I received an e-mail today from a resident over in the East Village area of South Brunswick — Davidsons Mill, Fresh Ponds and Deans Rhode Hall roads — thanking me for some editorials and columns I’d written over the last few years and saying that the editorials may have turned the tide on saving the Pulda or VanDyke Farm.
I thanked him, but had to disagree. All I did — and all we did as a paper did — was shine a light on something important. It had nothing to do with us and everything to do with an engaged and energized group of residents who showed up en masse at meetings, posted signs on their properties and made clear that there would be political consequences if the council were to ignore them.
Consider the history:
Developer Joe Morris approaches the Township Council about rezoning the 200-plus-acre farm to allow him to build three warehouses totalling more than 2 million square feet on the Davidsons Mill Road property. Mayor Frank Gambatese initially was receptive, because the project would have generated significant tax revenue.
Residents were not happy. Warehouses had been encroaching on their area for years, getting closer and closer to the folks living there — until a 1990s-agreement with the council yielded what they thought was a hard border. Warehouses were to stay east of the N.J. Turnpike.
They attended meetings, as I said, wrote letters to the paper, formed an advocacy group (East Villages Association), and made sure the mayor and council understood their concerns. They plied a forgotten form of in-your-face local activism that rarely happens these days.
I grew up as a reporter, so to speak, during the development mania that was altering the face of Central Jersey in the early 1990s. Residents throughout the region got active in an attempt to save vacant land and beat back some of the more egregious projects: Metroplex and Friendship Village, in South Brunswick, for instance, as well as similar projects in other communities.
That engagement, however, had faded — even on massive intrusions into the landscape, like Route 92, the energy was gone, as opponents left it to elected officials to fight their battles.
The EVA folks, however, refused to back down and the effort resulted in the mayor and council not only backing their opposition to the warehouses, but working to get the county and state involved in the purchase.
Luck played a role, as well — the cratering of the economy, in particular the housing market, meant that the Pulda/VanDyke property was going to cost considerably less than it might have just two or three years ago ($7.5 million for 188 acres vs. what probably was twice the price tag not all that long ago).
The effort and the result renewed my faith in an active public and should stand as an example for all who desire their elected officials to act. If you want the people on the council, the people in Trenton or even in Washington to do something, make it clear that you are willing to go to the mat and that ignoring you will have real consequences in lost votes and lost political fundraising.
Hank Kalet 