Former U.F. mayor makes case for 6-acre zoning

As the former mayor and township committeeman of Upper Freehold Township for 23 years, I am writing this to the citizens of Upper Freehold Township to express my extreme concern over the 60-home development, situated on 60 acres (yes, 1-acre lots) proposed on Emley’s Hill Road.

Under our present 3-acre minimum lot zoning, the applicant initially laid out 35 lots and then squeezed out 10 more for a total of 45 3-acre and larger building lots.

Under the clustering provision for large developments as initiated by the then “large land owners majority” Planning Board, the developer is given a 35 percent bonus on his total lots if he chooses to cluster. This gives him an additional 15 lots for a total of 60 homes on 60 acres. We now have regressed back to the 1980s and ’90s with its 1-acre lots. What happened to our real concerns over runaway growth, over-taxed septic and well systems, traffic and environmental problems?

Score another giveaway to the large land owners, who have never lost a penny on their sales to developers — while we who love and cherish our way of life and want to live here are burdened with high school and municipal taxes, traffic jams, clear-cutting of our pristine and virgin woods, and polluting of our streams and aquifers.

When I left office in 1995, our population was approximately 3,200. Now, in less than 10 years, we have over 6,000 people living here.

The developers who don’t care about our way of life, promote Upper Freehold as the crown jewel to move to, with its beautiful horse farms, school system and open space. How much longer will our beautiful township survive?

If there ever was an argument for 6-acre minimum acre lot sizes for future large subdivisions (without clustering), it is now. The failure of the existing 3-acre system is evident when developers can regress back to 1-acre lot sizes.

Changing to 6-acre minimum lot sizes will allow future homeowners to pursue farmland assessments for the raising and breeding of horses, sheep and engage in growing nursery stock or vineyards. The larger homes built will more than carry their weight in the taxes they pay and reduce the burden placed on our school population by cutting in half the product of one home on 3 acres versus one home on 6 acres.

Our planner, Richard Coppola, has recommended 6-acre zoning as the way to go if we want to follow our master plan objectives, environmental concerns and increased development pressures.

It doesn’t take a college course in economics 101 to show how neighboring communities have benefited by raising their minimum lot sizes to 6 and 10 acres, the benefits are there for all to see except by the developers and large land owners who are only concerned about their own selfish motives.

Bob Abrams

Upper Freehold Township