By: Bill Greenwood and Lacey Korevec
MONROE Township officials say last week’s state appellate court ruling rejecting an appeal of approvals for a land swap removes one major hurdle in building a new high school in Thompson Park.
But the project cannot move forward until the final hurdle, a decision from the state Department of Environmental Protection, is cleared. The DEP said this week that it does not know when a final decision will be made on the land-swap plan.
Under the plan, Monroe would transfer 175 acres of open land to the county in exchange for the 35-acre parcel at the intersection of Perrineville and Schoolhouse roads, across from the current high school. The township then would transfer the property to the Board of Education for use as a site for a new high school. Voters approved an $82.9 million referendum for the project a 365,000-square-foot high school in 2003. Under the plan, the current high school would become a middle school.
"We’re distressed that it’s taking so long to get the school under way and hopefully now that we’ve passed this hurdle, the opposition will stop trying to hold up the process," Assistant Township Attorney Peg Schaffer said Monday.
The DEP is reviewing the swap, which has conditional approval from the State House Commission. State approval is needed because the park was preserved with Green Acres money.
An archaeological survey conducted on the proposed high school site by Richard Grubb and Associates, a Cranbury company, was completed last month and has been sent to the state. The company’s final report states that the Bethel Mission, an 18th-century community of Leni Lenape converted to Christianity by Presbyterian minister David Brainerd, is not located on the proposed school site.
DEP spokeswoman Darlene Yuhas said Thursday that she could not say when the DEP would finish reviewing the report.
"We have received it and we’re reviewing it and hope to accomplish that work as quickly as possible," she said.
The Appellate Division of state Superior Court in Trenton ruled June 1 against the plaintiffs the New Jersey Conservation Foundation, New Jersey Public Interest Research Group and Park Savers, a local group opposing the proposal on all counts.
The groups argued that Middlesex County’s application for the swap was incomplete, that it was inappropriate for state environmental commissioner and the State House Commission to grant conditional approvals and delay a determination of whether the historic Bethel Mission was located on the proposed high school site until completion of a later review process, that public hearings on the application were conducted prematurely, that the money to compensate for the difference in value between the originally proposed 152 acres and the park tract was inadequate, and that the replacement parcels to be given to the county were protected by Green Acres restrictions.
The appellate panel ruled that DEP regulations give the commissioner wide latitude to determine if applications for land diversions under Green Acres law are complete, making the appellants’ contention that the application for the land swap was incomplete and the public hearing premature invalid.
In addition, the decision said that there was not enough support provided by the appellants to challenge the county’s appraisals, which were protected by a condition that title and survey work be completed before final approval could be granted. The decision says that, should the properties be found to be "significantly smaller than the appraisers assumed, there would have to be an adjustment" in the money the township will pay to the county.
The appellate panel also ruled that state land-use law does not prohibit land acquired by towns through cluster zoning from being used as part of a Green Acres swap. The appellants claimed that the property was preserved open space under the law, but the appellate panel ruled that the law "does not impose any substantive limitation upon the uses a municipality may make of land" acquired by these means. According to the decision, the township’s cluster allows such properties to be used for public needs, including schools and, by extension, a trade.
The appellate panel also ruled that the property being offered by Monroe is not open space as defined by Green Acres regulations and is not covered by Green Acres rules. The panel said that the land may have been used as open space by residents, but that it had not been designated as such by the township.
Mayor Richard Pucci said Monday that the appeal is good news for the township and that the location of the high school on that site will be great for students.
"I felt all along that we were on very strong ground," he said.
Ms. Schaffer said that because the ruling was unanimous, the opposition could not appeal the decision without Supreme Court approval.
Richard Webster, an attorney for the Law Clinic who argued the appeal, said the result was not what he was hoping for and that a petition to the New Jersey Supreme Court for review is a possibility.
"We believe there are some potential appeal points there and we’re analyzing our legal options," he said.
A group of parents, school board members and school officials held a press conference Thursday to announce formation of a new High School Action Committee, which plans to encourage community involvement and advocate for completion of the new high school. Members said that waiting for the process to move forward is taking a toll on the township, the school district and the children. They said they hope the DEP makes a decision soon.
"Every day that that decision goes by, it costs our children and our taxpayers more money," school board member Amy Speizer said. "We’re urging them to make the decision as quickly as possible."

