"I've been interested in government and politics since I was a kid," notes Morris Township Mayor Richard Watson, when asked to describe the roots of his involvement in local government. For Watson, that nascent interest has blossomed into nearly twenty years of public service, years that have allowed him to witness an incredible period of growth and transformation in Morris Township and the county as a whole.

Moving to the township from New York City in 1975, Watson first began working at the local level in 1981, with an appointment to the Board of Adjustment. "In those days," he notes, "lots of big townhouse" complexes were the name of the development game, and in many cases applicants were trying to squeeze those developments onto sites for which they weren't appropriately zoned. "I could see the evolution [where] everything would become paved over." This concern led Watson to take "a conservative approach on the Board," requiring that developers show the Board a clear and outstanding need for variances before they were approved.

In many cases the Board's stance yielded a mixed bag of results. Though "a lot was denied" in those days, considerable development ensued: 49 detached units on James Street (where 72 townhouses had been proposed), a residential development off Kahdena Road where the effort had been to site over 100 townhouse unit. Victories in preserving open space and minimizing impacts on natural resources were gained by reducing the size of certain developments, though rarely by denying them outright. An exception to this occurred with the township's purchase and wholesale preservation of Jones Woods, an area roughly bordered by Picatinny Road and Route 124, where 150 townhouse units had been proposed.

With a few notable exceptions, Watson observes, there are few large lots left for such large-scale development, and the nature of development requests has changed. Instead, as Watson's four terms on the Township Committee and membership on the Planning Board have allowed him to observe, the recent trend in requests is to subdivide and build on smaller lots. Many of these lots are inappropriate for further subdivision given natural constraints such as steep slopes. In other cases, in a scenario familiar to many in northern New Jersey, an older home is demolished and a much larger one built in its place, often completely filling the building envelope. In still other cases, two new homes are built on a newly subdivided lot. Interestingly enough, Watson has noticed a resurgent demand for townhouses, as middle- aged and older residents grow increasingly tired of ongoing household maintenance.

Given the historical difficulty towns have had in rejecting inappropriate development, what does Watson see as the method for preserving Morris Township's remaining open spaces? Though it's an expensive proposition, he notes that "buying the land is the only real way to save it," and he illustrates the point with a telling example. Recently the township took a plan to preserve the 50-acre Albert Rosenhaus property on Picatinny Road to the Morris County Open Space Trust Fund. Committee members were skeptical about the asking price. So, Watson recalls, he pulled out a copy of his own tax bill (Watson lives near Loantaka Brook Reservation off Spring Valley Road) to illustrate typical land valuations. In the Rosenhaus case, the land is more expensive than elsewhere in the county and the Committee rejected the application, a position Watson understands. Due to the property's importance, though, Watson and other township officials are negotiating with Rosenhaus to preserve much of the site through application of a conservation easement.

For other potential sites around town, the outcomes may be less salutary in terms of natural resource protection. As two cases in point, Watson discusses the Delbarton School's proposal to develop a Continuous Care Retirement Community (CCRC) and the Villa Walsh proposal to site an assisted care facility for retired nuns. Both cases involve large tracts of land where development could have profound natural resource impacts.

The future for Delbarton, Villa Walsh, and other sites in town is not yet certain, but because development pressures are unlikely to disappear entirely, Watson recognizes that the town must have a strong set of tools to help guide growth. In addition to outright purchase and conservation easements, land use ordinances offer area communities the opportunity to deny, restrict, or modify development in areas where such development would have documentable negative impacts.

In this regard, Morris Township's ongoing participation in the Ten Towns Great Swamp Committee has been a boon. In addition to generating a management plan for the watershed's towns, Ten Towns has drafted model ordinances for protecting steep slopes, wetlands, and trees, and for protecting against increases in stormwater runoff, soil erosion, and sedimentation. Morris Township has already adopted versions of the steep slopes and tree protection ordinances, and is examining the stormwater runoff ordinance as well. Though such ordinances would seem the logical next step in preservation of community resources, legal obstacles to their full use remains. As an example, developer Harvey Caplan, seeking to develop 58 acres above Mount Kemble Avenue, has sued the township over both the steep slopes and tree ordinances. Despite this suit, the Mayor is committed to the way in which the ordinances have been drafted, noting that working with Ten Towns "gives us a certain amount of impetus to the development of restraints. . . [it] gives some credibility" to the process.

The true value, Watson notes, lies in the applicability of such ordinances anywhere. Because, as he notes, "everyone lives in a watershed," the ordinances are of equal value in the Whippany watershed as they are in Great Swamp, a point reflective of the watershed-based awareness fostered today by New Jersey's Department of Environmental Protection and state and local environmental organizations.