Brick reaches deals for two open space tracts

BY KARL VILACOBA
Staff Writer

BRICK –– Owners of two of the township’s most coveted open space tracts settled purchase agreements with the township last week, officials said.

The Township Council authorized Mayor Joseph Scarpelli to enter in contracts of sale for the Osborne Property, Drum Point Road, and the New York Avenue Property, New York Avenue. Both tracts were named on a list of the 11 chief remaining targets of Brick’s open space acquisition program in July.

The council met briefly in closed session Dec. 9 to discuss the purchases before unanimously voting to move ahead on them.

The township is purchasing the Osborne Property to block it from being developed on its own or in conjunction with other neighboring properties. The 2.25-acre site is near the 275-acre Airport Tract. The purchase price is $120,000, with a likely closing date before Jan. 1, according to Township Attorney Charles Starkey.

The 3.5-acre New York Avenue Property adjoins the 175-acre Sawmill Pond Tract. The township decided to pursue the property when neighborhood residents delivered a petition for the mayor to stop a planned subdivision on the property, Scarpelli said. The purchase cost is $207,500, Starkey said.

"We felt it was the right thing to do because it was adjacent to the Sawmill Tract," Scarpelli said of the New York Avenue Property purchase. "It wasn’t a large piece, but it was important to the environmental balance of the area."

The council passed a $5.3 million bond ordinance in July to eventually pay for all 11 properties as part of Phase II of Brick’s capital budget. An emergency appropriation in the amount of $285,000 was also approved at that time, enabling the township to move ahead on the purchases.

The owners of the two latest purchases were both willing sellers, according to Business Administrator Scott MacFadden.

Officials said in July that the lands would be condemned if agreements couldn’t be reached on the 11 tracts, which add up to about 164 acres of mostly undeveloped land.