http://www.mycentraljersey.com/article/20090709/NEWS/907090352/1007/NEWS0106
A 7.5-acre property where more than a dozen homes were slated to be built will now remain a mixture of woods and farmland along the Green Brook.
The parcel, owned by Edelman and Penn Realty LLC, was recently acquired by the Borough of Dunellen through the Middlesex County Open Space Trust Fund.
County taxpayers kicked in $2 million while the borough paid $100,000 for the land at the intersection of Mountain View Terrace and Madison Avenue.
“It’s the only piece of property we have in town that is vacant, that is open space, and nobody wanted to see a developer put 13 or 14 homes on banks of the Green Brook,” Dunellen Mayor Robert J. Seader said. “There would have been a whole host of problems that we would have been dealing with had the development gone forward.”
The Middlesex County Open Space Trust Fund is supported by a special tax levy of 3 cents per $100 of assessed valuation, approved via referendum by Middlesex County voters in 1995 and 2001.
Since the program began, close to 7,000 acres have been saved from development.
The Dunellen land “is contiguous along the river as it connects to other open space properties that eventually connect to Mountain View Park,” said Ralph Albinir, Middlesex County Parks and Recreation director. “This is first-ever open space property purchased in Dunellen since the inception of the county’s Open Space Program going back to 1995.”
Seader said he approached the county freeholders two years ago when he saw the owner of the property go through the borough’s Planning Board process.
“As far as open space goes, this is the first, and last, piece in Dunellen,” Seader said. “There are a lot of deer on the property, and now they have a place to live. It’s a nice piece of property — it’s the first thing you see coming into Dunellen from Somerset County.
“There are no plans for the property for the immediate future, we’ll just hold it as open space,” Seader added. “We may eventually go back to the freeholder board to possibly turn itinto a park.”
1 response so far ↓
Barbara Habeeb // August 7, 2009 at 9:17 pm |
I made mention of this article at a Borough Council meeting. What a beautiful thing for Dunellen!
I commend the people in Dunellen who made this happen. Something like this could have at least been ATTEMPTED to be done in our town, but no one on the Council besides me was interested in making it happen. I honestly don’t know the reason why the Council did not want to try, but I think they lost a real opportunity to do something really great for NP.