Submitted by Tom Andersen on Tue, 05/05/2009 - 8:43am.
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| Ben Spinelli, Westchester Land Trust's new executive director. |
June 1, 2009 -- Westchester Land Trust's new executive director is Ben Spinelli, the former executive director of the State of New Jersey's Office of
Smart Growth. Ben, who was the unanimous choice of our search committee and our Board of Directors, started his new position on June 1.
Ben will help us at the Land Trust
build on our core competencies, and will lead our organization in new
directions appropriate to the changing
dynamics of land preservation in Westchester
County.
Ben took over for acting
Executive Director Tom Andersen, who led the organization since July 1, 2008. Tom returns to his position as director
of communications and special projects, which had been his intention all along.
As for Ben, he has years of
experience in land preservation and in helping communities maintain and improve
the qualities that make them special.
As executive director of the State
of New Jersey's Office of Smart Growth, he
supervised a staff of 31 and oversaw an office that coordinated state policies,
programs, and financial investments with New
Jersey's land use planning goals.
He led the process of drafting the
2009 New Jersey State Development and Redevelopment Plan which is a national
model for sustainable state-wide growth management and land use, and worked
with towns throughout the state to implement responsible local land use
plans.
He was the mayor of Chester, N.J.,
from 1998 until 2007. He led the town as it pursued an innovative land
preservation program, using both the outright purchase of land and the use of
state and county agricultural preservation programs. The result was the
permanent preservation of over 2,000 acres of land, with nearly 50% of the 30
square mile Township now protected from development.
These efforts created public access
to a nearly 14 mile continuous greenway consisting of over 5,000 acres.
Ben also served as an original
member of the Highlands Council, the regional planning commission with the
responsibility for land use planning and resource protection in the Highlands
region of northwestern New Jersey.
Ben is a lawyer by training and
worked as a trial attorney for 20 years, in private practice and for the Essex
County Prosecutor's office in New
Jersey.