Town, YMCA forge preservation partnership
BY ELAINE VAN DEVELDE
Staff Writer

William Lovett will tell you that there is such a thing as a happy ending in this preservation struggle in an area where traffic and commercial developments outnumber patches of green.

Lovett, the Chief Executive Officer of the Edison-Metuchen-Woodbridge YMCA, has experienced first-hand what he calls a "meeting of the minds for a win-win partnership to save open space and keep a valuable service open to the public."

What he is referring to is the deal recently sealed between the township and the YMCA to save the 14-acre tract of land on Inman Avenue that the YMCA’s Oakcrest Swim Club facility sits on. The club will also stay operational.

After months of mulling over an affordable and amenable way to accomplish both ends, the Township Council passed a bond ordinance at its May 12 meeting to put up $1.9 million to buy the land. It also came up with an agreement for the YMCA to lease the swim club portion of the land for continued public use, year-round, as well as the entire tract during the summer for its day camp program. The good financial news, as both township officials and Lovett see it, is that the cost will be offset by grants and the lease money.

There is one $450,000 state Green Acres grant the YMCA has had on hold since 2000, and another $500,000 Green Acres grant the township is expecting to subsidize the purchase, officials from Mayor George Spadoro’s office have said.

In order to get the matching grants, the township had to bond for the entire price. When it comes time to start paying the bond, the grant money will be counted in and open space tax money and lease payments will be applied toward the payments.

The YMCA will pay the township in graduated increments for 40 years – or one 20-year lease with two 10-year optional renewal periods – at a fee that will rise 2.5 percent a year based on average market rates.

"It’s one of those good news stories," Lovett said. "Open space is preserved, the Y gets to keep its services open to the public and the swim club will continue to operate. There has been a lot of concern about over-development for a while now. That is part of what drove us to figure out how to somehow not only preserve these 14 acres but preserve them as a recreational asset to the township. The right method has finally been figured out, and even if, 40 years from now the powers that be do not renew the lease for the YMCA with the town, we know that the land can never be developed."

The state Department of Environmental Protection mandates that once any grant money from its Green Acres program is used toward an open space purchase, that land must be forever used for passive or active recreation.

That Lovett said, should quell any concerns residents may have that once the lease is up, the land could be used for something else.

The deal benefits everyone now, Lovett said, but there was a long and winding preservation road to get there.

About four years ago, the YMCA wanted to buy the Oakcrest Swim Club it had been leasing from the bond holders of the property. That was when Green Acres promised a $450,000 matching grant for the deal. But, the price was too steep and the sale never transpired. The bond holders had hoped to sell the property to a developer for a higher price. Township preservationists resisted development and the township eyed the property for preservation. Knowing it could use the already committed state funding toward the purchase, the township and YMCA hatched the new preservation plan – a gain for all, Lovett said.