After years of controversy, plan changes and environmental issues, a combination play area and viewing stand in Red Bank’s Bellhaven Natural Area is finally nearing completion. redbankgreen got a sneak preview Thursday morning.
What’s Going On Here? Read on.
Like the rest of New Jersey, Red Bank may be on near-lockdown because of the COVID-19 pandemic, but work on a trio of closely watched municipal projects continues.
What’s Going On Here? Read on.
A sign alerting the public to an environmental cleanup appeared at Red Bank’s Bellhaven Natural Area a few weeks ago.
What’s Going On Here? Read on.
After years of discussion, some of it quite heated, Red Bank’s Bellhaven Natural Area is about to get a makeover.
Consulting engineer Christine Ballard details the Bellhaven plan for the council last week. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
After years of revisions, and no small amount of controversy, changes to the Bellhaven Natural Area in Red Bank could be completed by this summer, officials said last week.
Once again, the project has been scaled-back from a version of a plan that called for a spray park and triggered loud protests four years ago, they said.
Trees were taken down recently at Bellhaven Natural Area in preparation for an observation deck being built there, according to Business Administrator Ziad Shehady. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Red Bank officials have quietly started prep work for a project at a site once mired in controversy: the Bellhaven Natural Area overlooking the Swimming River.
The end result, however will be a “scaled-back” version of a plan that once called for a spray park and triggered loud protests three years ago.
The new concept plan for Bellhaven Natural Area includes an observation deck, similar to the one shown for illustration purposes above left; playground equipment; and a play area covered with a rubberized safety surface, shown in light green. (Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Two years after residents gave a thorough hosing to a plan for a spray park in a West Side wetlands, Red Bank officials unveiled a new plan for the Bellhaven Natural Area Wednesday night.
This one got a warmer reception.
After scrapping a controversial plan for a “spray pad” in a children’s play area at Bellhaven Natural Area two years ago, Red Bank officials plan to unveil a new plan for the site next week.
A 2012 image outlines the extent of wetlands at Bellhaven Natural Area at the western terminus of Locust Avenue. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Two years after abandoning a controversial “sprayground” proposed for the Bellhaven Natural Area, the Red Bank borough council is moving ahead with plans for a playground at the site.
At its semimonthly meeting Wednesday night, the council approved nearly $20,000 in additional engineering costs for the site, a move that prompted fresh objections.
“This is deja vu all over again,” said Bill Meyer, owner of a downtown commercial building. The borough has already spent $73,000 engineering fees on the site, and “that money was burned and wasted,” he said. Read More
An entrance to Bellhaven Natural Area on Locust Avenue. A proposed playground would be sited within the of loop the path shown above. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
A controversial plan for a spray park in Red Bank’s Bellhaven Natural Area has all but officially sputtered out.
The borough-owned riverfront lot at the western end of Locust Avenue is still envisioned as the site of a much-needed West Side playground, according to Councilwoman Linda Schwabenbauer, the governing body’s liaison to the parks and recreation department.
But a spray park or a splash pad that shoots jets of water skyward? That’s done, she tells redbankgreen.
Michael Ballard, Democrat. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
The balance of political power is at play in the November 3 election in Red Bank, which features four candidates for two three-year seats on the borough council. All four have indicated they’ll participate in the West Side Community Group’s annual candidates’ forum at the River Street Commons at 7 p.m. on Thursday, October 1. For more information about the event, take it here.
To help voters compare the contenders in terms of personal background and positions on key issues, redbankgreen emailed them identical sets of questions late last week. Here’s what Michael Ballard had to say in response.
Mark Taylor, Republican. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
The balance of political power is at stake in the November 3 election in Red Bank, which features four candidates for two three-year seats on the borough council. All four have indicated they’ll participate in the West Side Community Group’s annual candidates’ forum at the River Street Commons at 7 p.m. on Thursday, October 1. For more information about the event, take it here.
To help voters compare the contenders in terms of personal background and positions on key issues, redbankgreen emailed them identical sets of questions late last week. Here’s what Mark Taylor had to say in response.
Michael DuPont, Democrat. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
The balance of political power is at stake in the November 3 election in Red Bank, which features four candidates for two three-year seats on the borough council. All four have indicated they’ll participate in the West Side Community Group’s annual candidates’ forum at the River Street Commons at 7 p.m. on Thursday, October 1. For more information about the event, take it here.
To help voters compare the contenders in terms of personal background and positions on key issues, redbankgreen emailed them identical sets of questions late last week. Here’s what Michael DuPont, the sole incumbent in the race, had to say in response.
Michael Whelan, Republican. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
The balance of political power is at stake in the November 3 election in Red Bank, which features four candidates for two three-year seats on the borough council. All four have indicated they’ll participate in the West Side Community Group’s annual candidates’ forum at the River Street Commons at 7 p.m. on Thursday, October 1. For more information about the event, take it here.
To help voters compare the contenders in terms of personal background and positions on key issues, redbankgreen emailed them identical sets of questions late last week. Here’s what Michael Whelan had to say in response.
Critics contend the Bellhaven sprayground has little popular support. (Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
It wasn’t on the agenda, but a proposed water playground on Red Bank’s West Side spewed back to the fore Wednesday night.
At issue: whether to keep spending money on prep work for the controversial four-year-old project, which has been temporarily derailed by the discovery of heating oil in the soil.
Counting at least three prospective “no” votes on the six-member council, Republican Cindy Burnham asked: “Why do we continue to use taxpayer money to pay [engineering consultant] T&M Associates for soil testing and permits?”
By JOHN T. WARD
A first look at this year’s budget, and public confusion over the impact of a series of proposed bonds, dominated Wednesday night’s bimonthly meeting of the Red Bank council.
The governing body also moved toward the creation of a new $90,000-a-year job at borough hall: information technology director.
Mayor Pasquale Menna offers an official welcome to the RBPD K9 unit of Hunter, a 21-month-old Belgian Malinois, and his handler, Patrolman Stan Balmer. Below, an image used in a presentation on the Bellhaven spray park last August. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Wednesday night’s bimonthly meeting of the Red Bank council included attention to taxicabs, a controversial proposal for Bellhaven Natural Area, lifesaving cops and a four-legged borough employee.
Details just around the corner…
About three dozen protesters marched through Red Bank Saturday morning to object to rising property taxes, a proposed spray park at Bellhaven Nature Area, borough hiring practices and what they termed police “aggressiveness.”
Organizer Freddie Boynton said the event, spotlighting concerns of West Siders, was not meant to be partisan, though it called for “new leadership” at borough hall. “There’s a lot of frustration on this side of town,” said Boynton, a retired DPW employee. “We’re not being treated like the rest of the town is.” (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
Kathleen Gasienica, an environmentalist and next-door neighbor to the nature area, brought a boatload of visuals to bolster her critique of the plan. Borough Engineer Christine Ballard showed a photo of a similar sprayground in Middlesex County. (Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
A steady stream of critics blasted a plan for a sprayground at Red Bank’s Bellhaven Nature Area Wednesday night, citing environmental, economic and safety issues.
The controversial project, in the works for nearly three years, divided backers and opponents along familiar lines at a bimonthly borough council meeting, where Engineer Christine Ballard unveiled the most detailed plan yet for the Locust Avenue facility.
Bellhaven is located on the Swimming River, at the western terminus of Locust Avenue. (Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
After several months of quiet, a controversial project originally proposed as a children’s “sprayground” returns to the Red Bank borough council Wednesday night.
What the plan calls for and might cost, however, is known only to a small circle of people. Mayor Pasquale Menna said Monday that even he had not gotten a peek at the revised proposal, which is slated to to be outlined at the council’s the regular bimonthly meeting.
The council approved a bond to pay for a bulkhead to halt erosion at North Prospect Avenue, above. A change to another bond, for a possible spray park at Bellhaven Natural Area, below, drew criticism. (Photos by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Not for the first time and almost certainly not for the last, Red Bankers picked over a pair of big-ticket projects at Wednesday night’s council meeting.
One was a bond ordinance council members were in a hurry to approve in order to save two Navesink River yards from severe erosion.
The other: A possible spray park at Bellhaven Natural Area that has pitted environmental activists against West Siders desperate for a playground.
Critics contend the sprayground would be built in an environmentally sensitive wetland. (Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
A proposed children’s “sprayground” installation that environmentalists say would encroach on wetlands and a bald-eagle foraging area could get a double green light from the Red Bank borough council Wednesday night.
Locust Avenue resident Leigh Kremer addresses the council as borough Engineer Christine Ballard listens. (Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Over the concerns of environmentalists, Red Bank will pursue grant funding for a ‘sprayground‘ in a riverside marsh that could end up costing $500,000.
A vote by the borough council Wednesday night to authorize a bid for a Monmouth County Open Spaces grant of $250,000, which the town would have to match, followed heartfelt appeals by West Side parents for a place for children to play and by others concerned about illicit activity in the overgrown Bellhaven Nature Area, at the western end of Locust Avenue.
“Our children on the West Side have nowhere to go,” River Street’s Rose Sestito, a mother of five and foster mother of three, told the governing body during a public hearing on the grant question. “Please consider the children.”
A proposal for a water-shooting playground at Red Bank’s little-used Bellhaven Nature Area has raised hackles among environmentalists. (Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Wednesday night’s meeting of the Red Bank Council could be a water-balloon fight of sorts.
Members of the Environmental Commission, an advisory group, say they were alarmed to learn recently that the borough Parks & Rec department is considering Bellhaven Nature Area, a wetland preserve created just eight years ago, as a possible location for a ‘sprayground,’ a play area that enables kids to get deliriously soaked by nozzles built into fixed apparatus.
Lou DiMento the lone remaining commission member who was involved in the original preservation effort and others say they were shocked to learn that the town might pursue a $250,000 Monmouth County Open Spaces grant, which it would have to match, in order to build the sprayground.
“That stunned us,” especially after the borough government told the commission that it couldn’t come up with a few hundred dollars for a sign to designate the nature area, nestled against the Swimming River at the western end of Locust Avenue, DiMento said.