Land swap opponents appeal state’s decision
Park Savers, other groups say Monroe application was incomplete
BY SETH MANDEL
Staff Writer

Three environmental groups have appealed the state’s approval of a land swap that would allow a high school to be built in what is now Thompson Park.

Filed Friday in state Superior Court, the appeal claims that the State House Commission approved the land diversion “despite the incompleteness of the application, the unavailability of critical information at the public hearings and the protected legal status of the land offered.”

The complaint was filed by Richard Webster, an attorney with the Rutgers Environmental Law Clinic, which is representing the New Jersey Conservation Foundation, New Jersey Public Interest Group and the local citizens’ group Park Savers.

“We’re not surprised that they filed an appeal,” Monroe Board of Education President Kathy Kolupanowich said. “They stated all along that they would, so we’re not surprised that they did.”

The land diversion was approved in January, more than two years after Monroe residents approved the construction of a new high school. Officials sought to build the new school on a 35-acre section of Thompson Park, across School House Road from the current high school. To do that, the township applied to the state for a land diversion that would exchange 152 acres of township property for the park land. The application was filed with the state Green Acres program because the state has jurisdiction over the park land as a result of a previous transaction involving Green Acres funds.

Two hearings were held last year to give the public a chance to weigh in on the land swap. Each meeting was attended by hundreds of residents and lasted five hours.

The State House Commission voted unanimously to approve the land diversion, and school officials are now planning for a September 2011 opening of the new high school.

But Webster said the approved application had significant flaws and must be reconsidered.

Among those flaws, he said, was a lack of evidence supporting the township’s claim that there were no feasible alternative sites for the school. The application process requires the applicant to show that such a land swap is the last and only resort.

Webster said a Green Acres official at one point criticized the township’s analysis of alternative sites, but no improvements were made to that portion of the application.

“So there is no demonstration of no feasible alternatives,” Webster said. “In fact, we contend there are feasible alternatives, one of which would be to renovate the existing high school.”

School officials testified at the public hearings, however, about the existence and work of an ad hoc committee that was assembled in part to investigate alternatives to the park land.

Renovating the existing high school was considered by the committee, Kolupanowich said, but was ruled out.

“You could probably add on a wing of rooms, but you can’t add onto the core facilities — the media center, the cafeteria, the gymnasium — and that, already, is too small,” Kolupanowich said. “So you need to have the core facilities to fit in with the amount of students you have, and you can’t add onto that in our current high school.”

She added that such construction would compromise the education of the students, as it could not be completed during summer vacation.

In its report on the decision, the State House Commission laid out several conditions of approval, all to be met before any construction begins on the new school.

Environmental surveys and traffic studies must be conducted for the approval to hold, the report stated, for example. But Webster said that is just further proof that the application was incomplete, and should not have been ruled on.

“Having the environmental assessment done after you make the decision, it’s like shutting the barn door after the horse has bolted,” Webster said. “Whatever you find out about it doesn’t make a difference in the decision.”

The lack of a traffic report, Webster said, also prevents the public from knowing what noise or air pollution would result from the traffic.

A much-debated part of the application was the land value assessments. Opponents of the land swap claimed the park land was worth more, while supporters contended that the township was giving up four times the amount of land, and that the township land being offered had environmental benefits the park land did not.

It was determined, however, that the township land was about $1 million short of the assessed value of the park land. As a result, the state requested a $1.127 million cash supplement to the 152 acres of replacement land.

Webster said that, since the public was not made aware of the cash supplement prior to the public hearings, the public’s true opinion of the application was not conveyed to the state.

Webster said he is still researching the legality of the cash supplement, and whether it was appropriate.

“What is certainly wrong is that the people weren’t told about it at the time they were making comments, so the application was incomplete when the hearings went ahead,” Webster said. “And that just renders the hearings meaningless. How could you comment on something when you don’t know what it is?”

But officials have stated that the difference in assessment was caused by the fact that, even though the park land is designated open space, and no homes can be constructed there, it is still assessed as an R-30 residential zone, which allows for the construction of one unit on every three-quarters of an acre.

Additionally, about $500,000 of the cash supplement will be used to build six new soccer fields on Perrineville Road to replace some of the fields that would be lost with the construction of the new facility.

The rest may be used to make additional improvements to existing park land within the township.

“We’re giving it to the county, but we’re getting it back,” Kolupanowich said. “So that money is still staying in Monroe, and it’s going to be used to upgrade our soccer facilities. That’s not a bad thing.”

In addition to its understated value, Webster said the land cannot be traded for the park land, or any land for that matter, because it was acquired by the township through a developer’s use of a cluster zoning option on an approved development. A cluster option allows a developer to put the proposed number of residential units on less acreage, and donate the remaining land to the township for open space.

That, Webster said, means the land is protected as such in perpetuity, and cannot be swapped.

All the issues related to the land swap will be revisited in court, though no date has been set.

As for the new high school, Kolupanowich said the district will continue with the task at hand — planning for the construction of the new facility — until otherwise instructed.

“I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what’s going to happen,” she said. “But as far as the Board of Education is concerned, we’re moving ahead, and nobody has told us that we couldn’t move ahead.”

Webster said he wanted to make it clear that his clients hope township students will have a new school as well, though they object to the use of park land and the offering of replacement land that is already protected by land-use law.

“The groups that I’m representing are not against schools. We concur with the township that they need to build a school,” Webster said. “We’re just disappointed that the township decided to go this diversion route, instead of going down a route which would have been much less contentious.”