NJ development sparks worry, anger for so many living here

Who remembers the days when New Jersey was really thought of as the Garden State? Not that we're far removed from that today, but a lot has changed over the years.

I myself grew up in Brick and have witnessed this transformation firsthand. I remember when I was just a kid in the early 1990s how rural the town once was. The Brick Plaza was mostly run down, and the ShopRite stood mainly alone.

I also remember a lot of woods everywhere, and no crowded highways. Even before I was born, my family owned an old farmhouse that sat on an actual farm in the town. Today, it's a full-fledged development that surrounds the old house that's held up by actual tree logs in the basement.

But that farm existed well before I was born. As for the change I've seen? Well, I've seen the town of Brick transform from a quiet nothing town to the overcrowded and overdeveloped shore town that it is today. And I watched that all happen in the span of a decade, with really no signs of slowing down even today.

Now don't get me wrong, Brick is a great town. It's my childhood town, after all (Go Dragons!), but it's just not the same as it was when I was raised there. The sleepy shore town I once knew no longer exists.

Little could I imagine that I'd see growth happen at an even faster rate as time went on. However, with more and more people looking to move into New Jersey, that development has only accelerated.

Unless you're in a protected area, it's really hard to know when overdevelopment will hit your part of the state. Just think about a large patch of woods somewhere in the state that perhaps existed not too long ago.

Now think about how quickly those woods came down, only for dozens and dozens of oversized family homes to be built in place. If this were a one-off situation, I wouldn't think twice about it. But from my observations, these oversized developments are springing up all over the state at an alarming rate.

And what happens right after? We suddenly have more deer being hit by cars because they have nowhere to go. Or, rodents are suddenly becoming an issue because they have nowhere to go.

Or - and this is a big one - the flooding risk becomes much more dire because water from rainstorms has nowhere else to go. Without the land for it to absorb into, it just becomes a flash flooding emergency.

But I don't need to tell you this. Just think about how much flooding now occurs thanks in part to overdevelopment. It's just my opinion, but I feel something needs to be done to at least slow the rates of these developments locals want nothing to do with.

And it's not just the woods coming down that's a concern. Sometimes, certain large facilities closing down also spark fear of more unnecessary housing developments moving in.

Take the old Freehold Raceway, for example. What will happen there? Will it also be bulldozed and transformed into hundreds of oversized homes? If that happens, the biggest conclusion most will draw from it is money. More money for the town, and more unnecessary traffic for the rest of us.

Now, I personally don't know what they're going to do with that land yet, but I propose they somehow make it an extension of the existing mall. Perhaps, an area the mall can add rides at? An area that can be connected by a walk path or roadway connected by an overpass to cross Route 9.

I mean, the American Dream Mall has rides, so why not let the Freehold Raceway Mall view this as an opportunity for them to go that route? I feel something like that would be much more welcomed than just putting up hundreds of unwanted homes that'll cause more problems than they're worth.

Unfortunately, that's what triggers the worry with most New Jerseyans when it comes to new development. And if homes are built, that fear turns into anger.

Not too far from the now former Freehold Raceway is another area of development. Not in Freehold, but the next town over.

Just east traveling along County Route 537, you'll see another area of development underway. It's an area between Colts Neck High School and Route 18.

What was previously a huge patch of trees is now completely stripped away. It honestly feels like this over-development is never-ending sometimes.

Look, it's not that we don't want anyone else to move here. We're just tired of watching our state become less and less green as a result, which is unfortunate.

The Garden State slogan won't be much longer if we don't slow it down soon with all this overdevelopment with oversized homes. If we keep building homes at the rate we do now, we should consider changing our slogan to the endless construction state.

The above post reflects the thoughts and observations of New Jersey 101.5 Sunday morning host & content contributor Mike Brant. Any opinions expressed are his own.