Mountain golf course proposed

Thursday, February 12, 2004
By JAN BARRY
STAFF WRITER

RINGWOOD - Should this Highlands town's highest peak be the host to hikers and eagles or golfers and luxury homes?

This is the dilemma now before the Planning Board. This week, owners of a 424-acre tract atop Saddle Mountain informally presented a plan to build a golf course and homes on a soaring symbol of wilderness that conservationists have long sought to preserve.

Part of the property is in West Milford and the proposed plan would also need that township's approval.

"My client has not only the right but the intention of developing the property," Jerome Vogel, an attorney for Braen Stone Industries of Haledon, told the board Monday. The quarry company owns an adjacent quarry operation and the forested peak under a subsidiary name, Saddle Mountain LP.

The state attempted to buy and preserve the mountain through its Green Acres program in the 1990s, but the owners were not interested in selling. The 1,130-foot peak is adjacent to Norvin Green State Forest and juts amid a ridgeline that forms part of the headwaters for the Wanaque Reservoir. The reservoir serves 2 million North Jersey residents and is a feeding area for foraging bald eagles.

The Planning Board that will hear this application includes a new mayor, Wenke Taule, whose Democratic slate won a Borough Council majority in November on an environmental-protection platform. Taule proposed a council resolution last month to support preservation of Saddle Mountain. The council deadlocked 3-3 when Democrat Bill O'Hearn abstained due to his work as a land trust director.

At the Planning Board meeting on Monday, Vogel cited a 1996 borough ordinance that allows golf courses as a conditional use in certain zones, and said the proposal was designed to fit within current zoning. The tract is in a residential zone that allows single-family homes on roughly two-acre lots, depending on the topography, which ranges from mountainside slopes to sheer cliffs.

"We thought about various uses and this is sanctioned by your zoning ordinances," Vogel said.

Vogel said the tract is so large that an 18-hole golf course and a yet-to-be determined number of houses can be built within the constraints of state environmental regulations. He said more than 130 acres would be left in a natural state and the golf course designed to fit amid trees and outcroppings.

"There are a lot of constraints," he said, referring to state-required buffer zones around wetlands and along stream corridors and borough restrictions on building on steep slopes.

The borough planners said they wanted to see more details of the proposal before starting an official review and public hearing.

"I don't think there is enough information on the plan to show whether a golf course and residential areas are viable," said John Thonet, the board's planning consultant. "I can't even begin to recommend to this board whether this is an acceptable project."

Thonet suggested that a study be done to determine whether there are endangered wildlife species on the tract. Board members asked for water-availability studies and that historic hiking trails through the area be shown on the proposed development map.

Board member Elliot Greene said he would like to see "an example of a golf course in similar terrain" and an economic impact analysis.

Vogel said he would return with responses to issues raised by the planners.