Holmdel OKs Eminent Domain Use To Acquire Horn Antenna Site

HOLMDEL, NJ — At a quiet, late summer meeting of the Township Committee Tuesday night, members took a historic step toward the preservation of Crawford Hill and of the Horn antenna that rests there.

The mayor and three committee members present voted unanimously to adopt an ordinance authorizing the acquisition by eminent domain of the Crawford Hill property, currently privately owned and the site of a potential residential development.

Crawford Hill - the highest point in Monmouth County - is also the site of the Horn antenna, now a National Historic Landmark famously used in research by two scientists that confirmed the Big Bang theory of the creation of the universe.

The area to be acquired includes Lots 6, 6.01 and part of Lot 7 for a partial easement on Block 27 - 34.3 acres - to be used for open space, recreation and historic preservation purposes under the township's Master Plan.

The committee then also voted unanimously to adopt a second ordinance that would appropriate $2 million in bond anticipation notes to finance the purchase of the site.

One of Holmdel's most respected environmentalists, Ralph Blumenthal, said he applauded the committee for taking the step. However, he reminded the members he also hopes to preserve the full Lot 7, the site of the abandoned Nokia building, the company that purchased the site from Bell Labs and then sold it to its current owner.

"But that is a topic for another day," he said, adding his own applause to that of others at the meeting.

In nearly a year's worth of meetings, the Township Committee has heard from physicists and school students, environmentalists and professors and from one woman who modestly described herself as "a homemaker not a scientist." She brought the same message to the committee as the others: Save the Horn for history.

But the momentous action by the committee is a first step in what will be an evolving process.

The owner of the total 43-acre site is Crawford Hill Holdings and Rakesh Antala of Holmdel. The company has said its latest versions of plans for the site would not move the antenna and so would preserve it.

The company's plan for an 88-unit, age-restricted townhouse development might not move the antenna. But opponents say an undisturbed Crawford Hill, with the 1960s-era antenna facing the sky in its original natural setting, is integral to its preservation.

Good faith negotiations

Township Attorney Michael L. Collins responded to questions by Blumenthal about the first phase of the process, good faith negotiations with the owner.

Collins said a letter from special counsel in the matter went out late last week to the owners of the property to engage in good faith negotiations.

Collins said there has to be a minimum of 14 days to allow for negotiations, but negotiations can continue beyond that if they are productive.

He said if there is no "engagement" on the part of the property owner, after 14 days the township has the ability to file proceedings in court, now that the eminent domain ordinance has been adopted.

He said negotiations would not be discussed in a public forum because it is a legal matter for closed session.

You can listen to the explanation by Collins at the meeting here, including comments from Roberta Kaufman, an environmentalist and five-year Planning Board member, who said she hoped the negotiations would "bear fruit."

Kaufman also applauded the township action and said the site has great potential as an educational center.

The committee previously authorized an appraisal of the Crawford Hill property, which has been completed and values the property at $1.92 million. And earlier this month it authorized the good faith negotiations to acquire the property from its current owner.

The bond would be supported by the township’s Open Space, Recreation, Floodplain Protection, Farmland, and Historic Preservation Trust Fund. In 2021, Holmdel voters voted to increase the collection rate to this fund, which is legally restricted to use for land acquisition and similar expenses.

“Holmdel voters overwhelmingly supported increasing funding to the trust fund. We are now looking to responsibly use the trust fund to complete an historic property acquisition that would benefit Holmdel for generations to come,” Luccarelli said earlier this month.

There was no immediate response from the owners of the Crawford Hill site on Wednesday, but Antala said in a previous statement: "We want nothing more than to have honest negotiations with the town officials and open-minded residents - based on facts not fear. We are more than willing to work in good faith as before and develop alternate options where the Horn antenna is preserved and open space is maintained.”

The Horn antenna was used in research by Bell Labs physicists. The antenna's national significance arises from its use in the detection of cosmic microwave radiation that provided irrefutable evidence of the Big Bang theory of the creation of the universe. In 1978, scientists Robert Wilson and Arno Penzias earned a Nobel Prize in Physics for this work.