Hello Neighbors:
The Board of Trustees is actively negotiating to sell off 80% of our new waterfront park for peanuts. This is a 21-acre jewel – the only vacant land left on the lake - and if the sale goes through, we will be left with less than four acres of park (minus roads, parking, bathrooms, etc.).
There will be no land left for the Fourth of July fireworks parking, the Pond Hockey Tournament, or mixed-use residential/commercial development that might be attracted downtown by the new beach and park.
This is not what residents told the Board we wanted. In two surveys, a supermajority of residents (60%+) said we wanted a “park only”. The Board hasn’t even done their homework to discover what a beach and park will cost to engineer, build, maintain and insure.
The Board is ignoring the residents; the Township Master Plan, the Downtown Strategic Action Plan, the North Village Plan and the Parks & Recreation Board recommendation in its haste to sell off land for 80-100 low-cost houses.
They say the new residents will revitalize downtown but have no facts or figures to support that claim.
Please sign our petition and put some public pressure on the Board to do its job.
We’ve only got one chance to get this right. Start with the beach and the park.
Northfield Neighbors