CRANBURY: Cook lauds open space in township video

By Nicole M. Wells, Special Writer
CRANBURY — Township Committeeman and life-long Cranburian David Cook thinks open space is beautiful.
In a new video, posted on the township website, Mr. Cook talks about why preserving the townships open space is good for its overall aesthetic, as well as its bottom line.
The video is two minutes, 20 seconds long and was done by the New Jersey Conservation Foundation as part of its Voices of Conservation series.
According to Mr. Cook, the movement to preserve open space in Cranbury is an offshoot of the movement to preserve its historical integrity.
"Much of Cranbury’s history is agrarian, and there was a real push to develop a lot of the fields and farmlands around Cranbury," he said. "Cranbury did not want to get built out and become kind of this massive suburbia."
Crediting the individuals who served on past Township Committees, Mr. Cook said that foresight is sometimes a difficult thing to come by.
"In many cases, persons don’t realize what they have," he said.
Cranbury was fortunate, in that a number of individuals realized what they had, when they had it and worked to preserve it for future generations, he said.
The second component to preserving open space is fiscal, according to Mr. Cook.
"If, in fact, these fields that we love so much were built out and developed, the infrastructure pressure on Cranbury would be significant," he said. "Cranbury right now has about 2,681 preserved acres, which you’ve seen around the periphery of town."
According to Mr. Cook, the township is getting a reputation around central Jersey as something of an oasis that’s been able to preserve itself from encroaching development.