$6.84M Breton Woods Purchase In Brick OK'd By Ocean Commissioners

TOMS RIVER, NJ — William Guzzy has spent thousands of hours walking in the woods near his home in the Breton Woods section since his family moved to Brick Township in 1977, when he was a teenager.

"I've raised my dogs there," Guzzy said Wednesday as he addressed the Ocean County Board of Commissioners during a public hearing on a proposal to spend $6.84 million to purchase the 31.6-acre wooded parcel that has been a second home.

"To think that kids will be able to go there and those woods will still be there 50 years from now," Guzzy said, pausing as his emotions rose in his throat, "we can't thank you enough. You just set a course that changes the future."

The Board of Commissioners voted unanimously to approve a plan to spend the money, the county's share of an $8.55 million negotiated price for the parcel in Brick that has been the subject of a proposal for a 59-home development that residents of Breton Woods have been fighting for nearly two years.

"This has been an incredibly emotional experience for all of us," said Victoria Gianakos, another Breton Woods resident. "When we first got the letter in July 2021 (about the proposed development), my husband and I thought we were the only crazy ones. We're so glad we weren't."

Guzzy, Gianakos, Julie Gaffney, Tony Kono and several other residents of the Breton Woods neighborhood who had been part of Save Breton Woods, the grassroots group that organized to fight the development proposed by D.R. Horton, rose and applauded after Joseph Vicari, director of the Board of Commissioners, formally pronounced the unanimous vote for the resolution, some wiping tears as they hugged in celebration.

Commissioner Virginia Haines, the liaison to the Ocean County Natural Lands Trust, which recommended the purchase, said it had been long, challenging negotiation over the last year to get to the agreement that was reached in January with D.R. Horton to buy the property.

Brick Township, which is paying $1.7 million of the $8.55 million, will be carving out 6.33 acres for a playground and for space to improve traffic access to Osbornville Elementary School, which backs up to the site. The access improvements will allow the township to address traffic problems that have plagued the area right near the school, particularly when school is dismissed in the afternoon.

The township will be responsible for any maintenance of the wooded area under the agreement, officials said.

Tara Paxton, Brick Township's planner, said the $8.55 million was the amount D.R. Horton was under contract to pay to Visitation Roman Catholic Church for the property, if it had received approval to build its development. The property was appraised at $8.55 million, Paxton said.

She thanked the board of commissioners for the county's partnership on the purchase, which came after 12 hearings by the Brick Township Planning Board on the proposed development. Those hearings had become something of a stalemate in the last months of 2022 as D.R. Horton's professionals and Paxton and Brick Township Engineer Elissa Commins debated the developer's stormwater management proposals.

D.R. Horton was holding fast to a proposal to use pervious pavement, which allows rainwater to percolate through it to layers underneath and into the ground, for the streets in the development. Commins and Paxton opposed that plan in part because D.R. Horton was going to turn over maintenance responsibility for those streets to Brick, and pervious pavement requires costly, specialized equipment to care for it without damaging it.

Paxton told the commissioners that Brick had been eyeing the Breton Woods parcel for open space as early as 2000, but said the community's opposition to the development created that opportunity.

Paxton also thanked the Ocean County Natural Lands Trust Committee, including chairman Alan Avery, supervising planner Mark Villinger and Anthony Agliata, the planning director, for their efforts in the negotiations.

Haines said and Villinger confirmed that the Ocean County Natural Lands Trust Committee had explored buying the property as open space a few years ago, but had not been able to get any real response.

Paxton praised the Save Breton Woods neighbors for their passion, saying, "As a planning professor, I am going to use this as a master lesson on how government can work with citizens to do the right thing."

Also present were Save Barnegat Bay executive director Britta Forsberg, board member Willie deCamp, and Michele Donato, the organization's attorney. Donato praised the board as being "exceptionally attentive to protecting Barnegat Bay."

DeCamp thanked the commissioners, and praised the Breton Woods residents' commitment to fight the project.

"I have been objecting to developments all over Ocean County for nearly 40 years," deCamp said. "This is the most motivated group of citizens I've ever seen."

Gaffney, of the Save Breton Woods group, said the grassroots effort involved everyone in the neighborhood, and focused on preserving the property rather than vilifying the church, where many of the neighbors are parishioners.

"I was praying for this (open space purchase) all the time," she said, expressing relief that it was coming to pass. She noted that driving past the woods for the last 18 months had been painful, when its future appeared to be headed for destruction.

"I drive past the woods now and I have a feeling of peace," she said.