The December 20, 2010 Township Committee meeting agenda

[Guest]

You write this as a serious, reasoned argument yet the premise is ridiculous. You repeatedly suggest that all someone has to do is make a trip to Town Hall and request access to a 25 year old map, study it and then they can access the public wetlands, no problem. If you didn't right this so earnestly I would have assumed it was done tough-in-cheek. You actually made the case stronger for marking them. of course it is silly to expect the average person to do all that just to access the public lands.

Also, you are incorrect that you must cross private property to access this space. There is at least one point at each end, particularly on Old Trenton, where the public land is directly accessible without first crossing private property. Further, you describe the history as if it justifies this being an unusual or unique situation when it isn’t. It is common for developers, often at the insistence of the Townships, to designate some public space as part of a major development project. They didn’t accidentally end up with some inaccessible leftover space as you suggest. That’s a silly notion. Of course they and the Township would have understood precisely what space would not be private property and would be deeded to the Township well before the first foundation was poured.

The real issue here is that due to a couple decades of inaction the residents along the water-facing side of Washington have gotten used to the idea that their properties effectively extend to the waterline even though they would have clearly seen otherwise in the surveys they had to do to close their loans and sales. I remember when I was shopping for homes over an extended period and viewed at least several adjacent to the public land. I always asked where the property line extended to and was told in every case to the waterline. I have subsequently visited a couple other people who live there and they said the same thing. It’s never been true but that has become the perception and since it has never been utilized otherwise from the point-of-view of the people living there is must seem like a sudden encroachment on their private property. Many of them have maintained their lots to the waterline and managed their landscaping with the presumption of their property extending to it. They might have planted large evergreen shrubs along their property line decades ago had they anticipated hikers and dog walkers strolling along the waterfront. And in practice even the idea of the “waterfront” is nebulas since it is a wetland that ebbs and flows substantially season to season.

I appreciate their POV but I don’t agree with it. At the end of the day this is public land and if some people would like to Township to make it easier to utilize that is their right and a reasonable one. If the owners feel otherwise they should get together and come up with a reasonable offer to buy the land and fairly compensate the Township and its taxpayers. Otherwise, accept that you had the opportunity for due diligence when you bought the house and any expectation of it remaining private was unreasonable.

[Guest]

46 acres? Sounds like a nice secluded place for the new library.

[Guest]

[Guest]

Let Shadow Oaks residents keep this land as their own and tax them accordingly. Everyone is happy, they keep their private park and th rest of the town gets money in towards their taxes.

Maybe they can be billed for all the back years.

[Guest]

[Guest]