Petty's Island's Future in State's Hands

By RICHARD PEARSALL ( Courier-Post Staff)

PENNSAUKEN

The future of Petty's Island -- development or natural preserve -- lies with decision-makers in Trenton who are not tipping their hands.

Will the state let the township and its chosen redeveloper, Cherokee Pennsauken LLC, proceed to build on the 392-acre island in the Delaware?

Or will it accept an offer from CITGO, the island's owner, to donate the land to the state for use as a preserve?

Last week, the township unveiled what it called a "scaled down" vision for developing the island in hopes of meeting environmental objections at home and in Trenton.

"We're sending it to the governor's office," Mayor Rick Taylor said of the revised footprint, which calls for trimming the amount of land to be developed by eliminating a golf course.

"If we get the blessing from them, we'll sit down with CITGO. Where it goes beyond that, I'm not sure."

The governor, through a spokesman, referred questions about Petty's Island to the Department of Environmental Protection. "The whole Petty's Island decision continues to be under review," Elaine Makatura, a DEP spokeswoman, said.

Three years ago, under Gov. James E. McGreevey and his environmental commissioner, Bradley Campbell, the state said "no" to accepting the island as open space, a decision lambasted by environmentalists as a sellout to local political interests.

But last year, a new environmental commissioner, Lisa Jackson, under a new governor, Jon S. Corzine, launched a review of the project.

Michael Catania, the chairman of the state's Natural Lands Trust, the panel in charge of deciding on lands for preservation, indicated the panel would welcome another chance to accept the island as a preserve on behalf of the state.

"This was a wonderful donation," said Catania, who voted for it then and said he would vote for it again. "Frankly, we didn't understand why the government members voted no. The state should jump on it."

The Natural Lands Trust, which consists of six members from the private sector and five from government, voted to accept CITGO's donation in 2004, but by law, "at least one of the ex-officio members (government representatives) must vote "yes' and none of them did," Catania said.

"We've been talking to the commissioner and expect we'll have a decision relatively soon," Catania said. "She seems to be genuinely and sincerely trying to see both sides of this."

The revisions unveiled by Pennsauken last week came from an environmental consultant hired by Cherokee at Pennsauken's request. The new plan increases the amount of land to be preserved as open space and makes the proposal more environmentally palatable, township officials contend. They note the amount of land to be developed has shrunk from 47 percent of the island in the 2005 plans to 28 percent. Township committee planned to introduce an ordinance Wednesday guaranteeing that 72 percent of the island will remain open space.

But the reduction is due largely to removing the golf course from the "developed" category, with the footprint for building appearing to grow somewhat. The revised plan included only a footprint for development, with no details on what may or may not be built there. "I don't see a whole lot of difference other than there not being a golf course," Catania said of the township's revised plan. "There's no golf course but room for more real development. It didn't seem to be a scaling-back."

Sharon Finlayson, the chairwoman of the New Jersey Environmental Federation, agreed.

"Pennsauken has only made a slight modification, trying to put a new face on it to sell it to the public . . . It could be worse than the one we've been fighting for three years.""I'm wondering if they're using the elimination of the golf course to justify more housing," Finlayson said.

As for Trenton, "I really think they're just stalling," Finlayson said. "We haven't seen the DEP do anything and we haven't seen the governor do anything.

"The state talks about needing open space," she continued. "This represents 392 acres of open space that would be remediated and restored by CITGO.