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County Purchases 291-Acre Lumley Tract
Deal Brings An End To Lengthy Holiday Heights Saga
By Bill McLaughlin
The Ocean County Board of Chosen Freeholders will purchase the 291-acre Lumley tract in Berkeley, which borders the Holiday Heights senior community, for $5.9 million, the board announced Wednesday.
Thus ends a three-year battle among affected seniors, the landowners, a North Jersey developer and local governments. The fight was led by then-President Jerry Sullivan of the Holiday City-Silver Ridge Senior Coalition, which went so far as to physically try to block a front-end loader the developer planned to use in plotting the site.
The purchase, the freeholders agreed, is important for a number of reasons: It ensures the Jakes Branch and Wrangle Brook watersheds will not be encroached upon, it cuts a crescent-shaped swath of green west into Lacey and north into Manchester,and prevents any further development in the area.
The state Land Trust will chip in $960,000 from its Threatened and Endangered Species program.
Two years ago, the land developer, Baker Residential LLP, formally withdrew its Application before the Township Planning board. But attorney Ronald Heksch left open the possibility of suing the township or filing a new site plan in the future.
Originally, the builder announced a 700- home senior development for the site, but was thwarted by a Pinelands Commission ruling that such dense population would degrade what had been pristine woodlands.
The permission to build there passed muster before the county planning board in the summer of 2005, but residents objected when the plans leaked out.
Actually, the Haines and Major families, descendants of Margaret Major Haines, owned two large parcels of land in the area, one called the Haines parcel and the other referred to as the Lumley tract. The Lumley property is framed by Dover Road (Route 530), Davenport Road, the south end of Holiday City South and abandoned railroad tracks to the east. That doesn't include lands owned by the Natural Conservancy and other conservation groups along Route 530.
The listed owner of the Lumley piece of land is Fellows, Haines, Butler, et al.
The other parcel, a former cranberry bog north of Robert Miller Airpark, was sold last year to the county land trust. With this second purchase, the possibility of adding more homes in this part of the Pinelands is over.
"The people of Ocean County will now own a wide area of green space in the area," Freeholder Director Joseph Vicari said. "This will leave tens of thousands of acres in the western area of Ocean County as open space. This is a benefit to our environment and our residents."
County planner David McKeon said this "is the final link to a green swath of land from Toms River west."
In other business, Freeholder Gerry Little announced that almost two dozen families will be given the chance to own a home this year as part of the county First Time Homebuyer program.
The idea is to allow low- and moderateincome families "a chance at the American dream," Little said.
For many renters, the idea of buying a home is thwarted by the large down payment expected at the closing of the transaction. The program will provide $220,000 to participants this year as part of the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) federally funded plan.
Applications for federal grant money will be discussed at the May 7 freeholders meeting before the formal request is submitted.
Overall, the county will get $1,383,000 in CDBG grant funds in 2008, a drop of $51,000 from a year ago. The HOME program, which funds the county Housing Rehabilitation and the Tenant Rental Assistance and Affordable Rental Units programs, is expected to return $1,256,000 to county residents. That's $45,000 less than in 2007.
Former Beachwood Councilwoman Pat Moran and South Toms River Borough Clerk Betty Silvestri oversee the program.
Separately, Brick will get $352,684 in CDBG grant money, Jackson $197,978, Toms River, $449,541, and Lakewood $776,320.
Since the CDBG program, which earmarks federal money for special projects apart from municipally-budgeted public works, began in 1984, 495 projects have been completed in Ocean County, Little said.
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