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| Unique Areas in & near Hazlet Hazlet Area Quality of Life ***** A community based non-partisan, non-profit corporation ***** “HAQLA” ================================================================= ================================================================
Re: Unique Areas Study Document March 14, 2007 Dear Ms. Waters: We respectfully urge the Monmouth County Planning Board to include Stone Road Meadows in There are no comparable tracts of this type, size, and importance remaining in the Bayshore. This site has been identified by the Bayshore Regional Watershed Council as one of nine endangered sites threatened with overwhelming development. This area addresses preservation of the environment by providing continued open-space as a much needed watershed repository that will otherwise be destroyed by development. The Department of Transportation has plans to raise the height of the Highway 36 Bridge and Highway over Flat Creek at the intersection with Stone Road Meadows. Part of the plan calls for the creation of a Wetland System Extension adjacent to Highway 36 and Flat Creek to further reduce flooding on the roadways and in the nearby residential neighborhoods. Being situated approximately 1000 feet from the Henry Hudson Trail System and the nearby existing Flat Creek Wetland Area these Stone Road Meadows properties would form a potential Greenway link. Stone Road Meadows and the Van Mater Homestead, consisting of 31 acres, also provide additional significant and unique environmental benefits to the Bayshore Area, including its function as a necessary haven for the survival of a plethora of migrating birds which stop off to rest, feed, and take shelter from the elements, and as a home to red foxes. These parcels are two of the last remaining agricultural and open-space parcels in an almost fully built-out section of the Bayshore. In comparison to what little open-space remains in this area of six clustered communities; the “Meadows and Homestead”, at 31 acres, is a very large tract, which is of ever increasing importance, as it takes on very unique and special characteristics, simply by virtue of its relative scarcity, in this area of vanishing open-space. These same tracts and the existing Furthermore, it is a High Density Population Area of Monmouth County and the vast majority of the more than 71,000 people presently living in the six surrounding towns (Aberdeen, Matawan, Keyport, Union Beach, Hazlet, and Keansburg) and their local governing bodies, as well as many environmental and shade tree commissions and environmental organizations, Assemblywoman Amy Handlin in her letter dated September 13, 2006, and the Board of Chosen Freeholders, also, in their press release of October 4, 2006, have all issued letters and resolutions, in recent months, calling for the preservation of Stone Road Meadows. Additionally, the Freeholders have identified and affirmed the integral role the Bayshore Regional Strategic Plan, which was adopted by the County Planning Board in September 2006, will play in the preservation of the “Meadows”. Freeholder Lillian Burry released a statement to the press in September 2006 calling for the Strategic Plan Collaborative to develop and oversee the Stone Road Meadows Project. Furthermore, speaking on behalf of the Attached, for your review and your records, please find a sampling of documents (36 pages) that further validate our above stated claims. Kindly provide the Planning Board with copies of this letter. Therefore, we appeal to the Board to give its diligent consideration to the important and unique benefits that these properties impart to the Bayshore Region of Yours Truly, John M. Curran III President HAQLA | ||||||||
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