By Jay Cook
HOLMDEL – Officials took the next step for installation of new turf fields in town, despite a last-ditch effort by some residents to halt the proposal.
On Tuesday, the Holmdel Township Committee unanimously voted to pass a bond ordinance, amounting to $3.3 million, for the creation of two collegiate-sized synthetic turf fields at Cross Farm Park.
A late push by some concerned homeowners was an all-or-nothing effort to capture the township committee’s attention prior to their vote on the cash allotment.
“We walked around this past weekend with a petition to put this up for referendum, and we generated over 700 signatures,” Scott Goldstein said prior to the meeting.
Goldstein was one of six residents who said he spent his Labor Day Weekend walking door-to-door, in an effort to position the bond issue on general election ballots in November.
Township Clerk Maureen Doloughty made it clear that regardless of the petition, it was too late to delay the issue a few months for referendum. The only other way, she noted, was to put the vote up for special election, which itself could cost upward of $30,000.
“Regardless if there were precedents in the court, the fact that we were able to generate this many signatures so quickly, they really should pause,” Goldstein said of the governing body’s decision to move forward.
Many issues were raised at the two-hour long meeting by the 31 residents who commented during a public hearing session. They spoke both for and against the project.
Concerns related to the environment were presented numerous times.
Goldstein, who has been active with the Holmdel-based Citizens for Informed Land Use (CILU) for 18 years, said chemicals could run off the synthetic material used to construct the field, potentially polluting Monmouth County’s main drinking supply.
“They’re going to build something 300 feet from a tributary that goes right into Swimming River,” Goldstein said. “That supplies New Jersey American Water; that goes to 300,000 people.”
Residents seeking to be heard on the issue of turf fields at Cross Farm Park filled the meetingroom on Tuesday. The governing body approved the fields. Photo by Jay Cook.
Although Marlu Lake, Hop Brook and Willow Brook are all in the immediate area around Cross Farm Park, they meet Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) guidelines of being at least 300 feet away from proposed site.
Cross Farm Park’s total acreage, which currently stands at 123, spans the length of Longbridge Road, the roadway which separates the township park from county-run Thompson Park.
Both new fields would be placed in a section of unused land which sits beneath a Holmdel Department of Public Works access road off Willow Brook Road.
Also included in the plan is 4-foot-high fencing around the perimeter of the fields, with the possibility for higher fencing or netting behind the goals. Small bleachers, possibly four to five rows high could be installed, and a new parking lot in the southern end of the park that would serve both the baseball fields as well as the new turf fields, is in the works.
Those new lots would create an increase of 250 parking spaces. The addition of more portable toilets is also part of the plan. Not officially on the docket for the park’s improvements are permanent light fixtures, yet the town engineer has been asked to further investigate bringing those into the park.
In the eyes of some Holmdel residents, the money could not be more well-spent. “I’ve coached about 25-plus HYAA teams; baseball, soccer, basketball,” said Pete Reddy, who lives a few blocks away from the park. “The one thing I see, every place I go, whether it’s Asbury Park, Middletown or Rumson, our fields are always second fiddle.”
Also for the project was Frank Pento, who worked on the Cross Farm Advisory Committee from 1997 through 2002.
“The decision was made, it’s not up for debate,” he said, regarding where the development of new fields should occur. “Cross Farm Park is the recreation facility for Holmdel Township; it’s not a squirrel sanctuary.”
Pento also had strong words for those against the Cross Farm Park improvements.
“I’m tired of hearing from people in town that are the naysayers, that are stopping the progress to keep our kids healthy, active, and enjoying the sports that they play.”
