BRANCHBURG — A North Branch resident who has been a land use environmental reviewer for the county faces a possible $100 fine for allowing a portion of his property to return to a floodplain meadow.

According to Jim Girvan, who has a degree in environmental planning from Rutgers, about a quarter acre of his 1.2-acre Easton Parkway lot borders a tributary of the North Branch River. It’s in the flood zone, Girvan said, and frequently floods — as do the other nearby properties.

Not so, say his neighbors. Debbie and Nicholas Pigna filed a complaint with Tom Leach, the Branchburg Township zoning officer on June 22.

Nicholas Pigna acknowledged that “water comes up a bit,” from the small creek that runs behind both homes, but said that the area isn’t flood prone and isn’t in the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s 100-year flood zone.

Leach found that the unkempt property met the municipality's definition of “obnoxious growth" and "neglecting to maintain property” and sent letters to Girvan, telling him to cut the lawn. When Girvan failed to do so, Leach issued a summons on July 11.

Girvan will face the charges in municipal court on Sept. 12. If he fails to convince a municipal judge to see things his way, he faces a $100 fine and will have to mow the lawn, Leach said.

North Branch has been hit hard in recent years, with floods often entering the second floor of some historic homes. Some of the homes have been raised above the flood levels, in some cases with money from FEMA, Girvan said.

But that’s not in their area of the hamlet, according to Nicholas Pigna.

Girvan’s home hasn’t flooded, but the northeast portion of the property frequently has, he said, leading him to decide in 2009 to give up the battle to keep the area as suburban lawn and let it return to a more natural state as wildlife habitat and riparian buffer. “We have photos of the area,” Girvan said. “It’s very bad.” It was several weeks before he could get in there with the tractor while mowing other parts of the property, he said. “We knew we had to take another approach to stewardship.”

The Pignas dismiss this. Since 2001, when they moved into their home, Nicholas Pigna said, “There’s never been flooding there.”

Girvan said that everything went well for a couple years. He and his wife, Sharon, snuffed out invasive species by covering them with tarp and began planting noninvasives such as timothy and other native grasses, elderberries, river birch and oak and have plans to introduce wildflowers such as black-eyed Susans, columbine and milkweed. “It will take a few years to get in shape,” he said. He was able to qualify the area online for certification by the National Wildlife Federation as a wildlife habitat.

But the Pignas pooh-pooh Girvan’s claim. “If you want to see hummingbirds and wildlife, you would put it outside your picture window or back patio where you sit,” Debbie Pigna said, “not next to your neighbor’s house.” Since Girvan has let the property go, she said, the Pignas have had to put up with snakes, field mice and other pests in their back yard, where their deck and pool overlook the area.

It’s only since she complained to the zoning officer, she said, that Girvan went online to get the wildlife habitat designation. “It’s basically spitefulness,” she said, stemming from an earlier dispute over forsythia bushes and poison ivy that grew through the fence separating their two properties.

"Some people want to cast this as a battle between neighbors," Girvan said, "but it’s not. This is a real sincere effort to do something positive for the environment and be a good land steward."

The Pignas don’t see it as a battle between neighbors either, Debbie Pigna said. “It’s between them and the zoning officer.”

Leach said that this is the first time in his five years as zoning officer that a property owner claimed that he was leaving the lawn uncut to create a natural habitat.

Reach Warren Cooper at wcooper@njnpublishing.com or 908-948-1261.

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