Crawford Hill Owner Seeks 'Good Faith' Negotiations With Holmdel

HOLMDEL, NJ — The owner of the Crawford Hill site that is home to the historic Horn antenna said Wednesday his company "has negotiated in good faith with the town throughout the process and we will continue to do so."

Rakesh Antala of Crawford Hill Holdings made the statement a day after the Holmdel Township Committee voted to prepare an appraisal of the 43-acre site, one of the first steps for possible township acquisition of the parcel that contains the antenna, designated a National Historic Landmark.

The company hopes to construct an 88-unit townhouse development at the site.

“Our objective from the inception was to create needed housing for people 55 and older – in a low-impact, high-quality townhouse development," said Antala, principal of the company.

“We never had any intention of moving the Horn antenna offsite, or of building on the entire site, and our proposal would see roughly half the 43 acres remain open space. That’s a benefit to the town residents at virtually no cost," he said in the statement.

“We will continue to negotiate with the town to achieve the best results for all concerned,” Antala said.

Meanwhile, Mayor DJ Luccarelli distributed his own formal comments on the vote on two resolutions regarding the property on Tuesday:

"At its June 13, 2023 meeting, the Holmdel Township Committee took action related to the property at 791 Holmdel Road (colloquially referred to as the Crawford Hill property)," the mayor's statement reads, "including authorizing an appraisal that will enable the township to begin formal negotiations for a potential acquisition. It is the first of many potential legal steps in the eminent domain process."

"The Township Committee also modified the previously authorized redevelopment investigation on the Crawford Hill parcels that are being considered for open space preservation, moving forward with the investigation of the specific parcel which currently houses a vacant building most recently occupied by Nokia," the statement says.

“After many conversations, I believe it now makes sense for the Township Committee to move forward with seeking an appraisal of the Crawford Hill property, so it can evaluate it for a potential acquisition under the eminent domain act,” Luccarelli said on Tuesday, adding, “I do not take the potential use of eminent domain lightly, but I believe it makes sense for the Township to use this power – that it has under state law – to condemn for open space, recreation, and historic preservation purposes.”

The township noted that the Crawford Hill Property is home to the Horn antenna, a large microwave antenna that was used as a satellite communication antenna and radio telescope during the 1960s at Bell Telephone Laboratories in Holmdel. Former Bell Labs physicists Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson used the Horn antenna to detect the cosmic microwave radiation that "provided irrefutable evidence of the Big Bang theory," the statement says. Wilson and Penzias earned a Nobel Prize in Physics for this research in 1978.

Mayor Luccarelli "affirmed" his prior commitment to protecting the township’s history, saying, “as Mayor, I am committed to protecting the character of Holmdel, and I am excited about the steps the Township Committee has taken tonight in support of that goal.”

A coalition of citizen groups has urged preserving the Horn antenna and the entire Crawford Hill site for its historic and environmental value. The township has placed various versions of the townhouse plan on its website for the public to see.

Residents thanked - and also literally applauded - the Township Committee on Tuesday for taking the action on the resolutions.

The resolutions refer to a "groundswell" of public opinion in favor of preserving the landmark Horn antenna at its original location on the site or risk its losing landmark designation.

The area is also "pristine" woods, the township has said, and should be preserved as open space or as a park to contain an educational center related to cosmology and the significance of the Horn antenna.