Crossing Paths in Red Bank Approvals

The Federal Election Commission fined Amboy Bank and its CEO George Scharpf in 2003 for campaign donation violations. George Scharpf and Amboy Bank had a very close relationship with former Governor McGreevey and former NJ State Senator John Lynch.  Lynch was sent to jail for fraud along with Red Bank resident Jack Westlake. Here is an excerpt from the book The Jersey Sting related to Amboy Bank. John Lynch was a major supporter of former Red Bank Mayor Ed McKenna. Here is an excerpt from an article in the bayshore courier news from a few years ago. Also, a 2000 race for the Monmouth County Democratic chairmanship pitted Red Bank Mayor Ed McKenna against Scudiery. McKenna received $5,000 from the New Directions PAC for the ultimately unsuccessful attempt. Lynch’s PAC has continued to support McKenna’s role as a Democratic leader in Monmouth County, contributing $9,700 to the Red Bank Democratic Party and $2,500 to the Monmouth County Council of Democrat Leaders PAC, a committee McKenna is affiliated with, since 2002. Below is a link to  a campaign donation list for John Lynch’s New Directions PAC from 2002. The list is very lengthy and includes an executive with Amboy Bank and the McKenna Law Firm.

new directions pac 2002

 Is this possible Lynch connection more than a coincidence and could the idea of a Red Bank Transit Village come from Lynch.  Ed McKenna has been supporting Amboy Bank to obtain higher than allowed density at the property located at Monmouth/West/Oakland Streets in Red Bank. Next week Amboy Bank goes before the zoning board to subdivide the affordable housing from the market units. Ed McKenna has a non-profit affordable housing corporation and is just finishing the cedar crossings project.  The zoning was changed while Amboy Bank was in the process of foreclosing on the property formerly owned by George Coffenberg. Arguments by the borough engineer against the Coffenberg development was that it was too dense even though it followed the existing zoning laws. If they did not like 16 units per acre why would they change the zoning to 35 units per acre a year later? If you look at the original Coffenberg Courtyard approval process and compare what happened after Coffenberg gave the property back to Amboy Bank you will notice different treatments of the same property.  Ed McKenna was appointed to the Red Bank Rivercenter at the same time that an approval by the zoning board was received to allow Amboy Bank to not follow the required special district zoning promoting street level retail from the train station to Broad Street.  Amboy Bank also funded around $1 million in repairs to the 51 Monmouth Street Red Bank property which was the former Red Bank Police Station sold to Ed McKenna’s Kid’s Bridge charity for $1. Amboy Bank located at 36 Monmouth Street was listed as the address to make donations on behalf of the charity. The former police station building was transferred a year later to the Red Bank YMCA and now the Red Bank YMCA is selling the property to Red Bank Catholic for over $1 million. Interestingly enough is that George Scharpf CEO of Amboy Bank was in charge of the planned capital campaign to fund a new YMCA in Old Bridge which would be under the control of the Red Bank YMCA.   Red Bank’s borough engineer, T & M of Middletown, was also the engineer for the YMCA project in Old Bridge. Even though Ed McKenna is no longer the Mayor of Red Bank he seems to have a lot of involvement in the way the town is run. Here he is celebrating last November’s election

After he wrote the last figures from the local districts on a running tally board, former Mayor Ed McKenna, who frequently taunts his opponents, jabbed his middle finger into the air. In a surprise move a week before the hearing to subdivide the affordable housing units from the market units, the Red Bank Council without the Mayor met in closed session to create a developers agreement for the affordable housing so that GS Realty which is part of Amboy bank can subdivide the land and obtain easier financing. It would seem a bank that owns all of the land would not need to subdivide the land nor find financing.

Is it one building, two buildings, a structure, or five buildings?

The property at the corners of Monmouth, West, and Oakland streets had 8 building lots. I wanted to have the buildings close together to avoid dangerous alley ways and maintain the urban feel of any city shopping district. By only creating 5 buildings when we could have created 8 buildings, we did not feel that we were in violation of the zoning requirements for the BR-1 and BR-2 zones. (the br-1 zone can be found starting on page 2072 and the br-2 zone can be found starting on page 3022) I only asked for 20 condos over retail when technically I could have asked for 32 condos over retail. The reason for the lower amount of buildings and units was for access to the on-site parking and lessen the impact on the neighborhood. Our original plan would have created a lot of underground parking and avoided a parking variance. The borough officials would not allow the buildings or parking structure to touch, otherwise they would consider it one building and thus you could only have 4 condos over retail and then the project does not make financial sense to build. Various documents disputing Red BankIn the code book link above for the br-1 zone and br-2 zone the town has towards the beginning of the document,  the definitions of what a building is which goes against their argument that the parking garage was a building.

Coffenberg Designs a New Plan

Inorder to follow the newly created River Center Special Business Zone guidelines of creating residential units above street level retail, I eliminated the original BLT project in an attempt to honor the town’s wishes. After some back and forth adjustments to the plan, we created a plan that met the zoning requirements and would therefore be heard by the planning board. The planning board  listens to C variances which in this case was related to some setback issues. We also created a plan that did not require a parking variance. The town representatives did not like that the buildings were close together but it would only create a C variance for the distance between buildings variance where 15 feet are required and I was only providing 1 inch. The town representatives said that is there is only a 1 inch separation, between buildings you only have one building. I am not aware of any buildings that do not touch that are considered one building nor do the building codes.

Original Plan to follow River Center

Revised plan to follow River Center

buildings over garage

The definition of a building is that it is to provide shelter to humans. and a parking structure can never be considered a building as it cannot be used for continuous human occupancy. The town respresentatives then claimed that an underground parking structure was a building and since the above grade buildings sat on top of the parking structure they claimed it to all be one building which goes against their own building code regulations as they follow the International Building Code which follows the above definitions. My professionals began to argue these various points. We eventually had to eliminate the parking under the buildings to move  the project forward and thus created a small parking variance.

Red Bank goes to Court

In December of 2006 a court hearing took place at the Monmouth County Court House before Judge Lawson. Here is part of the transcripts and attorney letters related to the property located at the corner of Monmouth St and West St in Red Bank, NJ

rb judge lawson-kevin kennedy