Today, Holmdel Township announced the completion of it’s acquisition of the Potter Farm property, immediately opposite the Parkway Intersection at Exit 114 and known, and loved, by many residents and visitors for the rural character it gives to the Gateway to Holmdel. Mayor Foster said of the acquisition:

"The acquisition of Potters Farm is more than just a real estate transaction; it is an investment in the quality of life for our residents and a promise to future generations. By preserving this land, we are ensuring that one of Holmdel's most scenic and historical properties will remain open and protected from development forever, contributing significantly to our overall open space portfolio."

The Potter Farm has charmed generations of families and, in fact, the Potters have been good friends to our family over generations too. It’s becoming harder and harder to imagine the era in which my late father-in-law, Francis Urbanski, when he was a young man would discuss with his friend, “Old Man Potter”, his plans for growing alfalfa to feed his horses, or to have to drive over to his neighbors to ask for help pulling a tractor out of a ditch.

Instead, many visitors to the community are sitting in dense traffic and waiting for the lights to change, tired and on their way home. It is my hope that their wait will be improved, and their anxiety lessened, by experiencing the rural character of our community’s land — something that doesn’t happen by accident but requires a clear vision, years of hard work and effort and, critically, putting long-term benefits in place of developer’s short-term profits.

This is why we feel it is essential to develop the Township consistent with the master plan that was put in place, deliberately, to preserve the rural character of our community that makes Holmdel so unique.

This is why we feel the existence of residential and agricultural land near the parkway exit should not be viewed as a vehicle for short-term profits by near-sighted developers who feel that we live in a “less desirable part of town” (as expressed by Andrews’s Management’s expert witness in their recent testimony in front of the Holmdel Zoning board) and who reason that all they have to do is make some planning concessions for permission to develop in shocking defiance of our master plan. (First four buildings, then three buildings, then two buildings; add an ambulance bay requested by the zoning board chair; move the septic field directly contradicting prior statements as to the reasons for its location; fill the entire plot with impervious pavement for parking and then claim that half of it will be “banked” and left as green space; justify the traffic impact by claiming such growth is “inevitable” — the list goes on). The theory being that if the developer has revised and reduced some of their shocking variance requests, they should get their zoning variance. But they haven’t given anything up, because absolutely nothing they are proposing is suitable, permissible, zoned, development.

Thank you, Mayor Foster and the Holmdel Township Committee, for showing that this is not a “less desirable part of town” but, in fact, a part of town to be cherished.

Preserving the Agricultural Character of the Holmdel Community

Andrews Management Group’s development belongs on Route 35, not on the Holmdel farmland that gives our neighborhood its character.

Preserving the Agricultural Character of the Holmdel Community

Sudden Postponement of Andrews Management Matter

Andrews Management Group’s development belongs on Route 35, not on the Holmdel farmland that gives our neighborhood its character.