“Where In the World Is The Horn Antenna?”
By Sunayana Prabhu
HOLMDEL – The legendary Bell Labs Horn Antenna is missing from the concept plans recently submitted to the township by developers. Citizen groups are raising alarms that the National Historic Landmark may be at risk.
Built in 1959 to support Project Echo, a passive communications satellite initiative of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Horn Antenna later played a major role in what cosmologists called “the most important discovery in modern astronomy since Edwin Hubble demonstrated in the 1920s that the universe was expanding.”
As recounted by experts from the National Park Service Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Dr. Arno A. Penzias and Dr. Robert A. Wilson “stumbled on the microwave background radiation that permeates the universe” while using the Horn Antenna.
Their discovery confirmed the Big Bang Theory governing the creation of the universe.
The Horn Antenna sits on a 43-acre property at 791 Crawford Hill in Holmdel. The property located atop Monmouth County’s highest peak is considered as important as the Horn Antenna in providing irrefutable scientific evidence that confirmed the Big Bang Theory of the birth of the universe.
Holmdel citizen groups, who through the OPRA (Open Public Records Act), obtained evidence of the antenna’s omission from the developer’s plan filed with the township. Citizens are
concerned that the township might soon lose the national historic landmark designation if immediate action is not taken.
Calls to preserve the Horn Antenna have been growing since the owner of the property it occupies, Crawford Hill LLC, and developer Burke Contractors LLC, submitted their development proposal last year for a high-density residential community on the property.
In the most recent development, CILU (Citizens for Informed Land Use) on April 26, released the concept plans drawn up by Burke contractors to The Two River Times. The plans obtained via OPRA depict 81 townhomes on the Crawford Hill property at 791 Holmdel Road. “Unfortunately, the Horn is noticeably missing!” CILU spokesperson Julie Roth said in a press release.
According to the release, earlier versions of the plans, dated January 2022 and April 2022 respectively, show the Horn Antenna located on a small, fenced-in site set amongst clusters of tightly packed townhomes. The latest version of the plan, dated November 2022, “no longer contains the Horn Antenna. There are growing concerns that if the Horn is removed or relocated from its original site, even if just a few feet, it will forfeit its National Historic Landmark designation.”
CILU, along with Preserve Holmdel, Friends of Holmdel Open Space and others partnering to preserve the Horn Antenna have repeatedly stated that high-density development would be a deviation from the bucolic environment Holmdel strives to preserve.
The township’s zoning map has zoned the Horn Antenna property currently in an RL-40 zone; this restricts the use of the site to research laboratories. The Holmdel Municipal Code and the Master Plan also restrict the current zoning for Crawford Hill from residential housing development, including affordable housing.
According to the New Jersey State Planning Act (N.J.S.A. 52:18A-196 et seq.), Crawford Hill falls within environmentally sensitive PA5 zones, “usually set aside as areas for the preservation of large contiguous tracts of land with the goal of protecting environmental assets,” according to CILU’s release. The unique PA5 zoning category is used for regions that contain irreplaceable resources like Crawford Hill’s scenic views, prime forested areas, recharge zones for potable water aquifers, and location within a watershed that supplies drinking water to a reservoir.
Mayor DJ Luccarelli told The Two River Times after the April 25 township committee meeting that he “was told” about the November 2022 concept plans with the missing Horn Antenna, but Luccarelli confirmed that it was “not the latest version,” he said, “no action” has been taken on that application due to pending litigation.
When asked whether the township plans to refuse to rezone of the Horn Antenna site application for high-density housing, “we’re still in active negotiations,” Luccarelli said, “and litigation is now in effect because everyone has been served. So, our problem is, we can’t comment right now.”
Several residents who made public comments during the April 25 township committee meeting reiterated the widespread support from residents, citizen groups, scientists, and elected officials for preserving Crawford Hill in its entirety as a historic public park, with advocates citing the elevation and public access as essential to its story and its historic connection to the science of the universe.
Resident Ralph Blumenthal, requested the governing body to stay transparent in involving residents during the discussions of any concept plans brought by potential developers into the township, referring to public presentations made by Ralph Zucker, CEO and founder of Somerset Development, for the Bell Works building. While Luccarelli agreed with the request for public presentation, he disagreed with the timing for it. “I think it’s our job first to at least evaluate,” he said.
How Did We Get Here
Crawford Hill LLC’s., application to develop high-density townhomes on the Horn Antenna property in 2022, triggered a worldwide petition to “Save Holmdel’s Horn Antenna” launched by residents and citizen groups, such as Citizens for Informed Land Use, Preserve Holmdel, Friends of Holmdel Open Space, and others. The online petition has garnered over 7,745 signatures from supporters worldwide as of April 26.
On March 27, U.S. Rep. Andy Kim (D-3) submitted a $4 million Community Funding Request to the House Appropriations Committee to preserve the Horn Antenna at its current location.
On April 11, during the township committee meeting, Mayor Luccarelli announced a lawsuit against Crawford Holding LLC, in state Superior Court over ownership of the Horn Antenna. “The township is not in a position to negotiate the future of Crawford Hill if it does not know who owns the Horn Antenna,” Luccarelli said at that meeting. “For these reasons, the township authorized this litigation,” to determine its rights concerning the national historic landmark, located on 43 acres at 791 Holmdel Road.
According to the lawsuit, the township alleges that the three entities with potential rights to the Horn Antenna property – South Plainfield-based Crawford Hill Holding, LLC, current property owner; Nokia of America Corporation, the former property owner, which has contractually retained certain rights to the Horn Antenna; and Burke Contracting, LLC based in Ocean, which entered a contract-purchase agreement with Crawford Hill – have not been forthcoming with certain information requested by the township.
The article originally appeared in the April 27 – May 3, 2023 print edition of The Two River Times.
