Sometimes, it's hard to keep up with where development will pop up next in New Jersey. It often feels like you can't blink, or you'll miss an entire new community going up.
Most notably, housing communities. Unless the land is somehow protected, it's not an uncommon sight to see anywhere from 50 to 150 oversized homes being crammed into what used to be a beautiful piece of open space.
Whether it's woods, grasslands, or a farm, real estate developers will see value in that. What's more, they often find a way to build what they want.
Having lived in New Jersey all my life, I can tell you first-hand how insane development has gotten. I grew up in Brick Township NJ, where I was able to watch much of the development happen growing up.
For many who either moved to the Brick area over the past 20 years or so or grew up within that time frame, have no idea how much development has occurred. A lot of it has gone up in the 1990s.
What used to be a very sleepy nothing-town now has some of the worst traffic in the state. That, of course, only being one example.
Even today I see it happening. I now reside in Monmouth County, and even over the past five years alone, there have been a lot of changes involving residential development.
Like I said, you can't blink or you'll miss it. And the most amazing thing is, we keep finding more space to cram all these developments onto.
With New Jersey as densely populated as it is, it's simply incredible that we don't seem to slow down when it comes to building homes. But yet, that's exactly what developers want.
This one being highlighted is located in Freehold, NJ. And although we can't fault the owner in any way for wanting or needing to sell, it's still sad that the end result will most likely be more housing developments.
A Brock Farms property of 128 acres is pending a sale to Hovnanian Enterprises, one of the largest housing development companies in the nation. The property is located in the area where Monmouth Road / Country Route 524 and Siloam Road intersect (see map above).
According to nj.com, "The open space will be turned into a subdivision called the Preserve at Freehold, with 128 single family rate market homes and 32 duplex affordable homes, according to planning documents and sources familiar with the agreement." In other words, more housing development.
Right now, that space is not developed. However, should this sale be finalized, another housing development is what we should expect to see (although this one doesn't appear to completely be McMansions).
Look, I'm not knocking the sale of the property. As mentioned earlier, the owners need to do what they need to do.
What is sad, however, is that it seems like the only solution whenever a large area of land is sold is to just develop it with as many homes as we can and cram as many onto the lot as possible.
Not only that, but yard space is also often at a minimum. Is it something we really need? Is a development like this something Freehold really needs?
Probably the better question is, is it something any New Jersey town really needs? It's not that we don't need new housing, it just feels like we're overdoing it in this state.
For once, it would be nice to see development slow down in the state. Not come to a complete halt, but only build when absolutely necessary.
And when we do build, let's make sure a fair amount of open space remains. It would be nice for nature to have a place here after all.
So for now, it's the town of Freehold that may soon be mourning the loss of this open land. But don't worry, New Jersey, as it won't be long before another town is mourning for the same reason.
