Residents rally against housing plan on 700-acre Pine Barrens forest

Debra Skipper navigated her SUV on a recent day through the tidy Pine View Terrace manufactured housing community her family has owned since the 1960s in the Browns Mills section of Pemberton Township, Burlington County.

She steered out of the community and onto a neighboring stretch of white sand road that runs straight as a lodge pole through otherwise thick pine forest.

“It is so quiet and wooded back here. It’s beautiful,” Skipper said, halting the vehicle. “What they are proposing would ruin the character of the community. These people came here for the quiet.”

Skipper and hundreds of other residents oppose a proposal to build age-restricted housing on a portion of 700 privately owned forested acres within New Jersey’s Pine Barrens. The tract, dubbed by some opponents as Pole Bridge Branch Forest because of a pristine stream that runs through it, is off Lakehurst Road, and near Brendan T. Byrne State Forest.

The land is in the federally designated Pinelands National Reserve but falls within a regional growth zone established under the Pinelands Comprehensive Management Plan crafted by the state’s Pinelands Commission. Growth zones allow development so as not to starve municipal economies of taxes generated by housing and retail.

Developer Barry Bielat of New Hope said his project has been 20 years in the making. He’s a partner with Richard Santore in Equity Enterprises, based in Allenhurst, Monmouth County. The partnership owns 695 acres of what’s now mostly forest. But Bielat said the housing would cover 166 acres, leaving 529 acres of preserved or undisturbed land.

The plan calls for 456 single-family homes and 105 townhouses built on upland forest. Wetlands would remain intact. Voorhees-based Ryan Homes would be the builder. Bielat said Equity Enterprises has spent “in the high millions” assembling the properties and associated costs.

The housing will generate a net $1.6 million through property taxes, he said, while providing customers for local retailers without burdening schools. And, he will purchase Pinelands Development Credits, part of a preservation program that compensates private landowners in highly preserved areas who cannot sell their land.

“This is going to be a senior community, something that’s needed in all of New Jersey,” Bielat said. “It will be a development with great financial reward to the town with little impact.”

But the proposed Liberty Woods project has run into fierce local resistance, and 3,500 people have signed a petition against it. Residents from Pine View Terrace and the Country Lake Estates developments cite increased traffic, a change in the rural character of the area, loss of green space, and fears of wildfire they fear could trap people in the new development. A proposed fire road would run just feet from homes in Pine View Terrace, Skipper said.

Traffic is already heavy off Lakehurst Road, they say, because of the nearby Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst and the Deborah Heart and Lung Center. Mayor Jack Tompkins is also against the project, though he has no vote under the township’s council form of government. He does have a seat on the planning board.

A Dec. 6 council meeting was so crowded that it exceeded the meeting room’s fire safety capacity. Grumbling residents were shunted into the hallway, leading to testy exchanges with council president Donovan Gardner. Most were there in support of an ordinance to rescind a redevelopment zone designation for the tract.

The ordinance noted that the tract consists primarily of “undeveloped forested lands in their natural condition” and, although privately owned, is widely used for outdoor recreation. Because of that, the council said it was in the township’s best interest to repeal what was known as the Lakehurst Road Redevelopment Plan “with the hope and purpose of constraining development.”

But repeal of the redevelopment zone was a conundrum: It likely wouldn’t kill the project and could take away some control officials had over the site.

“My concern, just so that everybody understands, is that we end up with a development a whole lot worse than what we could have had If we had stuck to the plan,” council member Paul Detrick told the crowd.

Regardless, he sided with residents and voted to rescind the redevelopment plan. The measure passed 4-1 with applause. Gardner cast the only no vote.

Included in the redevelopment zone were 13 acres of township-owned parcels expected to be sold to Bielat. Residents believed rescinding the ordinance would make it harder for Bielat to develop the site. Bielat said that’s not the case, and he still plans to proceed.

The housing project still needs approval by the township’s planning board, which approved a previous version of the project in 2007, and Bielat said a general development agreement is still in place. The tract has long been zoned for housing.

A vote on the newer preliminary site plan could come in early 2024. If the planning board gives final approval, the project would be reviewed by the Pinelands Commission, a 15-member state agency charged with protecting the natural and cultural resources of the Pinelands National Reserve and encouraging compatible economic and other human activities consistent with that purpose.

Paul Leaken, a spokesperson for the Pinelands Commission, said members would determine whether the plan “is consistent with all environmental standards contained in the township land use ordinance and the Pinelands Comprehensive Management Plan.”

Environmentalists who have aligned with residents believe the Pinelands Commission might block the development if threatened or endangered species are found on the tract.

Bielat hired EcolSciences, an environmental consultant based in Morris County, to prepare a report on Northern pine snakes, which are threatened; timber rattlesnakes, which are endangered; and barred owls, which are threatened. EcolSciences said it found no evidence of the snakes, although it had seen evidence elsewhere in South Jersey. It found one barred owl on July 7 but concluded it came from one-half mile southwest.

Jason Howell, an advocate with the Pinelands Preservation Alliance (PPA), a conservation nonprofit, has rallied residents, launched the petition, and helped pack township meetings. He believes the forest is home to Pine Barrens tree frogs, Northern pine snakes, barred owls, and red-shouldered hawks.

“It’s 700 acres of contiguous forest,” Howell said. “And we’re just not getting back anymore of that most valuable habitat in New Jersey.”

The PPA hired Herpetological Associates, an environmental consultant with headquarters in Pemberton Township. Herpetological Associates took issue with how EcolSciences conducted its survey and noted that previous consultants had confirmed the presence of barred owls and Northern pine snakes, as well as the Pine Barrens tree frog, a threatened species.

“Just because EcolSciences failed to find Pine Snakes during 14 days of random searching in 2023 does not mean that they are not present,” Herpetological Associates wrote.

Meanwhile, residents such as Heather Watson await the planning board’s decision. Her parents built a house in 1956 on Pole Bridge Road, just off Lakehurst Road, on four acres. Deer, raccoon, and fox frequent her yard. She lives at the house with her husband and son.

“The development would be 50 feet right behind me and all round me,” said Watson, a hospice nurse. “They’re completely surrounding my house. I’m not against development, but I am when you’re leveling a forest to do it.”