Before and After

It would be nice to understand why an application that was basically variance free and followed the recent River Center zoning requirements  would encounter as many difficulties as it did. Former Red Bank Council Member and Zoning Board member, Monmouth County Freeholder John Curley, may have shed some light on the subject as well as why certain projects are approved while others are not. Here is his quote from Red Bank Green Curley says he began to sour on the administration during his time on the zoning board. “It was, ‘yes, yes, yes’ right on around the table, and it was too simplified, too orchestrated,” he says. “And I knew who was getting the telephone calls, and who from, and told this was a ‘go’ deal or this was a ‘no’ deal.” He does not allege outright corruption, though. What is interesting about the Monmouth/West/Oakland Street property is that BLT had approvals for over 30 condos on a smaller site than mine as I acquired 1 additional lot that they were unable to buy yet they were concerned about the density of my project when they had approved a greater density for a smaller parcel previously. The density on the BLT project caused a lot of turmoil between the neighbors, the town and the developer. The BLT developers were also closely associated with the Red Bank Democratic Organization. Now after I lost the property to Amboy Bank the property was rezoned to 35 units per acre. The bank was able to obtain 57 units on the property without having to follow the Rivercenter plan of creating street level retail along Monmouth Street. Again it is interesting to note that my application was considered too dense yet as soon as I gave the property back to the bank they more than doubled the density for the property and then gave an approval for even more than the newly created 35 units per acre. This property is 1.25 acres so roughly 44 units would have conformed to the zone. The 57  units contain 12 affordable units in 1 building and 45 market  units in another building. Former Mayor and current Rivercenter member Ed McKenna has been very vocal in support for the project. He also is a member of the non-profit Red Bank Affordable Housing Corporation which received a 36 unit project from the town for $1 after the town obtained $2.4 million in grant money to acquire the land. Another one of his non-profit organizations, the now defunct “Kids Bridge” aquired the former Red Bank Police Station for $1. The police station located at 51 Monmouth Street obtained over 1 million dollars from Amboy Bank for renovations after it was transferred by Kids Bridge to the YMCA. 51 monmoth tax record. Amboy Bank’s Red Bank location at 36 Monmouth
Street is also listed as an address for Kids Bridge.  In a recent court settlement, Red Bank has agreed to contribute $125,000 towards additional renovations to the building. This building is now being sold by the YMCA which took over Kids Bridge to Red Bank Catholic for over 1 million dollars. Amboy Bank is now scheduled for February 16, 2012 to subdivide the affordable housing building from the market value units. One would probably assume that 2 different developers will develop the Courtyards @ Monmouth Project.

Let’s Make him Follow a Law that Doesn’t Exist

 

By January 2008 I finally got to have a public hearing in front of the Red Bank Planning Board. It took nearly 1 year from when I applied to have this hearing. The application to be heard had just a few minor variances (parking which the town forced me into by not allowing me to park under the buildings, side setback, front setback and a distance from the corner for the driveway. It was probably one of the cleanest applications ever presented before the Red Bank planning and zoning boards. During the approval process the Council of Affordable Housing (COAH) was abolishted due to a court challenge. The town wanted me to abide by laws that did not exist which caused more delays with the approval process. My attorney and I agreed to abide by whatever laws existed at the time the project would be built. Finally the town agreed to this proposal and that at least 10% of the units would be affordable housing units. The approvals were further delayed because the town refused to write the approval resolution even though they told us it was being done. According to the town, they had trouble creating the language which would govern the affordable housing obligation. The resolution was finally done in May of 2008 over a year after the application was presented to the town.  

Not having a Meeting Tonight

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.

Appealing the Zoning Decision

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.

Red Bank Fund Raiser

In April of 2007 I was invited to a Red Bank Democratic Fund Raiser. Invitation to Red Bank Democratic Fund Raiser. This is where I met Rich Kosenski of T & M Engineering the Red Bank Borough Engineer. I was introduced to him by Mayor Menna to speak about my project going before the Red Bank Planning Board. Rich said “What’s your problem why won’t you just go to the zoning board?” I said I was concerned about the amount of projects before the zoning board which would delay the approval and that the monthly carrying costs were very expensive. He said with a laugh “I know it is”. He said he would see what he could do and also said “Why did you drop the original project (BLT) we would have approved that”.  BLT was a very controversal project with double  the amount of units permitted in the zone.  Danny Murphy and Pat Nulle were principals in the BLT project. I was told if I was approved by the zoning board for the old approval it could be again appealed in the courts as it exceeded the zoning density requirements. I had also been blocked by the town on the original rehearing and thought they wanted residential over retail as per Rivercenter requirements. It is also interesting to note that on the one hand he is telling me that they would re-approve a double density project but at the same time he was telling me that the new project was exceeding the density allowed and why they were concerned with the new plans. As we later find out what started out as the original 17 condos in one building became 20 condos in 5 buildings that conformed to the zoning requirements, so density was never really the issue. The most recent approvals now have 57 units in two buildings.