When I was seeking the Freeholder nod from the GOP last year, one of
the planks on my platform was pointing out how open space
conservation is getting all the political attention while Urban
planning is not.
Even Republicans are acting like narrow-minded treehuggers when it
comes to preserving open space (Judith Stanley Coleman is one of the
more influential GOP'ers in the State).
This lady in the Press today from Bay Head agrees with me.
My army slowly grows.
Building density all state's fault
Monmouth County Conservation Foundation President Judith Stanley
Coleman complained developers touting mixed-use traditional
neighborhood development are guilty of "bad planning practices."
("High-density development just another term for urban sprawl," Feb.
14.)
But the developers didn't invent this concept; the state Development
and Redevelopment Plan did.
The plan created by the New Jersey Planning Commission and
administered by the state Office of Smart Growth touts mixed-use
residential and commercial development in urban areas as the only
way New Jersey should grow. What Coleman calls "idyllic, but
nonsensical" is nothing more than how the state plan portrays the
ideal 21st century development.
She points out statewide mass transit doesn't exist here, which must
have been known when the state plan was written.
Coleman should check out New Jersey Future's smart growth and
sustainable development Web site. She has mistakenly blamed the
developers for the urban density vision spelled out in the state
plan.
Since so much of the state is prohibited from development (Highlands
and Pinelands, close to 2 million acres), growth can go only where
it is allowed.
Developers are not the "salesmen for high-density development," as
Coleman says. It is our own state government that can rightly claim
that title. Urban density, meet thine own sworn blood enemy, the
conservationist.
Penny Griber
BAY HEAD
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