Foes pan land-swap hearings

Proposed Thompson Park land swap stirs debate.

By: Leon Tovey
   MONROE — The Middlesex County Board of Chosen Freeholders set the dates for two public hearings on the proposed Thompson Park land swap, despite protests from opponents of the plan that hearings are premature.
   The freeholders announced at its Oct. 6 meeting that hearings on the proposed exchange of a 35-acre parcel of the park for 77 acres owned by Monroe would be held Nov. 21 in Monroe and Dec. 6 in New Brunswick.
   The school board wants to build an $82.9 million high school approved by voters in December 2003 on the Thompson Park parcel, which is protected under the state Green Acres program.
   The township is offering a 9-acre, 24-acre and 44-acre parcel on Route 522 in exchange.
   The freeholders’ decision to set dates came after County Parks Director Ralph Albanir received a letter dated Sept. 26 from David Smith of the Bureau of Legal Services and Stewardship at Green Acres authorizing the county to move ahead with hearings.
   But representatives of the New Jersey Chapter of the Sierra Club and Monroe-based Park Savers, two groups that oppose the swap because they say it will undermine the Green Acres program, argued this week that the county’s pre-application to Green Acres is incomplete and that state law may prohibit hearings before the pre-application is completed.
   Jane Tousman, an executive committee member of the New Jersey chapter of the Sierra Club, on Wednesday called the hearings "premature," since Green Acres has not officially signed off on the county’s pre-application for the diversion.
   Ms. Tousman said appraisals of the 77 acres the township is offering have not been certified and that the decision to move ahead with hearings appears to be the result of political pressure.
   She said attorneys from the Rutgers Environmental Law Clinic are "looking very, very closely" at state land-use laws as they relate to public hearings on diversions. She said the Sierra Club and other groups would move to stop the hearings if they believe state regulations are not being followed.
   Green Acres officials did not return calls for comment by The Cranbury Press’ Thursday afternoon deadline, but Freeholder Director David Crabiel on Wednesday dismissed the notion that the hearings might not be legal.
   Mr. Crabiel said that whether or not the pre-application is complete — a fact he would not comment on — Green Acres officials have decided to move forward, so the county is doing so.
   "It’s not our decision," he said. "We’re doing what the state tells us to do; we’re following the letter and the conversations we’ve had with Mr. Smith telling us to hold hearings.
   "Aside from that, I think it’s in the public interest to have these hearings to gather as much information as possible," he added.
   The hearings are scheduled for the Monroe Township High School’s Richard P. Marasco Center for the Performing Arts at 7 p.m. Nov. 21 and for the County Administration Building in New Brunswick at 4 p.m. Dec 4. Mr. Albanir said copies of the pre-application would be made available for public review 30 days prior to the first hearing at the Clerk of the Freeholder Board’s office in New Brunswick, at the Green Acres office in Trenton and at the Monroe Public Library.
   If the hearings do go forward as scheduled, Ms. Tousman said, Sierra Club representatives would attend and voice their opposition to the swap.
   "We remain very strongly opposed to this diversion," she said. "Green Acres is an open space treasure chest and we don’t want to see that treasure chest robbed."
   Jennifer Dressel of Park Savers said members of her group would also attend hearings. She said her group had collected "thousands" of signatures on a petition expressing opposition to the exchange and that they would make themselves heard.
   "We were hoping all along that Green Acres was going to do the right thing and deny the application," Ms. Dressel said. "We’ll see what happens, but we plan to fight this as long as we have to."
   The largest exchange of Green Acres-protected land ever approved by the state was a 66-acre exchange in Union County approved in 1982. In that exchange, which involved construction on Route 78, the county received 70 acres and $3.6 million in compensation.