Highlands Designated Conservation Zone:
Santini’s Farm behind old P’burg Mall
COMMENT SUBMITTED TO HIGHLANDS COUNCIL BY MIKE KING REGARDING THE PROPOSED HIGHLANDS REDEVELOPMENT AREA ON SANTINI FARMFIELD BEHIND OLD PBURG MALL
The Highlands Council staff is clearly very motivated to enable these Conservation Zone acres of farmland to become a mammoth warehouse. But we don’t need this proposed warehouse to serve as a trade off, to preserve the forest in the riparian corridor of the Lopatcong Creek. These resources can readily be preserved without this 380,000 square-foot warehouse on Santini’s Farmfield
Elliot Ruga of the Highlands Coalition shines the light on the inadequacy of the mitigation policies:
“Although mitigation is required in the future when the warehouse site plan is reviewed,
no amount of mitigation can justify the extent of the loss of Highlands resources that are sacrificed to make way for this project.
Nor is the standard hierarchy of to first avoid, then minimize, and lastly mitgate, even suggested that it was followed.”
DEAR HIGHLANDS COUNCIL
I’ve perused the Highlands Council’s staff report about a proposed Highlands Redevelopment Area, and I’m extremely concerned about the clear intent to justify the designation despite the facts of the matter being contrary and the intent of the Highlands Act.
Instead of making it possible to save irreplaceable resources from development, the staff proposal goes overboard to justify developing these irreplaceable resources.
These valued resources are limited and quickly disappearing and all the effort of Highlands Council staff should be focused on preserving them, when possible
20 years ago when the Highlands Act was signed into law - after years of effort - we could not have envisioned that the Council’s staff would ever warp reality to create a rationale to develop Santini’s Farmfield, in a Conservation Area, serving as a buffer, behind the old P’burg Mall in Lopatcong and Pohatcong Townships.
The approximately 57 acres are not in the Phillipsburg sewer service area. And since sewer service cannot presently be extended there, the land can be preserved relatively inexpensively.
The object of this Highlands Redevelopment Area application is to allow this top notch farmland to be served by a sewer extension, to make possible, a warehouse that would not otherwise be allowed
The spirit and intent of the Highlands Act is being undone with this Highlands Redevelopment Area application. The singular goal of the staff should be to preserve the Highlands resources, when possible, not to plunder them for no good reason
TWO SUPPOSED JUSTIFICATIONS
The Highlands Council’s staff report says there are two justifications for proposing the Highlands Redevelopment Area application and thereby allowing the building of a warehouse on this farmland.
The first justification is that they say Santini’s Farmfield is of marginal value because it is “isolated” farmland.
Elliot Ruga of the Highlands Coalition in his comments on this same application last year thoroughly rebutted the notion that the farmland is isolated by tabulating thousands of acres in close proximity
The second justification provided in the staff report is that these 57 acres can’t be preserved
This assertion makes no sense, yet, it’s upon this premise that the entire argument for the Highlands Redevelopment Area application rests. The notion that this land cannot be preserved is nonsense and a made up fiction.
It is the job of the Highlands Council staff to work to protect the resources of the Highlands, not to misuse the Highlands Redevelopment Area designation. There is no way that the Santini Farmfield qualifies for this designation and the scheme contemplated by the staff undermines the intent of the Highlands Act, itself
Elliot Ruga explains in his comments that these farm acres are the highest quality agricultural land, and it is a priority for preservation on the latest Warren County open space plan.
I haven’t seen any new or improved rationale from the staff for the Highlands Redevelopment Area application. Yet, comments are being collected again, as they intend to proceed with this application
HIGHLANDS COUNCIL WAREHOUSE GUIDANCE
To address the proliferation of warehouses in the region and the loss of important Highlands resources, the Highlands Council recently promulgated a warehouse guidance to protect the lands that are of high resource value.
The townships of Pohatcong and Lopatcong are specifically mentioned in Highlands Council’s “warehouse policy standards”
For municipalities that have opted into Highlands Plan Conformance, warehouses are prohibited from the
Protection Zone, Wildlife Management Sub-Zone, Conservation Zone, and Conservation Zone –
Environmentally Constrained Sub-Zone.
Municipalities with significant Highlands Planning Areas that have opted into the Highlands Plan Conformance
include Mahwah, Parsippany-Troy Hills, Rockaway Township, Randolph, Wharton, Chester, Washington Township
(Morris), Pohatcong Township, Alpha, Phillipsburg, Lopatcong, Oxford, Washington (Warren), Hopatcong, and all
Hunterdon County Highlands municipalities.
Where warehouses are permitted, site review will address the follow
But they’ve turned the Highlands warehouse guidance upside down. It wasn’t intended to justify the development of high quality acres In a Conservation Zone closer to a highway.
The fact is that this 57 acres is behind an approved - by Lopat and and Pohat Land Use Boards - an 850,000 ft.²warehouse at the site of the old P’burg Mall. The old mall, itself, is exempted from the Highlands Act
This fact does not change the high quality of Santini’s Farmfield and thus it should not be the target for development as a warehouse.
Designating the Santini farm acres as a Highlands Redevelopment Area is cynical and an abuse. To talk about this land as if it’s already developed and in need of redevelopment is the premise that underpins the justification for this outrageous scheme of declaring 57 acres, of the highest quality farmland, to be in a Highlands Redevelopment Area
UNDOING PROTECTIONS OF THE HIGHLANDS ACT
Since the premise of this Highlands Redevelopment Area application is not valid, what’s the point of this entire exercise except to circumvent and undermine the Highlands Act in the service of the powerful and politically connected.
This application is not the only Highlands Redevelopment Area application recently promoted by Highlands Council staff. I’m interested in the details of the others to identify how far the Highlands Council Director and the staff have veered away from protections of resources.
A new Governor of New Jersey hopefully will reaffirm the Highlands Act and realign the staff
Pohatcong municipal meeting minutes report how the local State Senator has button holed elected officials in Pohatcong. And town officials have thereby been convinced to participate in the Highlands Redevelopment Area scheme, by letting its part of the old mall, be counted to reach the required 70% impermeable surface.
Pohatcong’s participation on the application is needed to allow construction of a 380,000 sq ft warehouse. It would, never the less, be entirely in the Lopatcong Township section of Santini's Farmfield
Pohatcong Mayor and Council have completely capitulated even though this warehouse will tower over their Huntington neighborhood. They argue their action is justified because the Santini Farmfield acres in Pohatcong will be preserved.
Its hard to believe that Pohatcong officials don’t realize there are other ways to preserve the acres in Pohatcong then participating and enabling a mammoth warehouse adjacent to its Huntington neighborhood
THE STAFF REPORT
So, the staff report devalues Santini’s farmland acres as nearly useless. It then references these acres as included in what’s already an impermeable surface at the old mall and therefore included in what needs to be redeveloped
The math is carefully eyed to reach 70% impermeable surface, as required, for the designation of Highlands Redevelopment Area.
This dubious staff report is hardly an objective or true evaluation of Santini’s Farmfield resource value
Having made their way through these mental gymnastics to degrade its value, the Highlands Council staff scheme severs those farmland acres from the forested riparian corridor to enable development of a 380,000 square-foot warehouse
SOON TO BE A CROWDED NEIGHBORHOOD
The adjacent neighborhoods of Parkside and Huntington in Pohatcong Township will be severely affected by a large overbearing warehouse built on the part of Santini’s Farmfield in Lopatcong Township.
In exchange for allowing its old mall portion to be used to achieve 70% impermeable surface required for the Highlands Redevelopment Area, Pohatcong gets a few acres of preserved land amidst more than 1,300,000 ft.² of new warehouse.
Lopatcong would get all the ratables from the warehouse on Santini’s Farmfield and the adjacent Pohatcong residential properties would lose value
The impact of the mammoth warehouse will be regional in that Phillipsburg is just a few hundred feet away and Pohatcong Township has approved an affordable housing development at the border with Phillpsburg.
The Huntington neighborhood will soon be a crowded one very much in need of the buffer provided by Santini’s Farmfield
OTHER OPTIONS
Instead of the warehouse, I suggest imagining the crowded Huntington neighborhood in future years needing some of these acres for an expansion of the existing parkland called Parkside Ballfield, in the Huntington neighborhood. The park borders the Lopatcong Creek and the Santini Farmfield
Also, imagine a few of these preserved acres being used as a community garden.
Let’s imagine what will be needed here in fifty years or twenty years or ten years or now. High quality farmland might be what’s needed to sustain the community in the future, if, for example, the global economy collapses
Santini’s Farmfield has to be recognized by the Highlands Council as a great resource for now and also in the future
Less than a mile down Lock Street, there already exists more than 3,000,000 ft.² of warehouses on the old Ingersoll Rand farm fields along Route 22
CLEAN WATER ACT VIOLATIONS
The Highlands Council’s staff report explains that karst conditions on the site make it so that stormwater cannot be recharged into the groundwater: How does the stormwater get out of there without overwhelming the Lopatcong Creek Watershed? Frankly. It can’t.
The amount of impermeable cover with the 850,000 ft.² warehouse on the old mall property along Route 22 is significantly larger than the old P’burg Mall, which means a lot more stormwater.
In fact, about 300,000 sq ft of additional impermeable surface will be added from the old P’burg Mall
And that’s even without counting the proposed 380,000 square-foot warehouse on the Santini farmland.
I asked former NJDEP official and expert on New Jersey Environmental law - Bill Wolfe - how not recharging the storm water on site will affect the Lopatcong Creek watershed. I’ve placed his entire response at the end of my comments below but please note Mr Wolfe’s answer in the next two paragraphs:
“The stream bank erosion and bed scouring that will occur are violations of the Clean Water Act. That Act (and NJ law and DEP regs) protects the "physical, chemical, and biological health" of waterways. Erosion and scoring are violation of the "physical" characteristic prong.”
Bill Wolfe continues:
Submit comments to the Highlands Council that they are required to enforce the Clean Water Act. The stormwater from the site must comply with NJ DEP surface water quality standards and antidegration policies and the applicant must be required to demonstrate compliance and not just rely on DEP stormwater BMP's as presumptive compliance.
SUPPOSED MITIGATION
The Highlands Council’s staff report says some grassland acres will be created adjacent to the forested riparian corridor of the Lopatcong Creek (as well as the Morris Canal corridor). But doesn’t mention how this 380,000 square-foot warehouse will shadow over these resources and exacerbate flooding in the watershed
Elliot Ruga of the Highlands Coaltion also shines the light on the inadequacy of the mitigation policies. In Elliot Ruga’s own words:
“Although mitigation is required in the future when the warehouse site plan is reviewed, no amount of mitigation can justify the extent of the loss of Highlands resources that are sacrificed to make way for this project. Nor is the standard hierarchy of to first avoid, then minimize, and lastly mitigate, even suggested that it was followed.”
Also, in Elliot’s comments he decries a system required for replacing the resources of these 57 acres by preserving some other land, at some time after this deal is approved, which allows it to be deferred to some time in the future - in other words: likely never
The Category 1 Lopatcong Creek requires a 300 foot buffer by state regulation. Therefore using protection of these forested acres and Morris Canal trail as part of a package of mitigation is a contrived illusion of value. A 380,000 square foot warehouse on Santini's Farmfield is not needed to protect the buffer of the creek
IN CONCLUSION
Such resources as Santini’s Farmfield should not fall victim to the needs and desires of the politically powerful. Highlands Council must support the Highlands Act and work to protect the resources of the Highlands
So concludes the Comments from Mike King for Phillipsburg Riverview Organization
Bill Wolfe’s entire response here
Mike - good question about stormwater.
The stream bank erosion and bed scouring that will occur are violations of the Clean Water Act. That Act (and NJ law and DEP regs) protects the "physical, chemical, and biological health" of waterways. Erosion and scoring are violation of the "physical" characteristic prong.
NJAC 7:9B-1.5: (Surface water quality standards)
"It is the policy of the State to restore, maintain and enhance the chemical, physical and biological integrity of its waters, to protect the public health, to safeguard the aquatic biota, protect scenic and ecological values, and to enhance the domestic, municipal, recreational, industrial, agricultural and other reasonable uses of the State’s waters."
https://dep.nj.gov/wp-content/uploads/rules/rules/njac7_9b.pdf
I don't know the locations involved, but portions of Lopatcong Creek are classified as C1 waters and Trout maintenance. C1 waters are protected by a non-degradation standard and TM waters can not be degraded in any way that would impair the trout designated and existing uses.
LOPATCONG CREEK (at page 63)
(Phillipsburg) - Source to a point 560 feet (straight line distance) upstream of the Penn Central railroad track, including all tributaries FW2-TP(C1)
(Phillipsburg) - From a point 560 feet (straight line distance) upstream of the Penn Central railroad track downstream to the confluence with the Delaware River FW2-TM
https://dep.nj.gov/wp-content/uploads/rules/rules/njac7_9b.pdf
Submit comments to the Highlands Council that they are required to enforce the Clean Water Act. The stormwater from the site must comply with NJ DEP surface water quality standards and antidegration policies and the applicant must be required to demonstrate compliance and not just rely on DEP stormwater BMP's as presumptive compliance.
Wolfe