2023 Memorial Day Issue

Jefferson’s Plan for Its ‘Green Assets’ Takes Shape
12
Story by MICHAEL DAIGLE
Photos by Karen Fucito
At 43 square miles, Jefferson Township
is home to miles of frontage on Lake
Hopatcong, deep, winding river valleys and
forested lands.
It is a landscape that brought early settlers to
the township to live and farm. It also offered
the opportunity for industry, which left behind
a community that took roots in the rocky soil.
The early activity also left behind trails,
dirt roads and abandoned railroad beds that
today draw hikers, cyclists and day trippers to
the township to marvel at hilltop vistas, seek
picture-perfect views and conquer challenging
terrain.
But it is a landscape that has left the township
with few places to expand its economic base,
thanks to state law that put a premium on
preserving open space.
The response from the township is to use its
“green assets” to develop additional economic
activity.
“It’s ecotourism,” said Mayor Eric Wilsusen.
Beginning last year, the township offered
support through a resolution for the Lake
Hopatcong Regional Trails Plan that would—
over time—develop a lake-encircling network
of trails for walking, hiking and cycling.
For Jefferson, the idea for this trail system
began in 2001 after the Highlands Act became law
and placed all of Jefferson in the environmentally
sensitive protection zone, which severely limited
development.
LAKE HOPATCONG NEWS Memorial Day 2023
An open space master plan developed in 2001
called for preservation as a way to protect the
township’s threatened environment.
By 2021, those preserved lands had become
the “green assets” that could be used to boost
the township’s business community as part of
the lake-wide trails plan.
The plan was kick-started in 2021 by a $1
million donation from lake-area businessman
Bela Szigethy. (Lake Hopatcong News is owned
by Szigethy.)
“Jefferson Township and Morris County have
long been interested in building out trails in this
area,” said Szigethy. “There’s a lot of land with
many existing dirt roads and trails. In the long
run, they can be tied in with the existing trail
systems in Mahlon Dickerson and beyond, like
up to Sparta and even down towards Wharton
and Dover. And, of course, into Lake Hopatcong.”
A trails plan was put together by consultant
Pinto Consulting, which is owned by Frank Pinto,
a former Morris County planning director.
The plan will be outlined at 8:30 a.m. on June
3 on National Trails Day at Our Lady Star of the
Sea Church on Espanong Road, Jefferson.
Russ Felter, manager of park projects for
the Morris County Park Commission, said the
public information session will include a brief
discussion of the plan, the showing of maps and
other information and a walk to the lake along
one of the neighborhood trails.
Briefly, the plan calls for creating a network of
trails, mostly on public land, that would connect
local neighborhood trails—that sometimes
use roadways and sidewalks—to one another,
and then to a regional trail system that already
crosses the lake region.
According to the plan, the trails would also
connect with business areas, points of interest
and public facilities.
Over time, the plan calls for the development
of 24.5 miles of new trails, at an estimated cost
of $5 million.
According to the report: “This is a major
investment of public and/or private funds
that would need to be carefully planned.” It is
possible that up to 80 percent of the cost is
potentially reimbursable
from existing competitive
trail grant programs, the
report stated.
The proposal comes at
a time when nationwide
trail use has increased.
The data collection
website, Jersey Island
Holidays, reported that
in 2018, there were 47.86
million hikers in the
United States. According
to the site, in 2023, there
are 57.8 million.
Bob Canace, president of Conservation
Advising Services, who is consulting on the Lake
Hopatcong trail, said trail use that rose during
the pandemic remained high after the pandemic
passed.
Besides using the 12,000 acres of public lands
owned by Jefferson, the proposed trails would
connect with others in Morris County: Mahlon
Dickerson Reservation, with 2,800 acres; the
Berkshire Valley and Rockaway River Wildlife
Management Areas, which are state-operated
and total 5,600 acres; Minnisink Park at 297 acres;
and the Mount Paul section of the 5,656-acre
Kittatinny Valley State Park.
The system would also connect with
the regional Highlands Trail that runs from
Pennsylvania to Connecticut and the local Lake
Hopatcong Trail that runs along the western
shore of the lake.
Bringing the plan to fruition will require
cooperation from Jefferson and Mount
Arlington, Morris County and state Division of
Parks and Forestry (which runs parks and trails)
and the Division of Fish, Game and Wildlife
(which operates the wildlife management areas
with fees from hunting licenses). As such, in
the wildlife management areas, the plan noted
accommodation for hunters and trail uses would
need to be addressed.
The plan envisions a hiker being able to trek
from the Mount Arlington train station to
Kittatinny Valley State Park on a continuous trail,
roughly 18 miles (about a five-hour hike).
With connections into business areas, the plan
offers a potential for economic growth, which
numerous national studies list as a key ingredient
in the development of extensive trail systems.
A 2012 study of the Delaware and Lackawanna
trails in eastern Pennsylvania determined an
average day hiker spent $33.49 during a visit,
while an overnight visitor spent $132 per day and
stayed 2.2 days.
Supporting the trails would be a unified
system of logos and branding materials, including
QR codes linking to services and businesses.
Businesses could, for example, display decals
featuring the trail logo in their front windows.
Wilsusen, Pinto, Felter and Canace, along with
Jesse Merbler and Peter Dolan, both of the New
York-New Jersey Trail Conference, discussed
details of the plan at a planning meeting on April
7.
Key issues were trail construction and safety,
designing local trails to get hikers off streets,
reducing conflicts between hikers and cyclists
Top to bottom: Russ Felter uses ribbon to mark
a new trail in the woods along Castle Rock
Road. Frank Pinto, Bob Canace, Jesse Merbler
and Peter Dolan look at maps during a recent
trail planning meeting.