A giant step on trail toward livable future

A Princeton Packet Editorial.

November 19, 2002

Preserving open space has become a high priority for communities throughout central New Jersey, where developers have gobbled up large chunks of farmland and forest over the last 20 years and suburban sprawl has steadily eaten away at the once-rural landscape.

In Princeton Township, two large parcels of valuable property - the R.W. Johnson estate on Rosedale Road and Coventry Farm on The Great Road - were purchased in the past year by the Delaware & Raritan Greenway, with the help of private contributions and proceeds from the open-space taxes of both the township and the borough. The township itself then acquired most of the 40-acre Gulick farm off Princeton-Kingston Road and dedicated it as open space.

Montgomery Township has been very aggressive lately in its acquisition of open space, having committed more than 5,700 acres - 27 percent of its total acreage - to preservation in some form. In West Windsor, which has the highest open-space tax in the state (7 cents per $100 of assessed value) and an extremely active nonprofit organization (Friends of West Windsor Open Space), a total of 7,861 acres, or nearly 47 percent of the township, including county land, has now been protected from commercial development. Plainsboro has preserved 3,680 acres, or about 50 percent of its total acreage.

These are impressive numbers. They represent substantial commitments on the part of area municipalities to keep large portions of available land free from development, to be enjoyed by residents either for active recreation or in an undisturbed, natural state. But these commitments come at enormous cost, reflected not only in the public portion of the purchase price of the preserved land but in the tax revenues foregone by making this land off-limits to future development.

In a state that is so heavily dependent on property taxes to fund municipal, county and school budgets, the permanent removal of so much developable land from the tax rolls adds to the burden on existing property owners - who appear willing, to this point at least, to pay the price for open-space preservation. Voter support for municipal open-space taxes has been strong in our region, and no opposition has arisen to any of the recent open-space purchases made in any area municipalities.

But there is a limit to what the taxpayers will be willing to bear as land becomes more expensive and the tax consequences of major open-space purchases become more burdensome. That is why the announcement last week of a 20-mile bikeway and walking trail that will loop through corporate and school campuses, parkland and open-space preserves in nearby Lawrence and Hopewell townships is so significant - and welcome. It represents a major commitment on the part of area businesses to join with taxpayers and private contributors in funding local preservation efforts.

Bristol-Myers Squibb headed up this effort, pledging $1 million to build the portions of the trail that will link its three corporate campuses. Educational Testing Services has committed $250,000 to support future maintenance of the trail, which also will run through its campus. Another $1.2 million will come from Mercer County. And the newly formed nonprofit Lawrence Hopewell Trail Corp. will seek additional funding from the state Green Acres program, the state Department of Transportation and other public and private sources.

The total price tag for the project is $6 million, and organizers are confident they will raise it all in time for construction of 16 miles of the trail to begin in 2003 (about 4 miles of the trail already exist) and the whole project to be finished in fall 2004.

We're not at all sure this project will fulfill the wildest dreams of its more ardent supporters. (We doubt, for example, that huge numbers of ETS and Bristol-Myers Squibb employees will now bike, walk, jog or skate to work, thereby relieving traffic congestion throughout the region.) But we do know that this is the kind of public-private partnership that will truly preserve land for future generations - by making it more affordable for this one.

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