The Jersey Shore Group of the Sierra Club has serious concerns about the master plan amendments adopted by the Marlboro Planning Board on June 5. They are now before the Township Coun-cil. The amendments are proposals to change zoning in Marlboro. One of the proposals is to greatly increase the housing density, bringing in 3,453 to 3,867 new residents to new age-restricted zones. That could increase Marlboro’s population by as much as 11 percent.
The Planning Board has not sufficiently reviewed the impact of the proposal. It should have assessed the impact on traffic, taxes, utilities, provision of services such as water, fire and health, recreation, and on natural resources such as streams, aquifers, and wildlife. The public and council need to know the impact of current zoning before it can make an informed decision.
Furthermore, the board should have coordinated the planning with adjoining towns and with the county to assure that the changes would not create an adverse regional impact.
Some of the land is clearly environmentally sensitive — the Marlboro Airport property, land adjoining Route 79 and Buckley Road, land along Pleasant Valley Road, and land along Tennent Road.
The Marlboro Airport property and nearby parcels, totaling 151 acres, are to go from 2-acre zoning to four dwelling units per acre. Tributaries of Deep Run Brook run through this property. In addition, part of the recharge area for the Englishtown aquifer is under the property. The town should not increase the pollution to the brook and should not pave over a recharge area for the aquifer.
A portion of the 76 acres along Route 79 and Buckley Road in the southern part of town was recently designated by the township, county and state as environmentally sensitive; on the State Plan, it is in Planning Area 5. This land includes a stream which is part of the Topanemus Brook system. Sixteen acres abutting Pleasant Valley Road and Route 79, also in Planning Area 5, drain to Big Brook, a tributary of the Swimming River Reservoir. One-third of the 28 acres along Tennent Road has freshwater wetlands.
All these changes will bring increased impervious cover — more runoff with soluble pollutants, less opportunity for the water to recharge the aquifers and more traffic than if the zoning remains the same.
As the Planning Board acknowledges, it does not know how many age-restricted units are good for the town. Instead, developers are doing the planning — they have picked the locations and the acreage. Is that what thoughtful planning is about? We hope the council will send the proposals back to the Planning Board for further study.
Stephen R. Knowlton
Chairman, Jersey Shore Group
Sierra Club
Fair Haven