August 25, 2025, Planning Board Special Meeting Transcript - WEHI

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 105 You pointed out that funding for the purchase of this land and for preservation is available. Could you tell us more about that? How do we find out what is available, how much is available. And maybe you, the builders, would like to accept that and we could preserve this reservation like it should be reserved. How do we get to know what money is available? THE WITNESS: Okay. So I'm going to go down a quick rundown of funding that's available and this is for land all over the state but definitely applies here. New Jersey has a corporate business tax that is a constitutionally dedicated tax to provide a permanent source of funding for open space, farm land and historic preservation. That was back in 2014. And New Jersey right now has surplus funds because there's a lot of deals in the works that have not been completed by towns and counties, etc. So there's funding available at the state level through this corporate business tax. Furthermore, all 21 of New Jersey counties have open space bonds, both open space an farmland. Essex County particularly has been the leader in New Jersey in using their bond money, their county funding money to match with the state money to preserve land. So I think we are in a very good situation having a strong county