The state Department and Environmental Protection is negotiating a new 20-year lease for a dock operated by Liberty National Golf Club.
The agreement would cost the ultra-exclusive golf course $10,500 for the first year of the lease before increasing 3% each year, but environmental activists say that’s not enough.
“The LN Golf Club is backed by a billionaire,” New Jersey Sierra Club Director Jeff Tittel said, referring Liberty National owner Paul Fireman. “[The DEP] is charging him pennies on the dollar to use a dock and public waterfront.
"The $10,000 rent under the agreement is not enough to cover the costs to NJ Taxpayers to protect the public and recreational aspects of [Liberty State Park].”
The club ferries golfers from Manhattan and drops them at the dock near its clubhouse, and has been doing so for a decade, said Chris Donnelly, a spokesman for Liberty National.
“The dock – which Liberty National pays rent to both the State Department of Environmental Protection and the Bureau of Tidelands to utilize – is used to bring visitors and golfers to the course and has been heavily used during PGA Tour tournaments,” Donnelly said. “The dock has been in operation for a decade and Liberty National plans to continue to use it for that purpose, as it has when the extension has been approved in the past.”
The most recent lease for the dock expired in 2014. This one would last 20 years, and the tenant, WA Residential, would pay $282,183.93 over two decades, according to an item placed on a State House Commission agenda.
WA Residential, an LLC that would hold the lease, already has a tidelands license for the property, a state license needed for use of docks in certain waterways.
Greg Remaud of the NY/NJ Baykeeper and Sam Pesin of the Friends of Liberty State Park both sent letters to the State House Commission, which was scheduled to vote on the lease Thursday before the agenda item was removed.
“It’s very pricey in that area and the public should have a right to see the basis for this lease negotiation,” Remaud said. “It seems very random and it seems very low.”
This is not the only piece of Liberty State Park that the golf course has sought to access. For years it has been pursuing a lease for the Caven Point peninsula, where it wants to relocate three golf holes.
In response, state legislators from Hudson County have assembled a bill that would protect the state park from privatization. The first version of the bill failed to be voted on in the state Senate in the most recent legislative session, but it was reintroduced the next day.
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February 13, 2020 at 06:35AM
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New lease requested for Liberty National Golf Club dock is too much of a bargain: environmental groups - NJ.com
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