remains in negotiations with state officials for
Route 520 property
Karcher: Hospital plan
needs a second look
Marlboro council
remains in negotiations with state officials for
Route 520 property
By larry ramer
Staff Writer
Marlboro Township Coun-cil President Ellen Karcher is suggesting that the council reconsider its development plans for the 411-acre Route 520 site that formerly housed the Marlboro State Psychiatric Hospital.
"I think it’s time to take a step back and re-evaluate what’s happening on the property and all of the development plans there," Karcher said in an interview with the News Transcript last week.
At a public meeting on Aug. 7, Karcher added that many elements of the plan were "in flux" and said the council should "look at different alternatives and re-examine the whole situation."
For five years — since the state closed the hospital in 1998 — Marlboro officials have expressed an interest in buying the campus-like property from the state. The council has supported a redevelopment plan that would include the construction of a hotel-conference center, a golf course, a limited number of homes on the tract and some municipal use.
Now, Karcher, who is also a Democratic candidate for state Senate in the 12th District, which includes Marlboro, has begun to express reservations about the town’s redevelopment plans.
Karcher explained that she has only been on the council for two years and noted that there was a consensus about how to deal with the property when she became a councilwoman. As she learned more about the property and different aspects of the plan, and as several regulatory changes took hold, she began to develop doubts about the township’s plan, she said.
"The more I heard about the [redevelopment] plan, the more I moved further and further from this idea," she told attendees at an Aug. 7 meeting of the Citizens for Informed Land Use, a Holmdel-based pro-environmental group that has fought to preserve more areas as open space.
The organization held a meeting in Holmdel to discuss the plans for the site of the former psychiatric hospital on Aug. 7 and invited Karcher to present her views on the matter.
Karcher voiced many reservations about the council’s plans. Environmental concerns and her feeling that perhaps more of the site should be preserved as open space were among the factors that helped to convince Karcher that the council should re-examine its plans.
"My goal on council right now is trying to change the mindset [of people saying], ‘The thing that would make me proud is to drive past a sign saying "Hotel-conference center brought to you by the Marlboro Township Council." ’ Instead, long-term, I would personally be more proud to see a sign saying ‘Open space, clean drinking water, fresh air brought to you by the Marlboro Township Council,’ " Karcher said.
"This site is environmentally sensitive. Any development, including a golf course and hundreds of cars, would have a [negative] impact on the environment," she said.
During the public meeting in Holmdel, Karcher added, "I’ve learned there is no such thing as a clean ratable in this case."
The site of the former psychiatric hospital contains a stream called Big Brook, which is a tributary of the Swimming River Reservoir. The reservoir provides drinking water for some 500,000 people in the area, Karcher said.
According to Karcher, Big Brook has been designated as a Category 1 watershed by the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). This new designation also concerned Karcher, since she said it would effectively prohibit Marlboro from developing two-thirds of the site.
At present, the town is officially slated to pay the state approximately $20 million for the 411-acre property. Negotiations on the terms of the sale of the property to Marlboro are continuing.
That $20 million price, Karcher said, was established before the new DEP regulations came into effect.
"I couldn’t understand why there wasn’t more communication on this issue between the (state) Treasury and the DEP, which would allow us to negotiate the price down by two-thirds. The two departments are finally starting to communicate," Karcher said.
Another concern for Karcher is the state of the buildings on the hospital site. She said the buildings have been damaged by a combination of neglect and abuse. The state has stopped heating the buildings in the winter, leading to expanding pipes and collapsing walls. The Navy has used the facility to conduct drills, which included blowing up rooms in buildings. The state allowed horror movies to be filmed on the site, which resulted in further damage. Finally, asbestos has been found in some of the buildings, Karcher said.
"Marlboro has been moving along with the idea of saying we want these buildings to be saved, but we never did an evaluation of how damaged these buildings are," the council president said.
And then there is the matter of whether facilities that were used to house and treat mentally ill individuals can be effectively turned into a hotel and conference center.
"The buildings are very institutional inside … they were adapted for a psychiatric hospital, not a five-star hotel," Karcher explained.
The council president also believes residents are opposed to further development in the town.
"If anything adds more traffic and congestion to the town, including people coming to work there, the people are not in favor of it," Karcher said. "They (the residents) don’t want more schoolchildren."
On the other hand, Karcher added that some Marlboro residents believe that a "great ratable" could potentially be placed on the site.
"We’re trying our best to satisfy different considerations," Karcher explained.
Adrianne Spota, a Marlboro resident and environmental activist who attended the Aug. 7 meeting, said protection of the ground water reserves on the site is a very important issue.
"As a member of the human race, I’m very concerned about us all having drinking water in the future. That’s a primary concern on this property," Spota said.
She added that since decisions made about the hospital site would affect other towns, the state should assume ultimate responsibility for the land, either by retaining ownership of the land or by deed restricting the property.
"It’s a huge piece of property … in Monmouth County an [open] property this size is still very rare. It’s also a vital property environmentally, possibly agriculturally, and obviously to the watershed," said Spota, who also stated that no major decisions should be made about the property until a Phase II environmental study of the site is completed. Such a study is already under way.
Another perspective was added by Marlboro resident and environmental activist Nancy Post.
"I’m always an advocate for the non-human creatures. I’ve seen all the wildlife on the site and I think that morally as a race, it hurts us as well when we kill the life around us," she said.
Post added that Marlboro officials had failed to take into account Marlboro’s growth over the last several years when they considered the impact of the traffic generated by the proposed redevelopment of the site of the former psychiatric hospital.
Marlboro’s council will have a new makeup in January, with the terms of Democrat Paul Kovalski Jr. and Republican Mary Singer coming to an end on Dec. 31. Karcher will remain on the council with Democrats Barry Denkensohn and James Mione. They will be joined by two newcomers who will be elected to four-year terms in the November election.