Amboy Bank to Subdivide Courtyard Affordable Housing

On February 16, 2012 Amboy Bank will seek approvals to subdivide their Courtyards Project on the corner of Monmouth/West/Oakland Streets. It was approved about 1 year ago for 57 condos. 45 of the condos would be market priced in one building and a second building would consist of 12 affordable units. On February 8th, 2012 Amboy Bank officials met with the Red Bank Borough Council in a closed session to discuss the development of the property and financing. Mayor Pat Menna was not present for this meeting.  According to NJ open meeting laws there are only 9 reasons that a government can have a closed meeting. One such reason would be to discuss using public funds to acquire property. According to Amboy Bank representatives they need to subdivide the property in order to obtain financing and they also plan to develop the 2 subdivided pieces  themselves.

Previously Red  Bank purchased private property know as the Cedar Crossings with 2.4 million dollars of state grant money. This property was then sold to Red Bank Affordable Housing Corporation to build 36 affordable housing units and seems to have generated several hundred thousand dollars in surplus funds. This Corporation has members that include former Mayor Ed McKenna, William Katchen a CPA who has been banned in the past by the Federal Government related to public housing funds, and Frank Borin a lawyer with the Decotiis law firm who has taken several thousand dollars in fees from Red Bank Affordable Housing Corportation for his law firm. Ed McKenna has been at several approval meetings supporting the Amboy approvals and is also a representative of the Red Bank Rivercenter. Amboy Bank was able to obtain approvals in contrast to the vision of Red Bank  Rivercenter’s plan to create street level retail along Monmouth Street between the train station and Broad Street.

Non-Profit Scam using public land for grant  money

We only want to limit your density

After arguing for months about the concern of density on the property at Monmouth St, West St, and Oakland St the town decided to increase the allowed density around the train station to create a transit village. I sought a density of 16 units per acre by doing exactly what was permitted which was to build 4 units above retail space at a time 14 units per acre were allowed. This seemed to upset Rich Kosenski of T & M Engineering and was the basis for his denial of constructing buildings 1 inch a apart. Once the town found out that I was losing the property to Amboy Bank, they began to rezone my property based on those parcels identified in MLS tax records as being in pre-foreclosure. rb zoning changes As you can see the original map only covers the 3 lots in pre-foreclosure (2 tax records 3 lots), then a few months later they decided to re-zone my entire property which covered 8 parcels of land. I gave the property back to Amboy Bank in February or March of 2009 at around the same time that the town started working on the zoning change. You can even see how the map lines were an after thought You also notice that the original natural boundry would have been west of West Street and this group of properties are the only ones on the east side of West Street. The new transit village zone raised the allowed density to 35 units per acre. There were several people involved with the town that had access to the tax records in mls and it is probably not a coincidence that the rezoning of the property was done in 2 stages and then ultimately approved for 57 units by Amboy Bank a year later.