Attorneys spar over Havens Cove project Planning Board has concerns over flooding issues BY PATRICIA A. MILLER Staff Writer PHOTOSBY MIGUEL JUAREZ staff Environmentalist Willie deCamp and Thomas Addis take a closer look at the vernal pond in Lynn Wittman’s back yard. DeCamp and nearby residents say the area is too wet for a proposed development in their neighborhood. The land in back of Lynn Wittman’s home on Cumberland Drive is far removed from the strip malls and traffic-choked highways just a few miles away on Brick Boulevard. Wittman’s view is woods and wetlands. A vernal pond in the middle is ringed by holly, swamp maples, sweetgum and oak trees. All is quiet in this rural section of the township. And Wittman, her neighbors and the environmental group Save Barnegat Bay want to keep it that way. That’s why they showed up at the Dec. 13 Planning Board meeting, to keep an eye on a major subdivision application by Danitom Development Inc., Paramus. They say the proposed project would harm their Baywood neighborhood. Developer Thomas Critelli originally wanted to build 15 single-family homes but scaled the number back to 11 homes after several Planning Board meetings. Baywood residents Ray Kuczera and Thomas Addis tour the woods near where a Paramus developer wants to put up 11, 2.5-story single-family homes. The 37.56-acre parcel is located in the rural residential zone, along the south side of Havens Cove Road, north of Baywood Boulevard, with access from the end of Atlantic Drive. Danitom wants to subdivide the property into 13 lots — 11 for 2.5-story single-family homes and two lots that would be dedicated to the township for open space. The property could yield 15 conforming single-family lots. The single-family home lots would use 12.58 acres of the site, with the balance of the tract, roughly 24.98 acres, dedicated to the township. “The applicant is going to give up four buildable lots and give the township 75 percent of the tract,” Montenegro told the board at the Dec. 13 meeting. The tract is owned by the Diocese of Trenton. The property has been on the township’s open space wish list for years, but the diocese and township officials have never been able to agree on a price. The residents and Save Barnegat Bay oppose the project, dubbed Atlantic Estates. They contend the subdivision would exacerbate existing flooding problems on the tract’s wetlands and would damage the ecological balance. Michelle Donato, an attorney representing Save Barnegat Bay, asked that the application be carried to the Jan. 3 board meeting. Donato said the group’s storm-water management experts were not given ample time to review the revised plans, which were submitted Dec. 1 and were unable to attend the Dec. 13 meeting. Gregory Auriemma, chairman of the New Jersey chapter of the Sierra Club, also objected to the revised application being heard because Save Barnegat Bay’s engineers would not be there to ask questions. “We totally support the position of Save Barnegat Bay,” he said. “You cannot analyze something you have gotten at the eleventh hour.” Montenegro called the eleventh hour reference “ridiculous” and asked that the entire matter be heard that night. “We are fully compliant,” Montenegro said. “This is the third time Save Barnegat Bay has asked for an adjournment. I think it’s just a ploy to delay this matter, and it is totally unfair. To say we have to bring our experts back so she can cross-examine them is totally unfair.” Board Chairman Daniel Kelly offered a compromise. The board would hear Danitom’s testimony that night, but the remainder of the application, including the public hearing, would be carried to the Jan. 3 meeting. “In a perfect world, we would hear this case tonight,” Kelly said. “That is not happening. The suggestion is the best of both worlds.” When Montenegro continued to object, Kelly cut him off. “We understand your problems with what is going on,” Kelly told Montenegro. “We have one job here, and our job is to get it right. We are going to do it the way I’ve outlined it.” Danitom had originally planned to fill in the vernal pond. But the revised plans call for leaving the pond the way it is, said Charles Lindstrom, the applicant’s engineer and planner. If the vernal pond overflows, the overflow will be diverted to Camden Drive, a paper street, then to a municipal drainage system on Baywood Boulevard, not toward existing homes, Montenegro said. “Water would not flow onto Atlantic Drive or Cumberland Drive,” Montenegro said. Township planner James Priolo still had issues with the pond and possible flooding problems. “I’m not convinced there won’t be an impact on the neighbors,” he told the board. “There is already a flooding problem on Cumberland. I still think that would need some work. I’m not convinced it wouldn’t add more water. Basically, I think you need a lot of information. The changes were minimal that came back.” “This is a pond that comes and goes,” Kelly said. “One season it’s there, another season it’s not.” But the residents who gathered at the pond site on Friday remain convinced the area is too wet for development. The pond was filled with about 18 inches of murky black water. The soil in Wittman’s back yard is spongy and moist. The water from the pond rose to 2 feet from her garage after a storm last December. “I have a Yankee basement,” she said. “The sump pump runs all the time.” Ray Kuczera, who lives on Cumberland Drive, said his pressure-treated fence posts rotted within a few years because of the high water table in the area. “If you pick up the soil, you can make a meatball out of it,” he said. The ideal solution would be for the township to purchase all of the tract for open space, said Willie deCamp, executive director of Save Barnegat Bay. If that can’t happen, then the residents should be guaranteed there would be no flooding from the proposed development, he said. Frank Huber, Havens Cove Road, has lived in the township all of his life. “We have very little woods left in Brick Township,” Huber said. “Once it’s gone, it’s gone forever.”