{"id":8180,"date":"2016-04-22T01:46:53","date_gmt":"2016-04-22T05:46:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/?p=8180"},"modified":"2016-04-22T01:49:48","modified_gmt":"2016-04-22T05:49:48","slug":"brick-residents-urge-county-to-buy-fire-companys-property","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/2016\/04\/brick-residents-urge-county-to-buy-fire-companys-property\/","title":{"rendered":"Brick Residents Urge County to Buy Fire Company’s Property"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Open<\/a>

Open land near the Pioneer Hose fire company in Brick, N.J. (Credit: Fight to Preserve Remaining Open Space in Brick Township\/Facebook)<\/p><\/div>\n

Ocean County officials say an application, if made, will be reviewed to see if acreage owned by one of the township\u2019s fire companies qualifies to be purchased by the county\u2019s Natural Lands Trust. But they also criticized township officials for passing a resolution<\/a>\u00a0last month urging either the\u00a0county or a private group to make the purchase.<\/p>\n

The 11 acre property, owned by the Pioneer Hose Fire Company, was set to be sold to a real estate developer last year, but the deal fell through. While the sale was pending, neighboring residents began urging the fire company to consider selling it to a preservation group since it would prevent overdevelopment in their neighborhood off Drum Point Road and would extend an area already preserved as open space by the township.<\/p>\n

The fire company wants to sell the tract to raise funds for new facilities.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a very old building, we need lots of renovations, and we needed a six-bay addition,\u201d said\u00a0Vincent Pischettola, a member of the fire company who addressed the county freeholder board this week. \u201cAll that costs about $800,000.\u201d<\/p>\n

Freeholder Director Jack Kelly said the fire company can make an application to a committee that reviews open space purchases, but the company\u2019s desire to make money will not sway the decision either way.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat they will consider is if it is a good purchase for our open lands project,\u201d said Kelly. \u201cWhat we would not consider is why you want to sell it and what your needs are. If the property you want to sell makes sense for our open space program, I\u2019m sure it would be recommended to our governing body.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Freeholder<\/a>

Freeholder John C. Bartlett (Photo: Daniel Nee)<\/p><\/div>\n

Earlier this year, the Brick Township council passed a resolution recommending the county purchase the land, which elicited some blowback from Freeholder John C. Bartlett, who has shepherded the county\u2019s open space efforts over the years.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe township did not have an interest in acquiring the extra six acres it self, and essentially kicked the ball down the road,\u201d said Bartlett. \u201cBrick probably shouldn\u2019t have done that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bartlett said Brick should have proposed becoming a partner in a potential purchase.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen someone puts money on the table, it makes it a much better deal,\u201d said Bartlett. \u201cI guess we will be in touch with Brick, but this became a public discussion\u00a0before it probably should have.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mayor John Ducey has said he does not favor the township investing money in the property.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy administration is not interested in purchasing additional land,\u201d said Ducey. \u201cWe see how that has worked out for us in the past.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ducey cited the cost of the Traders Cove Marina and Foodtown acquisitions as reasons why he would not be open to using township funds to preserve the site.<\/p>\n

Kelly, as well as\u00a0Bartlett, advised the fire company to make its application to the Natural Lands Trust and emphasize the positive reasons why the land should be preserved \u2013 especially the fact that it backs up to an existing tract of open space.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can walk from the back of my house, through their property, through the Green Acres property,\u201d said Jessica Dykman, one of the neighboring homeowners. \u201cIt\u2019s an amenity to us as Brick Township residents.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know what will happen, but I do know it should go to the proper review first,\u201d said Kelly.<\/p>\n

<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ocean County officials say an application, if made, will be reviewed to see if acreage owned by one of the township\u2019s fire companies qualifies to be purchased by the county\u2019s Natural Lands Trust. But they also criticized township officials for passing a resolution\u00a0last month urging either the\u00a0county or a private group to make the purchase. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6902,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,12],"tags":[24,2097,2096,1763],"class_list":["post-8180","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","category-ocean-county","tag-brick-nj-news","tag-land-preservation","tag-open-space","tag-pioneer-hose-fire-company"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/11221896_465972470238660_911145658572312786_n.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgt2Ft-27W","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8180"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8180\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}