Obligatory Snow Pictures: Colonial Lake

Snowdrift Ripples at Colonial Lake Park

13 January 2018

A surprise snow day a week ago had us housebound most of the day. After we cleared the snow in the late afternoon I had an hour before sunset to take a walk around Colonial Lake in Lawrence Township. We've lived here since late 1999 and almost bought a house in Colonial Lakelands, yet I'd never walked around the lake.

With the wind still blowing and the temperature in the teens, I hadn't chosen the ideal time to do this. Time was of the essence, though, because there is a plan brewing to build a hotel along Route 1.

The four-story building would be set back almost to the lake and the thin line of trees obscuring the bowling alley parking lot would be gone. The Colonial Lakelands neighborhood is in an uproar over this. It's NIMBY to the hilt; however, there is a case to be made to preserve, and even add on to, the park, by buying the land for preservation rather than building on it.

Odds are long against the neighborhood. The parcel is in a Highway Commercial zone and hotels are permitted. As long as the developer stays within the rules and gets permission to vary from them, the hotel can be built.

That's where the neighbors come in. They're organizing and have opened a channel to purchasing the property. As a veteran site fight soldier with two decades of site fight experience, I'm working with Save Colonial Lake as adviser and devil's advocate. My job so far has been to keep the group level-headed, grounded in reality, and away from NIMBY arguments that would guarantee a hotel in one hot minute. It's good to see so many people engaged.

Anyway, that's why I decided to walk around the lake in twelve degree weather near sunset. I brought my camera along.

This is the view from the parking lot, looking north.

I walked east, counterclockwise along the shore. It's not as if the view is pristine. The lake is ringed with houses set back from the path by a road. In the winter this is painfully obvious, which is why the "the hotel will ruin the view" argument is, at least in the winter, arguably bogus. However, the group's Facebook page sports pictures taken in the summer and fall; the hotel would stick out then.

I stopped less than halfway up the eastern side. The path I was following disappeared under the snow. There were no more footprints to follow either. I was at the edge of another parking lot. A man in a maroon pickup truck, the driver's side window open, was watching me. I wondered if he thought I was the developer. I wondered if he thought that I thought he was the developer. I wondered if he was the developer. I was surprised he didn't try to find out what I was doing. I took a few pictures and turned back.

The thin line of trees on the opposite shore is where the bowling alley is and where the hotel would join it.

The maroon truck passed me as I made my way across the field to my car.

Two nights ago was the first real organizational meeting for Save Colonial Lake. I looked around the room for the face I saw in the truck. I don't think he was there. The closest match turned out to be somebody whose name I recognized from my day job, and it was good to put the name to a face and meet each other for real. I also reconnected with someone from the Wal-Mart battle days, someone who was also the last person to get a Princeton Free Wheelers lifetime membership before lifetime memberships went away. Small world and all that.