At a recent council meeting some Closter residents aired concerns about the acquisition of the Flamm Estate, in light of the proposed 2008 budget.
"I believe there is no need to purchase and spend a $.5 million grant from Open Space at this particular time when the budget has gone up $1.3 million and has somewhat depleted the reserve," Jack Kelly said.
Kelly, a concerned resident has lived in Closter since 1963 and first became concerned about the council’s intent to buy the property five years ago when he was on the Planning Board.
"I was concerned when they were talking about acquiring it because it’s so wet and there’s such a small piece of it that’s buildable," Kelly said.
The five-acre property on the corner of Homans Avenue and Ruckman Road, is predominately wetlands and as such currently protected by New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) regulations.
However, Mayor Sophie Heymann said there are ways developers can get around this designation and eventually build on this piece of property that is a valuable catch basin for the borough’s flood waters.
"If you want to use a piece of wetlands you can appeal to the DEP and use one of two methodologies to offset the wetland that you want to use," said Heymann. She said developers could pay the DEP a fee to create offsetting wetlands elsewhere so they can then build on the wetlands.
"The other way is to offset the wetlands someplace else yourself. Take a good piece of property within the same region as the piece of property you want to use and make the upland piece into a wetland piece to offset the fact you are going to use the wetland," said Heymann.
President of the Closter Nature Center Association, Mary Mayer, said this is why the borough must purchase the land.
"When people say ‘why spend money on that land it will never be developed,’ that’s the incorrect point of view because legally they can get around that. The DEP has a particular structure for doing it," Mayer said.
"That is why it needs to be acquired and taken out of the potential for development in the future," she said.
Dr. Beth Ravit of Rutgers Environmental Research Clinic, said DEP statistics show the state is losing about 150 acres of fresh water wetlands every year. She said it is a "terrible public misperception" that wetlands are protected because of these mechanisms that enable developers to change their status.
The Flamm property, said Ravit, is particularly important because, "that wetlands is holding all that storm water… and filtering the water that goes to the reservoir and our drinking water."
Although she said she could not imagine a good reason for the DEP to approve development on it, she said you never know. "If we go through a major economic downturn and people need jobs then sometimes other considerations come into play. You just don’t know."
The property was originally assessed at $3.2 million, said Heymann, who hopes to "get it for a small fraction of the original assessment." The contract between the Flamm Estate and the borough has not yet been finalized so Heymann could not comment on the purchase price. She expects it to be finalized by April 11.
