Township Continuing to Move Forward With Town Center Designation

The Township Committee is moving along toward the Town Center designation, a goal the township hopes to achieve by the end of the year, Barnegat Mayor Al Cirulli said.

With increasing density that is expected with the town center designation, “There are some things we’re going to have to do to make sure we don’t have contamination,” Cirulli explained.

At the Township Committee meeting last Monday, Barnegat adopted a Wellhead Protection ordinance, which seeks to regulate the storage, handling, use and production of solid waste, pesticides and other hazardous or regulated substances in community wells within the Wellhead Protection areas.

“The Wellhead Protection Ordinance regulates or prohibits certain activities that have a greater likelihood of potentially contaminating well water or ground water in the overlay zone,” Township Administrator David Breeden said. “These activities are often associated with the handling of certain hazardous and/or regulated substances. This objective is consistent with both state and federal commitment of protecting drinking water.”

Breeden, along with other officials, emphasized that the ordinance is one of many steps needed to achieve the township’s long-term goal of Town Center designation.

“Without the town center status, [businesses] are only allowed to use 30 percent of their property, with the status they’re allowed to use 70 percent, which includes building and parking lot,” Breeden said. “So it more than doubles the amount of available space that a business can utilize to establish their facility.”

“And when we start doing that, it makes it very competitive to attract more commercial entities to the area,” Cirulli said.