Against Trinity Hall Development

Dear Editor,

I am a concerned citizen who will be directly affected by the proposed development  of the Trinity Hall School, concerned about the affect this will have on my taxes, on the traffic through my street, and the traffic on Chapel Hill Road, which I must travel every day to get my Autistic daughter to her special needs program at Navesink School.

If you have ever had the opportunity to see what the traffic is in the neighborhood surrounding Navesink School, you will see what effect a full-blown high school will have on Chapel Hill Road.  It’s not safe  on Monmouth Avenue when the parents, buses, and walkers are trying to access the school. You can see it on the faces of the exasperated crossing guards as they try and stop traffic to allow people to cross safely. You can see it on the faces of the parents with their kids who have to cross the school entrance driveway in front of cars with drivers who are oblivious to everything but exiting and getting out of there. The neighbors in the houses down the side streets have put large rocks on their lawns to keep parents from parking there. They park there anyway. The traffic moves very fast, and drivers rarely slow down in the vicinity of the school.

 I am sure that everyone who lives steps from that school are more than grateful when pick up and drop off are over

Trinity also plans an access road that will be squeezed in between two existing homes on Stavola Road. The construction of it will turn this once-quiet neighborhood into a nightmare.. And will it truly be used for only “emergency vehicles” ? Or could it eventually become a cut-through for parents, students, delivery trucks, and garbage haulers?

We don’t have city sewer lines in parts of that neighborhood, never mind the fact that the bridge on that road is deteriorating, and Trinity plans only to upgrade 75 feet of the almost 2 mile road.

It’s no secret that Trinity would like to grow to become a boarding school. What’s to stop them from acquiring more land and building dorms?

We are lacking in nothing here, except the diminishing, precious open spaces that made Middletown the beautiful place it was when we moved here and started families.  What about the impact of  200 additional driving teenagers and what that will do to the locals trying to get out of their driveways?

Recently, I received Trinity’s mass mailing propaganda.  It reads,  "We have offered a widening of the Chapel Hill roadway, a turning lane, and perhaps, most importantly, enough roadways, parking, and holding zones on the site to adequately accommodate the busiest anticipated traffic periods each weekday morning and afternoon." 

How can we support something that will completely decimate our neighborhood, our land, our country road, our sanity, and our serene peace and quiet, never mind infiltrating our lives for years to come?

By contrast, the 19 houses, which the land owner already has permission to build  would each require a few feet of driveway, and one two-way street. No need to change the complexion of the neighborhood, or add a turning lane or widen Chapel Hill Road.  The proposal did not receive opposition and he could have broken ground years ago.

We don’t want this school.   The founders can be the good neighbors they claim to be and work with our parochial schools to meet the needs of their students.

And for all their talk about empowering girls, the Head Chair of the school is a man. Go figure.

Margie in Middletown