Township Committee to Present Grant Application For Maple Lake Purchase

Following their regularly scheduled meeting at Town Hall this evening, members of the Wyckoff Township Committee will travel to Hackensack to present an Open Space Grant Application to the Bergen County Open Space Advisory Board. The application is for grant fundsto acquire the privately owned, 26.5-acre lake property Maple Lake, located on Maple Drive in Wyckoff.

Last Fall, the township submitted an application to the Bergen County Open Space, Recreation, Farmland and Historic Preservation Trust Fund Land Acquisition Grant Program, seeking up to $7.4 million that would possibly be combined with up to $11 million from the state Green Acres grant program for the purchase of the land.

Maple Lake is currently owned by the Canterbury Development Corporation and is zoned for market-rate, single-family housing. Should the township win enough funding to buy the tract, it would likely be preserved as passive recreation, possibly a nature preserve. Canterbury has previously estimated the old swimming hole could garner as much as $20 million on the open market.