Proposed: To build an eight-bunk family cabin, with four parking spaces, in the park about 500 feet from the Church Road entrance
By John Tredrea, Staff Writer
Strong local opposition to a proposal to construct a family cabin in Washington Crossing State Park has sent the state back to the drawing board.
More than 70 township residents — most of whom live near one another — showed up at the Township Committee meeting Monday night.
”We usually have three people at our meetings,” quipped Deputy Mayor John Murphy. His words were greeted with laughter.
The cause of the big turnout is the state’s plan to build an eight-bunk family cabin, with four parking spaces, in the park about 500 feet from the Church Road entrance to the park. The entrance is at Church Road’s intersection with Fiddler’s Creek Road. Both roads are lined with houses in that area.
Because of the vocal opposition, state representatives at the meeting said they would take another look and see if they can change the plans.
Committee members and neighbors said they want no part of the cabin. Among the opinions expressed were that the cabin makes no sense from the standpoint of either residents or campers, not to mention fiscal responsibility.
”You were going to close the park last year — now you want to build a cabin in it,” Mayor Vanessa Sandom said to the quartet of state workers who came to explain the proposed cabin and field questions about it. The mayor said it was imprudent to spend money on the cabin during these perilous economic times.
”There’s a lot of legitimate concern,” Ms. Sandom added. She said campers would be “right next door” to residents. “There’s no sense in putting a cabin in a neighborhood where no one wants it.”
Many residents made similar comments. Some said they had no problem with putting a cabin in the interior of the 400-acre park.
”I don’t object to a cabin in the park,” one of the neighbors said to the state workers. “I just think you’re putting it in the wrong spot.
”Where you’re proposing to put it makes no sense,” another neighbor, Pat Beckman, of Titusville, said.
Leading the team for the state was Jeanne Mroczko, acting director of the state Division of Parks and Forestry, part of the Department of Environmental Protection.
Ms. Mroczko and her colleagues said the state has proposed the eight-bunk family cabin basically for two reasons: because there are no family cabins in state parks in central New Jersey and because her division has money to spend on such projects. That money, she said, derives from 2006 voter approval of a state referendum seeking use of $15 million of state business tax revenues annually for repairs and capital improvement projects in state parks.
Mr. Murphy and a number of residents said the cabin in its proposed location wouldn’t be good for campers, either. Mr. Murphy said he is an avid camper and added that, when he goes camping, he wants to go “where he can be in the woods” and “get away from it all.”
A cabin a few hundred feet from a public road lined with houses can’t provide that, he said. He suggested putting the cabin a remote spot in a big park. “Why put it in my backyard when you could put it in nobody’s backyard?” he asked rhetorically.
Many residents expressed concern that the cabin could become a haven for boozers and druggies.
The state does not need township permission to build the cabin and sent Ms. Mroczko and her colleagues as a courtesy. The stiff resistance they encountered has sent them back to drawing board on this one.
”We’re going to go back and assess and analyze this and see if we can do something different,” Ms. Mroczko said.

