Bergen County set up an open space trust fund 25 years ago. See what it has accomplished

In the last 25 years, the Bergen County Open Space Trust Fund has raised more than $255.5 million in taxes that has funded 1,500 grant projects across the county.

To mark the milestone anniversary, county officials reflected on the inception of the trust fund, the projects it has underwritten and its future.

More than 60 volunteers who served on the Public Open Space Trust Fund Committee in the last 25 years and former public officials who helped set it up were invited to a recent celebration, said Adam Strobel, the director of the Division of Land Management with the county's Parks & Recreation Department.

What is the Open Space Trust Fund?

The program is dedicated to the acquisition of open space, the development of recreation areas, the preservation of historical land and farmland, and flood plain protection.   Those who are eligible to apply for the funds include any county department, Bergen County municipalities and qualified nonprofit organizations. The program is split up, with 70% of the funds going toward these programs and 30% going toward improving municipal parks.

The county’s 70 towns are eligible to apply for a dollar-for-dollar match to improve municipal open space and recreation facilities.

The program is run by the Bergen County Board of Commissioners, which can set the tax to be collected.

This year, the tax levy was set at one cent for every $100 in property value. From 1999 to 2003, the tax was set at half a cent, from 2004 to 2009 it was a full cent and from 2010 to 2016 it was a quarter of a cent.

Commissioner Steven Tanelli said that when he was first elected in 2013, he lobbied to raise the trust fund back to a full cent and said it took until 2017 to do so. It has remained at one cent since 2017.

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"Elected officials never want to raise taxes, so they look at this as an increase and are reluctant to do it," Tanelli said. "But now we are reaping the benefits of having that extra money. We can only give out what we have, so if we have more money we can support more projects."

The average Bergen County home valued at $700,000 pays $70 per year when the tax stands at 1 cent.

Tanelli said he hopes to see the trust fund stay at a full cent in future years.

The fund benefits from the county's population, and in the last year it generated about $18 million, Strobel said. The tax, he said, is "minimal" and the funding is distributed equally throughout the county for 50 to 60 projects each year.

Applications for funds are reviewed by a trust fund public advisory committee that determines recommendations for approval by the commissioners.

Why was it created?

In 1997, conservation groups lobbied the then-freeholders, now commissioners, to let voters decide whether to create a new tax to preserve open space.

The Bergen Open Space Coalition lobbied towns to pass a resolution for a referendum, and the measure eventually passed.

"If we allow every piece of private land to be built on, we are going to lose the quality and character of Bergen County, and we will end up looking more like Hudson County," coalition leader Tom Morris told The Record in 1997.

Strobel said former County Executive William "Pat" Schuber was instrumental in getting the trust fund created.

What has the fund paid for?

Since its inception, 1,488 projects across all the municipalities have been funded in part with the trust fund. More than 50 more projects were recommended last month for approval, with about $11 million earmarked.

Here are some projects that you may not have known received help from the Open Space Trust Fund:

• Preservation of more than 200 acres of farmland at Sun Valley Farm in Mahwah.

• The land acquisition at the Darlington School House in Mahwah, now the home of the New York/New Jersey Trail conference.

• Bergen County's rowing center at Riverside County Park in Lyndhurst.

• A "rails to trails" park in Rutherford and East Rutherford, where 2 miles of an abandoned rail line was turned into a hiking and walking trail along the Passaic River.

• A Teaneck wetlands restoration project that provides a habitat for birds and other animals, originally slated to be a landfill.

• Land acquired in Emerson that is now the Soldier Hill Golf Course.

• Ten years of Open Space Trust Fund money beginning in 2007 went to transform flood-prone land along the Passaic River in Garfield into a park and walking trail.

• The Ridgefield Park Nature Preserve, next to the high school.

• River Vale acquired a golf course in 2010 for recreation space instead of a potential development proposal.

• Wyckoff used money to purchase Russell Farms when the owner was looking to sell it, stopping potential redevelopment. It is now 5 acres of park space.

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: 25 years later: See what Bergen County has done with open space funds