How greenways define a place
September 4, 2004•
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Sixteenth century French explorer Jean Ribault wrote of a favorite landfall that there is “…no fayrer nor fytter playce” and promptly dropped his anchors to tarry a while.
Something of that spirit must have inspired the Lenape Indians and later inhabitants to claim our own countryside, marked as it is by protective hills, riverbeds and rolling meadows. Even today, when demand for housing is exploding across America’s most densely-populated state and farmers cultivate more building lots than hay, sojourners in the twin boroughs experience a distinct sense of place here, that familiar impression of having arrived somewhere, of standing apart from places astern or places yet to come.
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Bleak stones on cold hillsides
January 23, 2003•
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This article first appeared in The SPIRE, monthly newsletter of Peapack Reformed Church. It was republished shortly after as an op-ed feature in Denver, Colorado area newspapers.
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There is ice today on the little Raritan River and Peapack Brook flows cold and viscous in its banks. We’re in the second week of a harsh northerly chill and for the first time in several seasons, ice skaters whoop and glide on the municipal pond. Seeking respite from the cold, a stubborn walker circuits our graveyard, bound for that oasis of warmth and quietude that is our church.
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Open Space Taxes: The Tax-smart Strategy
August 10, 2002•
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Taking building lots off-market through strategic Open Space spending turns out to be “tax smart” municipal thinking.
Peapack-Gladstone voters will have a chance this fall to approve an advisory referendum authorizing an increase in the Borough’s Open Space Tax rate from two cents per hundred dollars of assessed valuation to three cents. The increase, if approved, would contribute approximately $60K per year to the Borough’s Open Space Trust Fund while adding just one cent to our current municipal property tax rate.
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