After failing to change the Red Bank Zoning Officials minds about having 5 separate buildings that had a 1 inch separation between them and had all of the permitted uses in the zone, I was forced to go before the Zoning Board of Red Bank to overturn the decision. rb zoning board decision july 2007 Just so everyone is clear, the variance I was seeking, and the one that the town disagreed on, was that you are required to provide a distance between buildings of 15 feet. This parcel is one of the largest in downtown Red Bank and had about 250 linear feet on Monmouth Street and approximately 200 feet on West Street as well as 100 feet on Oakland Street. The only thing that the distance between buildings could change is the width of the units whereby I had to shrink each unit by approximately 4 feet (15 feet distance shared by each building 7.5 feet per building shared by 2 units per floor for a little less than 4 feet per unit). The units could still remain basically the same size (roughly 200sqft smaller) with same bedroom counts. The density also remained the exact same with a loss of approximately 2,000 sqft of retail space. As you can see by reading the transcripts during the hearing, the board members identified that they were looking at 5 boxes and if each box represented a building they were looking at 5 buildings. Even Rich Kosenski of T & M Engineering stated that a person could look at my application and say that it is correct to assume that there are 5 buildings but that he did not like the idea of the buildings being so close to one another. Rich Kosenski also serves on the planning board so if he did not like the distance between the buildings, they were under no obligation to grant the variance. As stated previously, by keeping me in front of the zoning board would delay the approval process whereas the planning board did not have much in front of it and sometimes would not meet at all due to a lack of approval applications. We never stated that Red Bank had to grant this variance and as we later find out the variance is eliminated all together to allow the application proceed to the planning board. The voting took place and all of the zoning board members decided to support the Director of Zoning and Planning’s decision but did not give a real reason as to why the town was correct and my experts were wrong.
After losing the zoning board appeal due to the support of the Director of Zoning and Planning I eliminated the distance between buildings and still created the same 20 residential units above retail space in 5 buildings plus a detached below grade parking garage. The plans were submitted in August of 2007 and approved in October of 2007 to be heard by the Red Bank Planning Board. The meeting was scheduled for Dec 17, 2007 but a couple of days before the meeting, the Director of Zoning and Planning contacted my representatives to notify us that a meeting would not take place.rb letter to donna barr We were also told that there would not be a December 3, 2007 meeting but then read in Red Bank Green that a meeting had occured for a parking variance involving a restaurant in Red Bank. My hearing was then pushed back until January 2008. 
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