Byram Council has Highlands concerns

Byram — The township council wants control over its own destiny. It sent Township Manager Greg Poff to the Highlands Council with a resolution explaining why Byram needs to have control over the town center designation. Here’s why: with highway restaurants, housing developments and no real “village,” Byram Township’s identity can be a sensitive subject. Neither of its major tourist attractions is known by a “Byram” address. Wild West City has a post office box in Netcong, although a sign on the Marshal’s office proclaims it to be in Byram Township. Waterloo Village is given in most conversations to be in either Hackettstown or Mount Olive Township, which aren’t even in Sussex County. So it might be expected that the proposed town center from the north end of the Shop-Rite parking lot to Acorn Street, with branches on Brookwood and Waterloo roads, is important to the identity of Byram. In advising the council to pass the resolution, Township Attorney Thomas Collins said this may be the only opportunity for the municipality to confirm its intent to keep control over the village center. After the meeting Thursday, Poff said the Highlands Council discussed town centers and noted that several other municipalities presented similar resolutions. He said he believes when the Regional Master Plan is published, the town center on the Highlands map will match up with what Byram wants. The target date for the Highlands Master Plan is Nov. 30. Patty Sly, director of government affairs and operations for the Highlands Council, explained in a telephone interview that all of the “town centers” that were designated long before the Highlands Act are within the planning area .Because they are not in the preservation area, the town centers are not impacted by Highlands regulations. Sly said municipalities can opt for their town centers to be put into the Highlands process, including into the preservation area. But “only the state Department of Community Affairs can create or destroy a town center designation,” Sly noted. The Highlands Council has created numerous incentives for municipalities to take advantage of Highlands planning. This confirmed a comment by Byram resident Scott Olson, who has been attending Highlands Council meetings. “The township center will be off the Highlands map unless you want it on the map,” Olson said. Sly noted most town center designations were created “without great consideration for environmental resources.” Some, like those in neighboring Netcong and Stanhope, are continuing commercial and industrial areas. Others were the historic hubs from which rural townships grew. Still others, like those in Byram and Jefferson townships, were created from a clean slate. Olson reminded the township council at its last meeting that when the town center concept first came up, it created a buffer along Lubber’s Run, the headwaters of Lake Hopatcong and the Musconetcong River because of environmental concerns. Sly said that even without being in the preservation area, Byram can benefit from information about environmental resources and infrastructure, she added. The town center has already been a point of contention with another state agency, the Department of Transportation, which plans to widen and improve Route 206, the major corridor through the township.