County buys up land near Perrineville Rd.
Two land purchases come on heels of two others, all in Monroe
BY JESSICA SMITH
Staff Writer

MONROE - Middlesex County officials have approved the purchase of two tracts of land in the township for preservation as open space.

The properties, totaling nearly 17 acres, will be added to the county's inventory of approximately 6,000 acres of open space.

One of the properties, referred to as the Dreyling tract, consists of about 3 acres on Perrineville Road. The other area, known as Applegate, is 13.4 acres and has frontage on Federal Road near Perrineville Road.

Dreyling will be purchased for $616,000 while Applegate will go for $363,798, according to Jane Leal, director of administration at the Middlesex County Improvement Authority (MCIA).

The Applegate property, which connects the Thompson Park extension to Federal Road, will provide a link necessary for the formation of a walking trail that will run from the Helmetta border to Route 33. About 60 percent of the needed land has already been acquired, according John Riggs, Monroe's environmental protection manager.

Thompson Park comprises a large portion of the land, and the Thompson Park extension, which consists of 825 acres and is known as the Bank of China acquisition, will also provide part of the trail. The connecting portion from Federal Road to Route 33 has not yet been acquired, but Riggs said a sizable portion is being evaluated for purchase.

Riggs said officials hope to get students from the Rutgers University Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy involved in the design of the trail. The collaboration will not be initiated, however, until the properties are all under contract, he said.

The Dreyling and Applegate acquisitions follow on the heels of two other open space purchases by Middlesex County in Monroe. The two prior purchases comprise more than 27 acres adjacent to Applegate and Dreyling.

"There is so little land every place else," Middlesex County Freeholder Camille Fernicola said. "The south county has had the benefit of not being overly developed the way the north county has. Most of our purchases have been in South Brunswick, Monroe and Cranbury."

One of the two recently purchased tracts totals 9.6 acres near the border of Jamesburg, and had been proposed for 11 homes. It is located on Perrineville Road, directly across from Thompson Park.

"It's a buildable area, so what we wanted to do was make sure we preserved it. It's a beautiful wooded area," Riggs said.

The second property is a 17.74-acre site about 2 miles south on Perrineville Road, and contiguous with the state-owned portion of Thompson Park. The property is integral to Monroe's creation of the walking trail.

"We've got a full link from the lake in Jamesburg all the way to Federal Road," Riggs said.

The township's Environmental Commission has established a committee that is meeting now to begin studies on the formation of the trail. They will also discuss plans for the creation of bike trails throughout the town, which will be placed in other areas than the walking path because of wetlands.