Finally, we have a great deal of good news to report. In late June, and after what often seemed like an interminable wait, the congregation received the form called the Certificate of Filing from the New Jersey Pinelands Commission. This is a breakthrough! The certificate allows us finally to apply for local approvals for our building. Our hired professionals and hard working internal volunteers have now been able to swing into action to see that this happens.

On Friday, July 20, 2007, our land use attorney and planning/engineering consultants submitted 20 copies of the complex, multi-page site plan and local application to Galloway Township officials. Also on Friday, the civil engineer designing our septic system submitted his design to us which we will then submit to the Atlantic County Division of Public Health Department for approval. Our earliest chance for the first hearing on our Township application, where we hope it will be “deemed complete,” will be August 16.

Meanwhile, our architects are completing detailed construction drawings with a kick-off meeting for that process scheduled for July 26. Our newly retained mechanical engineer is finalizing his design of a geothermal heating and cooling system that looks like it will contain some novel elements and save us on heating and cooling costs even while we reduce our pollution “footprint.” Pending approval from Galloway Township, the electric company will soon be installing a meter on the property – a prerequisite to getting in line for state rebates on a solar photovoltaic array that will be generating nearly $2,000 of electricity for us annually, while it offsets many tons of greenhouse gas and other pollutant emissions. More news on that and other “green building” issues later too.

Our architect strongly suggested that we have a detailed “geotechnical” boring of our soil to help design our footings and foundations. That was also completed in July, and some great news accompanied it. As we had hoped, actual groundwater is much deeper -- 17 to 20 feet below the surface -- than earlier, less precise soil borings had suggested. The bottom line: our basement is more certain than ever to be “high and dry,” and the finding gives our architect more flexibility in basement design, including the potential for more comfortably high ceilings.

There’s a lot more that’s gone on in recent weeks, including a great deal of excellent consultation from knowledgeable congregation members. The range of experience and knowledge in this congregation is remarkable, involving everything from kitchen fixtures to solar and geothermal energy, to energy efficient lighting to, well, whether waterless urinals actually work (when our expert checked with fellow experts, the answer was yes.) At the risk of leaving out names – it’s hard even to keep track – we’ll let the credits roll by later. But for now, you know who you are, and please know how grateful the rest of us are.

So the question that’s on everyone’s mind, when do we break ground? Here’s an optimistic scenario. If our application is deemed complete on August 16, we can hope for actual Township approval by September 20. With the follow-up 45-day public comment period, and other i’s to dot and t’s to cross, including one final review by the Pinelands Commission, we are still hoping for groundbreaking by December 12. We are working with our engineer to see if we could advance that schedule a little bit. In the meantime, we have to complete the design and get our various contractors on board.

At some time soon, the Home Team will return to the congregation to lay out the costs of the building, and we will be looking for bank financing to get the job done. And the Communications Committee is looking for ways to provide more timely dialog with the congregation about where the building design and financing is heading, including possible periodic presentations to the congregation after Sunday services.

And guess what?
We have an address!
It’s 75 S. Pomona Road.

This is what we've been waiting for -- for seemingly a long time! We now have in hand our Certificate of Filing. This is a major hurdle in what is required from the Pinelands Commssion.

More details, courtesy of Jon Luoma:

Some of you have already heard, but for all who didn’t, the congregation received word from the Pinelands Commission that we had received our “Certificate of Filing.” While this COF level of is never the final Pinelands approval, it allows us to now proceed to get township and county approvals. When we have those, we go back to Pinelands for the final sign-off.

The COF did arrive with what seemed to be a potentially unpleasant surprise. It was labeled an “inconsistent” certificate, noting that our engineers had proposed deed restricting – thus leaving it in untouched forest cover – 380 feet back from an adjacent lot, rather than the 400 feet they had asked for. They made it clear that the COF still was sufficient to obtain our local approvals in any case. Moving the line to 400 feet was a problem because it intruded into an area near the building that had to be graded to meet drainage regulations. Aside from the costly option of “moving the building” on the site plan and redoing the entire grading plan (expensive) the letter did not make clear what we could do to be “consistent.”

Richard and I met with our planner and attorney yesterday afternoon and they believe this can be solved. They plan meet in a couple of weeks with Pinelands staff to solve what appears to be a pretty minor glitch.

So its basically very good news. We will have more hurdles to clear, though.

We remain pretty close to on-track to the schedule Richard laid out at the annual meeting. Parts of the township submission, which comes next, are already prepared and that complex application should be submitted as early as the end of next week. That puts us potentially on track to go up for township approval as early as late August or early September, the next big hurdle.

No promises, because Murphy lives, but we could still be on track to break ground by the end of this year.

Good news! For those who haven’t heard, the congregation in late April got a “pass” on the second season of pine snake trapping from the Pinelands Commission.

Last fall, Pinelands had rejected a suggestion that we simply protect a large parcel of potential habitat by deed-restricting the forested northeastern portion of the site. This patch, which we had intended to leave in forest cover anyway, represents well over half of the site, and other portions of the site will be tree-covered as well. After reconsidering data from our consultants, including the results of the no-snakes fall study, the Commission changed its mind. The suggested deed-restriction language they sent along even seems somewhat user friendly. It clearly states that if in the future, we (or future owners) want the restriction lifted, Pinelands will support that move as long as all relevant endangered species studies are completed at that time. The Home Team will soon be moving on to getting necessary Township and County approvals. Aside from the dollars saved by not having to complete the spring survey, this speeds up the entire process by several months!

-- submitted by Jon Luoma

As we’ve reported in the past, progress on all the needed local permits for our future building has been delayed by a requirement that we conduct a two season (last fall, and a coming spring-summer period) drift net trapping survey to determine if any northern pine snakes, a threatened species in New Jersey, use our land. Under state law, Galloway Township cannot even consider our site plan and building application until we have a first stage approval from the New Jersey Pinelands Commission, called a Certificate of Filing, so the pine snake studies have been a major roadblock. Our wildlife consultants have consistently stated in reports to Pinelands that our land is simply not critical habitat for the snakes, and none were trapped in the autumn fall drift net study, but until recently Pinelands has persisted in its demands that we continue this labor intensive, costly and project-delaying study.

Although we can be only cautiously optimistic, a few days ago the pendulum seems to have swung in the direction of common sense and credible science.

In January, we appealed directly to the executive director of the Commission. In a letter we received February 16, 2007, he acknowledged that our investigation of state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) records was accurate and that a Pinelands staff claim of a recent DEP sighting of a pine snake near our property was, in fact, “a mistake.” The agency continues to contend that it has in its possession an older record -- albeit one that Pinelands staff reviewing our project has admitted may be as much as a quarter century or more old. However, Pinelands director John Stokes stated that his agency was willing to reconsider the need for the spring-summer study on our land. Yay.

Six days later, on February 22, we received an additional letter from Pinelands staff affirming they would revisit the notion that we had to conduct the second phase of the study. We had already forwarded a December 2006 letter from consultant Clay Sutton, an eminent naturalist/biologist and retired vice-president of the highly regarded consulting firm Herpetological Associates (HA), stating that, based on both his survey of our land and on the autumn data, no further study was needed in his professional opinion. After we contacted them early in the week, staff at HA, which was conducting our snake trapping study, reported to us on Friday, February 23 that they were about to mail the autumn data, showing no evidence of pine snakes, to Pinelands accompanied by a professional opinion that our land is not suitable pine snake habitat and that no further work should be required.
We hope common sense will prevail at last, and that we will be able to report in the next newsletter that we can proceed with obtaining our local building approvals.

-- submitted by Jon Luoma

You may think there’s not much going on with our new church home. But it's been an extremely busy (and exciting, even amazing) month for your Home Team (building committee). We've met with Marathon, our site engineering firm, to develop an initial draft of a siting plan, Chris Holaday and Jon Luoma have had meetings with architects Steve and Dortje Fenwick (it's pronounced DOR’sha, and she's Steve's wife) and their construction manager. And on Wednesday, April 27, Marathon Engineering's chief planner Rob Reid spearheaded an “informal” meeting at township hall with Home Team reps Chris Holaday and Jon Luoma, Steve Fenwick, and four members of the Galloway Township Planning Board. Although we can't submit our plan to the township formally until we have Pinelands approval of our site plan, in the form of a “Certificate of Filing,” the purpose of the informal consultation was to satisfy ourselves that our plan is on the right track as far as the township is concerned. Otherwise, we might find ourselves with that Certificate in hand, only to have the township object to the plan, forcing us to send a major revision all the way back through the long Pinelands regulatory process.

At the meeting, Fenwick also presented a first working draft of both floor plans and exterior views of our future home. Although this draft will be changing, it served to give township officials a better sense of our plans. A label on the roof for "solar panels" also helped a certain magic to happen. Many of you are aware that the township limits development in our “rural development zone” to five percent impermeable surface (parking lot, sidewalks, plus roof). Yet they also require us to pave one parking spot for each four seats, and, as loony as it sounds, are adamant that they will count as “paved” any formal parking surface we propose: stone, open pavers, open grids. This has really constrained us. While officials at the meeting concurred that we could allow for abundant unpaved “overflow” parking in the plan, Marathon's Rob Reid made it clear that, in order to put up our modest sized building and 25 paved parking spaces the township will require, the five percent constraint really put us up against the wall in terms of future growth. I asked how difficult it would be to get a variance to cover future growth.

Hemming and hawing ensued. The basic response seemed to be “well, you can try.” And then Chris simply said: “And you should know we're planning a green building,” meaning an environmentally progressive building.

The atmosphere in the room changed palpably. Everyone seemed to sit up in their chairs. Although the meeting was about siting, not really about the particulars of the building, suddenly there were questions. Fenwick showed them the space, clearly labeled, for solar panels on the roof. One planning board member asked if we would be eligible for the huge state subsidy available for solar. Answer: yes. We explained that we are planning a super-insulated structure, which includes aspects of both passive heating and passive cooling. Another asked if we were thinking about geothermal heating and cooling. Answer: very likely, but we are focusing on doing green in a way that pays for itself. We want to serve as a model of cost-effective green building for the community – we've called it “The Greenest Building in Galloway.”

“Well,” said the township planner, “I can't see any good reason to deny you an extra two percent.” Nodding ensued. We will still need formal approval, but it looks good. Pinelands the very next morning agreed that if we get this variance, they will not require us to buy expensive “development credits” to exercise this right. Within hours, the township planner told Reid we could likely go to 7.5 percent, based on a revised plan Reid had prepared. We will now have 35 paved parking spaces, instead of 25, enough for a future addition to expand our meeting room to seat 140, from the presently planned 100. (Clarification: the stage one space will be large enough to seat 100 at tables.) Space for the future addition will appear on the plan. We can build a patio there for now if we want, or just spread out some crushed seashell. Our parking lot will be far better, with a full turn-around, at the township planner's request (easier to get an ambulance and fire trucks in, should there be an emergency). We will have informal on-grass parking for many more cars. So instead of being jammed into 5 percent, we are now jammed into exactly 7.5 percent.

More good news: our endangered species surveys are going well, and so far, so good. No barred owls. The search schedule for other species continues.

The Home Team and a few Board members will be meeting on May 1 to review the site plan and take a preliminary look at the draft building design. Soon the site plan will be submitted to the Pinelands Commission.

We're focusing on the stated desires of the congregation in planning for a building we can truly live in. Not just for circumscribed visits on Sunday mornings for fire, brimstone, coffee, and cookies. And not just for board and committee meets. But eventually for choir practices, evening and weekend get-togethers, evening adult and teenage RE (with interminable showers and learners permits will come deep-sleep-Sunday mornings that often won't jibe with morning services). And many are hoping for increased interaction with the Stockton students just across the road, with an active campus ministry and perhaps a home for student groups that develop along the lines of the current very active campus Fair Trade student group, or the Darfur student group.

Stay tuned for another update on what’s happening, at our Annual Meeting on May 21.

-- Jon Luoma