Group Aims to Stop Construction of New Berkeley Aquatics Facility

With the Berkeley Aquatic Center hoping to gain approval in its quest to build a new swimming facility on Emerson Lane, an activist group has risen up to oppose the idea.

“Stop the BAC”, formed by concerned residents of Berkeley Heights and Warren Townships, was started not in the hopes of stopping the construction of the over 51,000 square foot facility from being built altogether, but to get Berkeley Aquatic to consider building in a commercial zone, which the company’s desired choice of Emerson Lane is not.

“We always like to say that we are not against Berkeley Aquatics. My children learned how to swim there, and it’s an excellent facility,” said Rochelle Gaudet, Vice President of Stop the BAC. “It just needs to be put in a commercial area. It’s a logical cut-through, and we’re really worried about the safety of our kids.”

The proposed facility would be open year-round, except for major holidays, from five o’clock in the morning until ten o’clock at night, causing concern that the quiet surrounding neighborhood will be affected by much more traffic than it has historically had to deal with.

“They will have dozens of swim meets a year, so that will bring in hundreds of cars and hundreds of people. There will be people going down Emerson Lane,” said Ira Jersey, who serves as the treasurer of Stop the BAC. “It’s just going to be an eyesore in the middle of a residential neighborhood. They’re building 26 houses across the street from this, not to mention the existing houses in the area. It’s just not an appropriate place for this.”

The additional traffic could also cause an increase in vehicular and pedestrian accidents, as Jersey noted.

“There are going to be people getting out of swim class. They’ll be late to high school, and they’ll be buzzing down that road, exceeding the speed limit,” said Jersey. “It’s one of the biggest issues that can be avoided, just by not putting that there.”

At Tuesday night’s meeting of the Berkeley Heights Township Council, Mayor Joseph Bruno responded to rumors that the council had already given the Berkeley Aquatic Center the go-ahead on this project.

“No such approval has come from the governing body, from me, or from the administration. There is no approval. We have not even been approached for any kind of agreement on that,” said Bruno. “We’d be willing to listen to something, but there has been no approval from myself or the council. I don’t know where it came from, but I have to put these rumors to bed.”

At the same meeting, Council President Kevin J. Hall assured members of the grassroots organization that their lobbying would be considered as the council gets closer to having to make a decision on whether to approve or deny the facility’s construction.

“The council is trying to understand the implications of such a modification,” said Hall. “We want you to feel comfortable that we take this deadly seriously. It has long term ramifications, either positively and negatively.”

To the members of Stop the BAC, however, the negative impacts on the community of this proposed center could far outweigh the positives when all is said and done.

“I’m just letting you know, if you let this go through, it’s permanent. We can’t look back a year from now and say, ‘wow, I remember all these people coming, and they were right’”, said Gaudet. “Look at the scope of the project. There is no way it’s not going to destroy Emerson Lane and a huge section of Berkeley Heights.”