MIDDLETOWN – A proposal for the construction of a crematorium at Fair View Cemetery has been buried, for now.
On Monday, Middletown Township Planning Board attorney James Gorman told The Two River Times an injunction had been secured that prevented the Fair View Cemetery Association application from proceeding until prior litigation is fully resolved. Gorman said the application has not been completely pulled, but shelved until the township zoning board’s 2017 litigation against the cemetery has been settled.
According to the injunction, the application for conditional use and site plan approval will remain on the planning board calendar, but will not be scheduled for public hearing. When the litigation is settled, and if Fair View Cemetery chooses to proceed with the project, the developer will need to reissue notices to all impacted homeowners within 200 feet of the project site.
“This is not a total victory, but it’s definitely a step in the right direction,” said Andrew Clark, who is a leading member of a resident group that opposes the proposal.
Clark, who was an active member of the Residents Against Giant Electric (RAGE) group, which was instrumental in defeating a $111 million power line proposal by JCP&L, said the injunction will provide him and the growing group of concerned citizens time to expand their educational efforts and grow attention to the project in case the application returns.
“Our focus from the beginning has been about building awareness and educating our neighbors and community,” Clark said. “This a project that is dangerous in all aspects and has no benefit to the community in any way.”
Fair View Cemetery is a 90-acre parcel bordering Route 35 South, Oak Hill Road and the NJ Transit North Jersey Coast Line railway.
The association first delivered its project description to the zoning board in September 2016. The plan called for a 1,128-square-foot human crematorium with two chambers.
The application was granted conditional approval by the planning board in April 2017, but hit a snag approximately three months later when the applicant sought a setback variance to build the facility just 50 feet from nearby Route 35. The application was unanimously denied by zoning board.
After two years the application was scheduled to return to the planning board Wednesday evening, March 20, but the injunction has removed it from the agenda until further notice.
Though the scope of the work was expected to remain the same, and a crematorium is a permitted use at the cemetery, what drew the ire of Clark and the opposition group was the proposed change of location.
Rather than returning to the original proposed site situated behind the cemetery’s mausoleums, the developers have eyed a vacant, forested 19.5- acre plot on the other side of the NJ Transit railway, which would place the facility across from the Oak Hill Road-entrance to the Poricy Park Nature Center and a residential development accessible via Ivy Hill Road. It would be also be located adjacent to Fairview Fields, a group of soccer fields and green space used by township athletes.
Though crematoriums chambers are considered to be low emitters of hazardous materials, Clark said mercury emissions are something that could have a severely negative impact on the health of children and pregnant mothers.
According to New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) press officer Lawrence Hajna, the DEP granted the developer an air pollution control pre-construction permit three years before the application was submitted to the township in 2017.
Hajna said that permit is due to expire June 19. He also noted that the permit does not extend to an alternate site and if the applicant changes the location of the project, the DEP application process must be restarted.
