By karl vilacoba
Staff Writer
MARLBORO — The township will receive 12 acres of land dedicated for open space purposes as a condition of the zoning board’s approval of a housing development plan on Pleasant Valley Road.
Applicant Meiterman Holdings Inc. was granted preliminary subdivision approval on Sept. 18 for an 18-home development to be called Triangle Valley on the 39-acre tract.
The property is between the NJ Transit right of way currently being developed as an extension of the Henry Hudson Trail and the residential development Georgetown Estates. The property also has frontage on the Marlboro State Psychiatric Hospital’s northwestern corner and that portion of the tract will be given to the township.
The development of Triangle Valley will be made possible by a use variance that will allow the applicant to cluster the homes on the property’s northern portion on lots smaller than the 2-acre zoning allowed, according to attorney Bernard Meiterman. Several acres of the property will be left alone as sensitive wetlands, while an existing home on the land will remain as a 7-acre farm under its current ownership.
Several residents from Georgetown Estates complained about a road in the Triangle Valley plans that would run close to their back yards. The quiet farmland view they have grown accustomed to would be replaced by headlights, streetlights and construction, they said.
"I find this inexcusable," said Independence Way resident Jeanne Tryfonus. "No way, no how, would I ever have bought my home if I knew this road was going to be in my back yard."
To alleviate resident concerns, Meiterman and project engineer Lorali Totten said they will divide the road from Independence Way with a 6-foot tall fence sitting on top of a 4-foot tall land elevation. Meiterman said the road had to be planned where it was to avoid a swampy wetlands tract that cuts into the development tract.
Meiterman also made several other concessions to residents at the meeting, offering to plant tree barriers where requested and allowing another area resident to connect his driveway to the new road system.
The road leading into Triangle Valley would become a fourth leg to the intersection of Ridge and Pleasant Valley roads. Two cul de sacs would stem from the entry road.
Mayor Matthew Scannapieco and Stephen Dick, chairman of the town’s Farmland, Historic and Open Space Preservation Committee, said they were unfamiliar with the Triangle Valley application, but doubted the 12-acre open space tract to be donated to Marlboro had any value. The fact that a developer gave it away and sought a variance to keep houses from being built on it seemed to indicate the tract was either undevelopable wetlands or had other environmental problems, they said.
"I love a gift just like everybody else, but I don’t want the gift to open up and explode in my face," Dick said. "But 12 acres is 12 acres, who knows. We’ll look at it."
Scannapieco said unless Marlboro is able to purchase the hospital property, the township would have no access to the open space parcel it has apparently been given.
"We may have gotten land that we’re not able to use," the mayor said.