By Allison Musante, Staff Writer
WEST WINDSOR To conclude two years of financial negotiations and to beat a ticking clock for Mercer County funding, Mayor Shing-Fu Hsueh said he hopes the Township Council and the public will support a proposed ordinance to purchase 27 acres of open space on Clarksville Road.
A public hearing was scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Monday in room A of the municipal building on Clarksville Road.
If approved, the ordinance would allow the township to purchase the property from the 81-acre site of the future Jewish Community Campus on Clarksville Road. After much debate regarding the land’s purchase price, the council was expected to vote to accept the JCC’s offer price of $1.3 million dollars, or $49,000 per acre, and to move ahead in securing the necessary funds.
”This must be discussed openly,” Mayor Hsueh said. “Open space money comes from referendum, which is voted on by the public.”
Mayor Hsueh said Mercer County has offered to fund 15 percent of the total cost, which is about $200,000, but the council should move quickly to adopt the ordinance because other townships are competing for county funding as well.
He said the Friends of West Windsor Open Space will donate $100,000, and the state Department of Environmental Protection may provide $629,000, through the Green Acres program. That leaves the township to foot the rest of the bill at about $425,000, which would come from its open space trust fund.
”The township money is already there and it’s earmarked for such a purpose, so taxpayers don’t need to worry about paying any more,” he said. However, Mayor Hsueh said state funding isn’t guaranteed, so the township may end up paying the $629,000 itself, totaling about $1.05 million. “As soon as this is adopted, we’ll file the official paperwork with the DEP and the county,” he said. “We can’t sit and do nothing. From an open-space perspective, this is a no-brainer.”
At its Nov. 8 meeting, the council discussed a reasonable price for the land based on two independent appraisals. The first appraisal was conducted by Sockler Realty Services Group, of Hightstown, on June 15. In that appraisal, the market value of the property was estimated at about $1.5 million, or $55,000 per acre. The second appraisal was conducted by Richard J. Carabelli of Martin Appraisal Associates of Lawrenceville on July 3. It estimated the property value at $1.6 million, or $58,000 per acre.
However, council members questioned how the property value escalated so much since the JCC purchased it from the former Data Ram company at about $37,800 per acre in 2005, Mayor Hsueh said. The council asked the JCC to revise its offer, after declining the $1.5 million purchase price in September. Mayor Hsueh said the council should recognize that the asking price is a great value.
”The Open Space program has existed for over 17 years, and this is the first piece of land we actually have a price offer that’s less than the appraised value,” he said. “Usually we pay more than or equal to the appraised value.”
With regards to the land’s usage, Mayor Hsueh said the space would connect the two adjacent open spaces on Clarksville Road. He said he hopes to build trails to connect the spaces for the public to use for passive recreation. The state DEP has identified that about nine of the 27 acres are “environmentally sensitive,” most of which are wetlands and home to an endangered species of heron.
The Jewish Community Campus is also hoping to move forward with its construction project, which will include one 78,000-square-foot building and one 7,000-square-foot building. Some of the amenities will include recreation fields, an outdoor swimming pool, an amphitheater, a child-care and early education center, health and fitness facilities, a kosher cafe, and offices for the United Jewish Federation and Jewish Community Foundation.
Drew Staffenberg, the executive director of the Campus Development Council, declined to comment on the circumstances regarding the campus’s financial negotiations with the township, but he said the organization is excited to begin construction, as soon as it receives state DEP approval regarding the property’s wetlands. The township Planning Board approved the $28.5 campus project in December 2007.
”We look forward to working within the township and that the property they’re buying from us will be maintained as green space,” he said.
