Several of us attended the Township Committee meeting last night to present our views on the Highlands issue and its relation to the COAH requirements for affordable housing in Bernards.

The members of the TC seemed in a pretty affable mood. They presented a commendation to Tobin Heath, a member of the Olympic Gold Medal-winning US Women’s National Soccer Team (who circulated the medal and offered to let them try it on), and then joked that she had better check to make sure it was still in the box after they handed it back to her. They also approved a very progressive measure to reduce and eventually eliminate all chemical pesticide, herbicide, and fertilizer use in the Township’s parks and recreation areas, presented by Pat Monaco, Director of Public Works.

This approach, called Integrated Pest Management, emphasizes using organic methods wherever possible and using chemical treatment only as a last resort. The program is expected to cost a little more for the first couple of years, but then lower expenses on an ongoing basis, and is ultimately the only healthy, sustainable approach. Indeed, the amount of lawn in New Jersey is a major problem: it costs a lot to maintain, puts large amounts of toxic materials into the environment, consumes an inordinate amount of fresh water, and increases runoff rather than helping to restore aquifers. The change in the town’s approach is largely the work of Joseph Speeney, a financial analyst and senior product manager with AT&T’s wireless unit in Morristown; he lives in the Hills, and is committed to fighting pesticide use in the community for health and environmental reasons.

Finally, at the opportunity for public comment, one after the other of our group stood up to raise the issue of the Highlands, and of the advantages of opting in at this time. Bill Allen presented the letter that he had prepared and we had endorsed, making the arguments presented at our meeting on December 12. In the end, however, it was really clear that the majority on the Committee were not listening. They heard us out, and then Mayor John Carpenter held forth rather pontifically on what he believed were the Committee’s views.

In brief, they remain unconvinced at to the merits of signing on to the Highlands Plan. They continue to believe that more development will be pushed into the “planning” areas at the edges of the Highlands, by displacing it from the “preservation” areas, and that Bernards will be forced to accept some of this development. According to Carpenter, they are caught between the mandates of two state agencies, the Highlands Council and COAH, and they don’t trust either of them to do what’s right for Bernards. However, they are committed to studying the options – and to suing COAH to prevent them from imposing more affordable housing requirements on the town.

There did not seem to be any interest in revisiting the decision they had made not to submit a letter of intent, but to provide a plan that contains what they believe to be a clever way of appearing to meet their COAH obligations without actually building any additional affordable housing, and letting the chips fall where they may.

Committee member John Malay, who had voted in the minority (along with Scott Spitzer) to submit the letter of intent, took a more positive view, and argued that the township would really do a serious and objective study with the $15,000 grant awarded to the town by the Highlands Council. We hope so. We’d also like to believe that the TC really wants to hear the views of residents, that it cares about both its environmental and its social obligations, and will seek to balance these in the best interests not just of the town but of the entire region, of which we are an inextricable part. We’ll see if this happens.

In the end, I’m also not sure we took the best position. We basically bought into the conservative argument that environmental protection means limiting future development, and that this is an excuse to evade our fair share of affordable housing. We remain divided on the affordable housing issue, when we ought to be looking at how we can help solve the affordability problem for people who want to live and work here. We also failed to convince them as to the merits of conforming to the Highlands Plan. What we accomplished was to show that we are paying attention, and can get our point of view heard and most likely reported in the media. But if it’s not a clearly progressive stance, is there really a point?

- Jonathan Cloud, December 24, 2008