is that it is part of the Web site of the Park Service’s parent Interior Department, which is locked down in litigation.
An alternative approach should be found.
The Park Service has said the public comment period won’t begin until the Web site becomes available for people to see the proposal and express their thoughts on it. But even that is insufficient. The Park Service should also be sure to allow letters with written comment to be submitted, which it initially was refusing to do but now says it will. Not everyone is computer literate.
And it should hold public hearings to get the real pulse of the people.
Meanwhile, the Park Service should distribute as widely as possible to libraries in the region copies of both the proposal and the environmental assessment. It has indicated it will engage in only limited distribution of the hard copy, and not until the end of February.
There’s no reason to wait.
You can’t have a debate if you don’t know what you’re debating.
Sandy Hook Partners plans to spend $80 million to $90 million to rehabilitate 36 buildings on Officers Row, some dating to 1898, and adapt them for use by a combination of nonprofit, educational, hospitality and commercial tenants. The development is predicted to bring 1,500 people and 500 more cars a day out to Sandy Hook, which is sure to bring about change.
That will more than double the number of people who now live and work in the area for the Coast Guard base, the National Park Service and the offices already located there, or who study at the Brookdale Community College outpost and the Marine Academy of Science and Technology.
The National Park Service signed a letter of intent with Sandy Hook Partners on Nov. 29, clearing the way for the private developer to begin lining up financing for the project. And Sandy Hook Partners is already ensconced in an office at Fort Hancock, for which it is paying a fee to the Park Service.
More and more, the Sandy Hook Partners’ proposal looks like a fait accompli even before the first comment is received by the Park Service.
A project as big as that proposed by the Sandy Hook Partners and the National Park Service, which will alter the character of Sandy Hook, deserves the fullest examination. The Park Service should start getting information about the details of the project into the public arena and be sure to allow sufficient time for review and comment before moving forward on it.

