A resident-organized discussion forum on the Highlands Act flustered local property owners and officials who are already overwhelmed by 151 pages of new planning legislation.

Last Wednesday, the Pinecliff Lake clubhouse on Union Valley Road drew in nearly 200 attendees for an informational meeting with Senator Bob Martin, a Republican co-sponsor of the bill, and Curtis Fisher, the governor's deputy policy director. Doris Aaronson, the lake association's environmental trustee and the event coordinator, said that a dialogue with state officials was long overdue.

"We all heard confusing things about the Highlands legislation," she said, opening the floor to the senator. "We're here for an educational session."

Martin, a former West Milford municipal attorney, said that Pinecliff Lake was the perfect setting to talk about a bill that intends to preserve drinking water generated in the Highlands region and supplied to half the state. He stressed that West Milford stood out as a beacon of natural beauty in the most densely populated region of the state, and perhaps the whole country.

"It's still green up here," he said, promoting the "historic" act that keeps the township's landscape intact by controlling commercial development and curbing commercial build-out.

The bill, which passed the state legislature on June 10, maps out a 395,000-acre preservation area that engulfs the 80-square-mile township of West Milford. Gov. Jim McGreevey is expected to sign it into law within the week. While environmentalists laud the initiative for blocking large-scale development., plenty of residents are at a loss for how to recoup potential revenue on private-owned parcels.

"You can say that you are bearing the burden or that you are the most protected," he said, trying to soothe a crowd based mostly in West Milford and in the neighboring preservation core areas of Ringwood and Wanaque.

With most questions scribbled on three-by-five index cards, the majority of the meeting ran in an orderly fashion until certain members of the public lost their patience with gloss answers and sought direction in acquiring state funds.

"If you're going to sell it to the state, what's the process?" said John Maiello, a Wanaque resident whose wife co-owns a nine-acre lot that is not subdivided and that borders the reservoir.

Martin slipped into a more controversial seat as he began bullet pointing the specifics. His answer the Maiello was to contact Passaic County Open Space or the Department of Environmental Protection, the state agency that will review local planning applications until the governor appoints a 15-member regional council to oversee enforcement. He implied that the process would take some time.

Bill basics, on a municipal level, include a realty transfer fee as a stable source of public funding, $47 per acre in municipal watershed aid totaling a possible $750,000, and 10 years of graduated, inflation-indexed aid. Single-family homeowners can expand and owners of subdivided property can apply for single-home exemption in order to build one unit per acre. But residents like Maiello will have to sell their property to the state for the market value as of the day the bill is signed to realize a profit.

"It looks like they have a stronghold on me," said Maeillo's wife Grace, a seven-year board of education member. She's received an offer from a builder but says her property is rendered useless by this bill. "We're not a big developer but now we're stymied because of its location."

Local Republican officials seemed even less pleased after learning that the township's 1998 town center plan will not be considered by the state for implementation.

"West Milford is not going to get a center under state law," Fisher said. "It's not the vision of this legislation."

Mayor Joe Di Donato, who recently authorized converting plan designation to plan endorsement, said he's been given conflicting information from the state.

"The state Office of Smart Growth strongly recommended that we take that old town center plan and do a cross-reference," the mayor said. "We don't know how they're going to look at it."

He was more hopeful about possible allocations of building moratorium aid. Even though neither Fisher nor Martin would give a guarantee on June 23, Di Donato said, "The key is that it's in the budget."

The mayor has said repeatedly that the township needs compensation for acting as a watershed steward. The Newark Watershed Conservation and Development Corporation (NWCDC) owns approximately one-third of town property, which is permanently blocked from development. West Milford has received remuneration in the amount of $1.1 million, but that was eventually phased out.

"We couldn't accept the bill the way it was," he said. "We never fought the purpose of it but I don't think it (the compensation) is going to be enough."

Martin said the state might consider a water surcharge to compensate for any further shortfalls.

"No one says that public policy is perfect," Fisher said.

He asked the public to keep the long-term state economy in mind when visualizing the effects of the Highlands bill. Acknowledging that most of the state's industries are dependent on water, the bill streamlines the planning process throughout the state and safeguards the region's water supply. The goal in the short term is to provide the public with as much information as possible; the DEP is currently developing a web site that will be up by the time the bill is signed.

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Jeanne Stark Membership & Outreach

Skylands CLEAN

PO Box 85

Ringwood, NJ 07456

973-616-1006