Guest Column
Plan to commercialize Sandy Hook will cut recreational use in summer
George Moffatt
Guest Column
Plan to commercialize Sandy Hook will cut recreational use in summer
The National Park Service’s plan to lease former Fort Hancock Army buildings to a real estate speculator, could eliminate up to 1,440 beachfront parking spaces currently available for public use on Sandy Hook.
Because of that many thousands more people could be turned away from the park during the hot beach days of July and August. And notwithstanding the Pollyanna assurances of many of our local pro-development politicians, the problem will only become worse as New Jersey’s growing population continues to seek relaxation at the Jersey Shore.
The NPS wants to reallocate to the Fort area about 665 oceanfront parking spaces from Parking Area K in the northern portion of the park to support the proposed lease of 36 buildings to a private real estate developer. An additional 775 more oceanfront parking spaces could be lost if 42 additional Fort buildings are leased.
To strike a balance between humans and wildlife, the NPS has set a limit of about 4,926 parking spaces: 4,218 oceanfront and bayfront spaces and 708 spaces now in the Fort (excluding the Coast Guard station). Reallocating up to 1,440 of the beachfront spaces to accommodate the NPS’s commercial leasing plan would reduce peak summer recreational use by 30 percent.
Our group, Save Sandy Hook, is challenging the NPS claim that the relocated parking spaces will be available to beach-goers on weekends. NPS officials claim the reallocated spaces will be available on weekends, but their original "adaptive reuse" plans predict increased weekend traffic.
Since NPS officials refuse to disclose who would be leasing these fort buildings, or what their parking requirements would be, assurances that their commercial leasing program won’t adversely affect recreational use at Sandy Hook is pure nonsense. They have no clue.
If Sandy Hook loses these 1,440 beachfront parking spaces, the already impossible traffic jams experienced on Route 36 will become even worse as motorists are routed down two-lane Route 36 to other beaches.
The NPS, desperately pushing its commercial leasing plan to get out from under the onus of its 29 years of negligence and mismanagement, is just as desperate to avoid discussing any reductions in recreational use.
The NPS falsely claims the only way to save the neglected buildings is by leasing at least 36 and perhaps up to 78 buildings — about half the fort — for a minimum of 60 years to a real estate speculator for adaptive rehabilitation and reuse. The NPS claims the speculator will lease the buildings to a "balanced mix" of business, environmental, and educational tenants. However, a clause in the pending lease lets the speculator escape from any restriction on a building’s use by requesting a change, with " ‘such (NPS) approval not to be unreasonably withheld or delayed…’ "
This usage ‘escape clause,’ the concentration of economic power in one company, the speculator’s commercial background, and his support by the pro-development Jersey Shore Partners lobbying group and local pro-development politicians, all but guarantee commercial use of Fort Hancock — at the expense of recreational use.
Save Sandy Hook doesn’t believe we must "save" the facilities of Fort Hancock and other National Parks — worth billions of dollars to business interests — by commercializing them. Instead, we urge our New Jersey Congressional delegation to halt this rip-off of public park facilities under the guise of "preservation," And create a task force of citizens and federal and state officials to develop a sound long-range plan to attract educational, environmental, and other community service organizations to use these buildings.
We need a genuine community of public service groups at Fort Hancock, not a bunch of traffic-generating commercial businesses. And we certainly don’t believe the taxpayers should have to subsidize these commercial ventures and suffer the additional indignity of being barred from the beaches.
George Moffatt is a member of the board of Save Sandy Hook and an Oceanport resident