project will have
Regional director says
project will have
‘no significant impact’
By gloria stravelli
Staff Writer
The National Park Service has cleared the way for a private developer to line up financing for a controversial $75 million redevelopment project at Fort Hancock on Sandy Hook.
The Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI) issued by NPS Northeast Regional Director Marie Rust dated July 8 begins a six-month period during which private developer Sandy Hook Partners LLC must secure financing before the NPS will formalize a 60-year historic lease for at least 36 historic buildings on Fort Hancock.
In issuing the finding, Rust determined that the plan to rehabilitate and adaptively reuse the historic structures for a mix of uses, including office, educational, research and hospitality, would have "negligible to moderate" adverse effects on the environment of Sandy Hook.
Rust’s decision that "there are no unmitigated adverse impacts" on the public or on the threatened and endangered species that live on Sandy Hook means the federal government will not conduct a more extensive Environmental Impact Statement for The Fort at Sandy Hook.
"We are very excited about getting our go-ahead from the NPS and our partnership with them," James Wassel, head of Sandy Hook Partners, said Tuesday. "This project is about preservation of an important part of our nation’s history."
Wassel, of Rumson, said the historic rehabilitation will return the buildings to service to the community by housing marine and environmental research, education, corporate learning and training and hospitality programs.
But critics of the proposal said Tuesday that they will continue to oppose the project, which they have said will commercialize Sandy Hook and have a detrimental impact on the surrounding area.
"We are considering legal action to block the development, because we don’t feel they have leveled the playing field," said retired Superior Court Judge James Coleman, a member of Save Sandy Hook, a grassroots group formed to oppose the commercialization of the Hook.
Coleman called the FONSI "a foregone conclusion" and said the government’s failure to provide data on the number of tenants and vehicles connected with the proposed use of each of the buildings made it impossible for the group to have an independent traffic survey conducted.
"We are not going to give up our battle," said Judith Stanley Coleman, head of Save Sandy Hook and the development’s most consistent opponent.
She said the group will continue to lobby politicians — several prominent public officials, including Gov. James E. McGreevey, have spoken out publicly against the proposal — and collect signatures on petitions opposing the project.
Stanley Coleman, who is also the chairwoman of the Monmouth Conservation Foundation, has taken particular issue with the findings of two government-funded traffic impact studies that found the project would not add to the traffic snarls in the area surrounding Sandy Hook.
"I’m at the Sea Bright Beach Club right now, and the traffic coming down from Sandy Hook is just overwhelming, and this is Tuesday," she said. "I don’t know what they’re thinking. It’s an outrage, because the government should not be treating the public this way."
Among the reasons cited by Rust for the FONSI were that the project affects only the immediate local area; will have a positive, long-term impact on the physical condition of the landmark properties; will not significantly affect sensitive ecological areas; and is not likely to adversely affect the piping plover, which is listed in the federal register of endangered species.
To support the finding, Rust determined the project could pass the test of not being controversial. While the project has supporters and opponents, the controversy "is not about the effects of the project," she said.
In the FONSI, Rust noted that public involvement in the process included four open houses on an environmental assessment of the project, two public meetings and an extended public review and comment period.
Rust wrote in the FONSI that two petitions with 201 and 158 signatures opposing commercialization were received. However, Save Sandy Hook member Carole Balmer, who initiated the petition drive, said Tuesday that she gave the NPS petitions with more than 1,500 signatures, not 158, at a public meeting.
An NPS spokesman said Tuesday that due to an oversight, a third petition submitted in April was mistakenly omitted from the FONSI but that the issues raised were addressed in the response to public comment, which accompanied Rust’s finding.
Rust said 22 written comments were received in support of the project from public officials and groups, while "no public official or group wrote in opposition to the proposed action."
But public officials, including Stanley Coleman, McGreevey, Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg (D-N.J.) and State Sen. John O. Bennett III (R-Monmouth), have spoken on the record in opposition to the project.
In addition, the two traffic impact studies commissioned by the NPS were roundly criticized by many opponents, including Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. (D-N.J.), who has expressed concern about issues including traffic and privatization of the national park but has said he believes that because of the lack of public funds, private funds are the only to save the building.
Of the 100 historic buildings within Fort Hancock and the Sandy Hook Proving Ground Historic District, 43 are occupied by the NPS. The NPS has cooperative agreements with park partners, organizations that currently occupy 20 of the buildings. In addition, the NPS will grant long-term leases for 36 buildings to Sandy Hook Partners and one to the American Littoral Society.
A facility used by Brookdale Community College, currently located in Building 53, is expected to move into a historic lease building, according to Rust.
The 60-year historic lease, which will make Sandy Hook Partners eligible for historic tax credits, will include Buildings 2-18, 21, 23-24, 26-27, 33, 35 (the Post Chapel), 36 (the Mule Barn), 40 (the YMCA), 55-57,60, 67 (a theater shared with the NPS), 70, 79, 114 (the Officers’ Club) and 124-125.
According to the FONSI, the ratio of uses of buildings at the Fort at Sandy Hook to total square footage will be educational uses, equal to or greater than 30 percent but less than 50 percent; food service and overnight accommodations, less than or equal to 30 percent; general office space less, than or equal to 30 percent; and conference and meeting space, less than or equal to 40 percent.
According to the statement, 2008 is the scheduled full build-out of the project at Fort Hancock.
Included in the determination that no additional impact studies are necessary were traffic studies that concluded the project would not significantly divert traffic onto local roadways; parking plans which would add 665 new spaces by building six new lots and restoring lot K as a natural area; and plans for utilities upgrades, including installation of 14,000 feet of underground electrical and telecommunications conduit, plus fiber-optic cables, water and wastewater pipe replacement and installation of a natural gas pipeline.