Bayshore park on HAQLA wish list
Alliance wants Stone Road Meadows to be a county park
BY JAMIE ROMM Staff Writer

MARC STEINER The Stone Road Meadows tract (outlined) has been targeted by the Hazlet Area Quality of Life Alliance as a site for a county park.

Members of the Hazlet Area Quality of Life Alliance (HAQLA) are going from town to town in an attempt to unite the Bayshore, with the 30-acre Stone Road Meadows tract as a rallying point.

HAQLA President John Curran III and members of the alliance have been on a mission over the past few years to have a county park located in the Bayshore region, which they say has not received a fair share of county open-space funding for a county park.

The alliance has submitted a 17-page petition to the Monmouth County Board of Chosen Freeholders and is addressing the region's towns to garner support for the initiative.

"Basically, Stone Road Meadows is the poster child for the bigger picture, which is for the existing plans for the Bayshore and regional plans in the county," Curran said. "We are using it as an example as the basis for the bigger plan, which is for the Bayshore and Coastal region to be looked at in regard to a county park in the area."

Stone Road Meadows is a privately owned 30-acre open space tract bounded by Route 36, Stone Road and Poole Avenue in Hazlet.

The western reach of the Bayshore area, towns that include Keansburg, Aberdeen, Union Beach, Hazlet, Matawan and Keyport, make up 8.5 percent of the total population of Monmouth County and cover 17.8 square miles of land, according to figures from the 2000 U.S. Census Bureau.

The western reach has an average of 4,083 people per square mile and provides nearly $1.5 million in revenues to the Monmouth County Park System, Curran said.

Excluding the Henry Hudson Trail, the area has zero county parks.

The main purpose of the petition is stated as "acquisition, by the County of Monmouth, of the Stone Road Meadows tracts in Hazlet Township, to incorporate the tracts into the County Open Space Plan, and to dedicate the tracts as a county park, as part of the Bayshore Regional Strategic Plan.

"To ensure that the municipalities within the Bayshore Planning Region are able to attain the goals and objectives of the strategic plan in a timely fashion, by preserving and protecting the remaining significant Bayshore open spaces from being lost to development."

HAQLA presented the petition to the Board of Freeholders on Oct. 23 and came away with some hope.

Curran said the freeholders told him that they would closely read the petition, to determine whether a study should be undertaken to look at the possibility that there are regional disparities and deficiencies in the existing plans.

According to Curran, they will also consider whether there is a need for changes in the existing plan and/or new plans are warranted, plus freeholders may meet with park system planners to discuss/explore the group's concerns.

"They said that they had read the petition and told us that the tract did not meet the requirements, but they would look into it," Curran said after the meeting. "But if they had read it, they would understand that is not what the petition is about. Stone Road Meadows is just the stepping-off point of what we are trying to do."

The petition states HAQLA's position, which is that the Monmouth County Open Space Plan and the Farmland Preservation Plan are defective and the alliance is requesting a special examination and evaluation of the plans regarding the constitutionality and equitability of the plans.

"Of the discretionary spending (currently $10 million in open space funds available for parkland acquisitioning each year), which has been unequally allocated with significant lavishness to the Central, Western, and Panhandle planning regions, much to the exclusion of the Bayshore, especially the Western Reach of the Bayshore (Hazlet, Aberdeen, Keyport, Union Beach, Matawan and Keansburg)," the petition states.

The alliance is made up of residents from Bayshore towns. The group's mission is "to promote informed and thoughtful land-use decisions, to protect our natural

resources and to promote government decision-making

based on open communication with an informed electorate and nonpartisan debate."

The group has 17 members, many of whom currently or formerly serve in municipal government.

The group also sent out a letter to municipalities to garner support.

In the letter, HAQLA states, "We are calling for studies to be undertaken to explore the constitutionality and equitability of the Monmouth County Open Space and Farmland Preservation Plans regarding their incapacity to duly reciprocate to the Bayshore and Coastal Planning Regions, which is tantamount to taxation without representation."

The letter asks the towns to formally endorse the request "that the freeholders thoroughly evaluate the veracity of our complaints regarding the constitutional equitability and fairness of the plans, as they apply to the Bayshore and Coastal Planning Regions, urging them to approve, adopt, and implement new and effective remedial plans and amend existing plans by formal resolution and swift counteractions to any inequities such studies may reveal."

Since the inception of the county Open Space Plan in 1987, Middletown Township has received about $41 million (about 30 percent) of the $137 million total Open Space funding allocated.

According to the petition, the entire remaining balance of the funds were allocated to eight municipalities and towns: Freehold Township, $14.4 million; Freehold Borough, $14.8 million; Howell Township, $8.9 million; Holmdel Township, $5.4 million; Millstone Township, $26.6 million; Borough of Roosevelt, $2.5 million; Borough of Oceanport, $4.7 million; Wall Township, $13.4 million.

Created in 1960, the Monmouth County Park System has more than 30 parks, forests, gardens, wetland/marine habitats, golf courses, historic sites, recreation areas and conservation properties totaling over 14,000 acres.

As of June 30, 2007, the county had directed a total of $30.5 million from its capital budget toward the purchase of agricultural easements.

Since 1987 almost $107 million has been spent on farmland preservation in Monmouth County. "Now, after 20 years of exclusion and neglect, we are petitioning the Monmouth County Board of Freeholders to expeditiously create, for example, corresponding Bayshore and Coastal open space and maritime preservation programs and related local industry and economic development boards, new language to the Farmland Preservation and Open Space Plans, and/or relevant new plans, which will speak to the concerns we have raised," the letter states.

Curran and Union Beach Planning Board member John Andreuzzi in 2006 went on what they called the "Stone Road Road Show" a campaign similar to what they are doing now.

At the time, the county park system did not support the group's effort, because park system officials said the tract did not fit county park requirements — and their stance remains the same in 2008.

Susan Walsh, public information director for the Monmouth County Park System, said recently that the park system's position hasn't changed since HAQLA brought up the matter in 2006.

"Our stance hasn't changed from our previous determination that it [Stone Road Meadows] does not qualify as a county park," Walsh said. "If they wish to pursue the municipal open space grant, then they should go in that direction."

Walsh said the county is focused on using its funding to maintain the current parks, not add smaller parks to the county park system.

"Our goal in the open space plan in 2006 was to add to our existing parks," Walsh said, "easier to manage than adding and maintaining a larger group of small parks. The park just does not meet the criteria to be a county park."

The park system requires a minimum of 100 acres of land to create a county park.

The petition states that acreage should not be the deciding factor when choosing what qualifies as a county park.

"Since the onset of our efforts to have the Stone Road Meadows tracts designated as a county park under the Monmouth County Open Space Plan, the Monmouth County Board of Recreation Commissioners and planners have presented obstacles that have kept the county from purchasing this land from the owners," the petition states.

"We do not think the objections provided so far (e.g., parcels of land must be at least 100 acres before they can be put into consideration for designation as a county park) have merit."

Assemblywoman Amy Handlin (R-13th District) has been a supporter of HAQLA's pursuit of a county park and has said that the tract would qualify under the county's special use program.

"Stone Road Meadows is the last remaining expansive open space in the Bayshore," Handlin said. "If developed, it will bring more traffic in severely concentrated and stressed areas."

According to the Monmouth County Park System Web site, a special use area is devoted to a single purpose, such as horticultural, historical or cultural activities.

Examples of special use parks are Deep Cut Gardens in Middletown and Historic Longstreet Farm in Holmdel.

"It really deserves it because it would help the community," Handlin said last week. "It would be an important safeguard for the community.

That safeguard would protect a densely developed urban watershed area that already suffers from flooding and would provide active recreation to people in the area and a greenway link to the Henry Hudson Trail.

Curran said that in the end, the HAQLA initiative is more about raising awareness and bringing the Bayshore towns together, and the Stone Road Meadows tract being designated as a county park would be a bonus.

"We are hoping that the towns, through the petition, become more educated if they are unaware and learn what they are missing out on," Curran said. "The county's plans are fine, but they only seem to focus on areas other than the Bayshore and Coastal areas. The record shows that something is wrong, and we are losing open spaces while other areas aren't."

Curran said that whether or not HAQLA continues the initiative depends on the support of the towns.

"If in the end we find out that the towns just don't care, there is not much we can do," Curran said. "The towns need to get on board and have to work together if something is going to be done."

He said the main goal is to bring an issue forward to the Bayshore and Coastal areas to unite the region as well as bring open-space funds to an area that the alliance believes has been forgotten.

"We are trying to educate the Bayshore towns about this problem," Curran said. "The tract in the end likely won't be preserved, but it's more important that we start a dialogue among the towns."