Gov. Chris Christie's administration on Thursday cleared its first hurdle in plans to close two juvenile correctional facilities and replace them with three new detention centers.

The project is both fiscally responsible and conforms to new models of social justice, Attorney General Christopher Porrino argues. But the process in which the state is using to build the facilities sparked outrage among the detention centers' future neighbors.

The state plans to shutter the New Jersey Training School for Boys, also known as Jamesburg. It's a 150-year-old fixture in Middlesex County that's comprised of 68 buildings on a stretch of 900 acres. It was designed to hold thousands. But only 144 are housed at Jamesburg, which costs $44 million a year to operate because of its massive size.

That's $306,000 a year per inmate, Porrino said.

"It is crazy," he said.

A female juvenile detention center in Bordentown would also close under the administration's plan.

They'd be replaced by a $170 million project to build a three facilities: Woodbridge, West Trenton, and Hammonton/Winslow.

The new centers would conform to the "best practices in juvenile justice" because they will be smaller, which advocates say is more conducive to reforming a child, and cheaper to maintain, Porrino said.

"We have a proposal that is socially responsible and fiscally responsible," he said.

Ryan Haygood, the president and CEO of the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice, lauded the administration's decision.

"(Our) system is one that really needs transformation," he said. "There's no debate that Jamesburg is a failed proposition."

The hurdle the administration cleared was a vote before the State House Commission in Trenton on Thursday. The committee approved a 30-year lease agreement for the buildings on state land.

But not without controversy.

Winslow Township Mayor Barry Wright accused the state of deception by the way it notified local officials of its plans.

"The state ... proposes to lease the above piece of property to the Economic Development Authority," reads a four-sentence letter from the Department of Treasury to Wright.

Missing from the notice is any mention of a juvenile detention center or specifics on construction in Winslow Township.

"When someone wants to put a jail in someone's town ... and they don't have to tell what it is, that tells me people are hiding something," Assemblyman Paul Moriarty, D-Gloucester, said.

"I just find this unbelievable," he said. "It's outrageous."

The state followed the law, Porrino responded. He added: "Nobody wants these kids in their backyard. I get it."

The leases for the three properties passed the committee by a 5-2 vote.

Matt Arco may be reached at marco@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @MatthewArco or Facebook.