by Melissa L. Gaffney, Special Writer
UPPER FREEHOLD — The township has been focusing on a new Open Space and Recreation Master Plan, and now has a new recreation director to help with that mission.
The Township Committee on April 16 approved a resolution appointing Gail Mele as recreation director. Ms. Mele formerly held the part-time position of recreation secretary, before the committee cut several part-time employees this year in an effort to trim the 2009 municipal budget.
According to the resolution, Ms. Mele accepted the position with no change in salary. An additional resolution set her salary at roughly $32,600.
Lieselotte ‘Liz’ Bloss-Kwasnik, chairwoman of the Upper Freehold Open Space and Farmland Preservation Committee, said she looks forward to working with Ms. Mele.
”We’re very excited about the opportunity to potentially work with that individual (Ms. Mele), to have a point person to work together with on passive recreation, which is part of our mission,” Ms. Bloss-Kwasnik said.
The committee she chairs helped develop the township’s Open Space and Recreation Plan, which Ms. Bloss-Kwasnik said contains several components. The goal of the plan, expected to be voted on by the Planning Board this past Tuesday, after the Messenger-Press deadline, is to “provide for current and future acquisition, preservation and management of open space and recreation areas, according to Ms. Bloss-Kwasnik.
The community, comprised at about 47 square miles and populated by more than 6,000 residents, is about 80 percent bucolic, as described in the OSRP. According to the document, roughly two-thirds of the town is slated for agricultural use, while another 20 percent of the land is used as township, Monmouth county or state parks.
Ms. Bloss-Kwasnik said the township would move forward in a fiscally responsible way to acquire new land while trying to provide the minimum acreage requirement set by the Balanced Land Use Concept. That is a tool endorsed by the state Department of Environmental Protection that is used to determine the minimum amount of open space a municipality should set aside for recreation purposes, according to the OSRP.
Ms. Bloss-Kwasnik said there is currently an 88-acre deficit. No specific plans for where those acres might come from were discussed at the April 16 meeting.
Meanwhile, the township has been working on a particular preservation project that recently received funding in the amount of $500,000 from the state’s Green Acres program division of the DEP.
Township Administrator Barbara Bascom said the Breza Road project was not initially considered for preservation in 2000. Since then, Allentown residents took an interest in preserving the land, Ms. Bascom said, and that was met with support from The Trust for Public Lands, a nonprofit land conservation organization, and Green Acres.
”This has no particular bearing on the OSRP,” Ms. Bascom explained. “In 2000, when the last (OSRP) was done, it (the land) was not considered for preservation. But since then, Phase I, which included three tracts, was completed and would be (considered) in the plan as preserved passive recreation land.”
The process of updating the 2000 OSRP began during August 2008. Prior, there had been revisions to the plan during 2007. The newest plan was presented to the public in March.
The OSRP was developed by the committee with input from the community, as well as with assistance from Banisch Associates, a planning and design company based in Flemington.
The OSRP must be approved by the Planning Board and the Township Committee before it is formally incorporated into the Master Plan.
For more information or to view the OSRP, visit the township Web site at: www.uftnj.com.

