RALLY HELD FRIDAY
Residents: Building boom ruining Jackson
Board to hear plans for 493-unit Grawtown Estates tonight
Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 05/21/07
BY FRAIDY REISS
TOMS RIVER BUREAU
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JACKSON — Charlie Chillemi believes only drastic measures will end the development that he says is "destroying" the town.
"Until they get the U.S. attorney in here to stop the developers and to straighten out the politicians, it's going to go on and on," the township resident said. "They've ruined every farm in the place."
Chillemi, 69, was one of about 50 people who attended a citizens' rally Friday night in St. Vladimir's Russian Orthodox Church on Perrineville Road. The rally was organized by environmental groups who oppose the thousands of homes that developers have proposed in Jackson.
Not that Chillemi thought he would accomplish anything by attending the rally.
"You're beating a dead horse with the politicians in this town," he said. "You try to fight them, and you lose."
The Ocean County Sierra Club, the Pinelands Preservation Alliance, Save Barnegat Bay, Jackson SPARE, the Grawtown Environmental Organization and the New Jersey Environmental Federation organized the rally.
Representatives from those groups urged the crowd to get involved in the fight against what one speaker called "the monster we collectively refer to as overdevelopment."
"You are fighting against tremendous odds, but you can't give up," said A. Gregory Auriemma, chairman of the Ocean County Sierra Club and a Brick resident. "Please, please act, because if you don't act, this community is going to be a very different place and not a very happy place."
Richard G. Bizub of the Pinelands Preservation Alliance said next week will mark 20 years from the day he moved to town.
"I've seen a lot of changes over the last 20 years," he said.
Bizub asked people to write to the state Department of Environmental Protection and show support for the department's recent proposal to give Category 1 protection to the Toms River and its tributaries. If the river were designated as Category 1, builders would be required to stay 300 feet away from it.
Theresa Lettman, also of the Pinelands Preservation Alliance, advised the crowd not to wait until Planning Board hearings to talk about threatened and endangered species they spot on vacant property. Report sightings immediately to the appropriate state agency, she said.
Fliers handed out at the rally called on local residents to attend tonight's Planning Board meeting, at which the board is scheduled to hear testimony on the 493-home Grawtown Estates development.
An open letter to developer Mitch Leigh made its rounds at the rally, for people to add their signature. The letter asked Leigh to scale back his proposal to build either 1,641 or 2,531 homes at the intersection of Routes 526 and 527.
"We entreat you to — preserve as much land in Jackson as possible," the letter read. "Your valued legacy should be a "green' one."
Joyce Isaza, 36, a Brick resident and a member of the Ocean County Sierra Club, attended the rally because she is interested in "preserving the quality of life" in the area, she said.
"Once you ruin that, you don't get it back," she said. |
