EDITOR: I returned home the other day to find campaign literature left by the two Democrat candidates for Bedminster Township Committee, Jacob Caplan and Denise King.
Their first bullet point proposes building a park on the state Department of Transportation (DOT) site opposite the entrance to Hills Drive.
Are they serious?
Years ago, a developer had considered acquiring that land for redevelopment and providing the DOT with an alternate location for its maintenance yard. Rightly so, that proposal was met with a chilly reception from residents of The Hills, and was swiftly rejected.
This issue has been dead for years. Now it seems the Bedminster Democrats want to reopen that proverbial can of worms.
To my knowledge, the DOT site is currently in productive use and is not for sale. Regardless, the Bedminster Democrats propose acquiring it and building a new park at this location for use by Hills residents, of which I am one.
This plan is ill-conceived and severely flawed, as follows:
The location has been used for many years for road maintenance and material storage. It is now considered contaminated, so any alternate use would require costly site remediation. Why would the taxpayers – we, the residents of Bedminster – ever want to take on the burden of this toxic clean-up?
The site has no pedestrian access, as it is located at the busiest intersection in town. The thought of parents or children attempting to cross Routes 202 and 206 at the jug handle on foot is a frightening proposition. As this is a state-owned highway, the township has no control over right-of-way or the ability to construct alternate access, e.g., a flyover bridge.
If constructed, this park would be an inaccessible island unto itself, surrounded by a moat of highways and byways.
There are already two pedestrian-accessible parks located adjacent to The Hills, Burnt Mills Park and Pluckemin School House Park. These are both less than three-tenths of a mile from the DOT site, and provide 15 acres of recreational space, including athletic fields, basketball and volleyball courts, playgrounds, a dog park and pavilions.
Caplan and King propose using the Open Space Trust Fund to finance the transaction, as if it were free money. The Open Space Fund is taxpayer money, and the use of those funds for land acquisition is subject to open public meetings, where residents have the opportunity to participate in the evaluation process alongside professional planners and preservation experts – the type of meeting at which this exact proposal was considered and rejected several years ago.
Investments of this magnitude should not be mandated by empty campaign promises.
Towns cannot condemn and seize state-owned land, and any purchase or condemnation of the DOT site would likely cost tenfold or more than what currently exists in the Open Space Trust Fund, let alone the costs for demolition of the existing structures, decontamination and then construction of a park.
In short, this proposal is no walk in the park. Instead, it is a half-baked plan by two candidates sorely out of touch with reality and fiscal responsibility. If this is the Bedminster Democrats’ leading proposal, I hesitate to think what else Caplan and King have in store for Bedminster taxpayers should they ever be elected.
SEAN BLINN
Bedminster Township