Dear Editor,
Imagine yourself in a park on a brilliant Autumn day. Though you’re only a ten minute train ride away from the hustle and bustle of the city, it certainly doesn’t feel like it. As you wander through the woods beside the pond, you feel the concerns of the daily grind melt away. You’re up early enough to spot a fox slipping into the undergrowth up ahead. You marvel at how fortunate you are to be in such a place and wonder how you came to be so lucky.
Now imagine yourself stuck on Hopkins road in Haddonfield in standstill traffic. Cars beeping and kids crying. You’re trying to drop your child off for practice at Anniversary Field but that’s not happening anytime soon. Cars jockey for position, pulling out from parking lots on either side of the road, battling each other in a game of inches. You marvel at how frustrated you are and wonder how you got to be so unlucky.
The two scenarios above represent two possible futures for the town of Haddonfield. In the first scenario, Haddonfield’s elected officials listen to the residents they represent and transform the blighted Bancroft property into open space. They expand a vital and precious park system along the Cooper River that benefits residents and visitors alike for generations to come.
In the second scenario, our elected officials turn the land into high density housing, missing an opportunity that we will never have again in our lifetime. All of the traffic and strain on the environment transforms the property from blight into congestion and headache. Additional children increase the strain on an already overburdened education system.*
But we already have an agreement with a developer, they say. it will cost so much money to create open space, they say. It’s too late, they say. To which I say, it ain’t over til it’s over, baby! Until that first bulldozer clears the land to lay the foundation for new development, we need to be doing everything in our power to turn the Bancroft parcel into open space. No matter the cost, our elected officials need to make the right choice for our future – do you want to walk in the park or sit in the traffic?
*My proposal is not exclusive of affordable housing. Affordable housing could bring with it some of the diversity that our town so sorely lacks.
Bryan Gallagher
Haddonfield
