Breza Road tract owners reject $40,000 per acre Land trust may not be able to preserve property BY JANE MEGGITT Staff Writer UPPER FREEHOLD - The owner of a 254-acre tract on Breza Road has rejected a national land trust's offer to purchase the property. The Trust for Public Land (TPL) is a national nonprofit land conservation organization. The TPL offered Somerset Golf Development Co. $40,000 per acre for the tract but was turned down, according to interim Superintendent of Schools Robert Smith, who made the announcement at the Jan. 31 Upper Freehold Regional Board of Education meeting. Board of Education President Joseph Stampe said the price TPL offered was the same amount the New York City-based Rockefeller Group, which wanted to build a 1.8 million-square-foot warehouse complex on the site, had the property under contract for. The group's proposal met with a great deal of opposition in the community, and in November it withdrew its application to develop the tract. Rockefeller Group representatives did not return messages to confirm whether the group had the property under contract for $40,000 per acre. Kathy Haake, project manager for TPL, confirmed Smith's statement, saying that the trust is still open to negotiations with the landowner. "Unfortunately, at this time we are unable to raise the money necessary to meet the landowner's price expectations," she said. Haake said that an appraiser has priced the property at $60,000 per acre. She said the amount her agency offered would have put money in the landowner's pocket quickly. She also noted that there may still be local people who will "fight tooth and nail" against proposed development on the site, which is zoned with a commercial park overlay. The Board of Education is considering using part of the Breza Road acreage as a site for a new middle school. In December 2004, voters authorized the purchase of a 46-acre parcel on Ellisdale Road as the location for a new middle school, but that site has run into issues involving soil remediation and wastewater management. Since the Breza Road tract is in a sewer district, it would not require a Wastewater Management Plan (WMP) amendment via the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), which the Ellisdale Road site does. However, the site would require a WMP revision. According to Paul D'Alto, the preconstruction manager for the middle school project, the revision process is much simpler than the amendment process. The Board of Education has been deliberating over the possibility of holding another referendum to change the location of the middle school to the Breza Road tract. It was expected to make a decision about going forward with a new referendum at its Feb. 7 meeting. The Board of Education held a meeting on Jan. 12, where DEP, Department of Education and Office of Smart Growth (OSG) representatives met with school administrators, Upper Freehold Regional School District professionals, and township and borough officials. At that meeting, Haake said that TPL would like to include the new middle school in its plans for the Breza Road tract. According to the minutes of the meeting, Haake stated that the TPL would be willing to hold some acreage on the tract for a future school if the school district was willing to partner in the project, as other groups have done in the past. At the board's Jan. 31 meeting, Stampe said he didn't know whether the school district needed to partner with TPL if the trust's latest negotiations with the landowner means the issue is dead.