Red Bank Affordable Housing Corp Docs

Here are a list of articles, ordinances and resolutions pertaining to the Red Bank Affordable Housing Corporation and their development project known as Cedar Crossings. The town purchased the property for around 2.4 million using a NJ grant. John Curley a Republican Councilman at the time and a current Monmouth County Freeholder questioned the purchase as well as Red Bank being brought up during the Operation Bid Rig FBI investigation. At last night’s Borough Council meeting, Republican John Curley brought up the Press story, and said he had “contacted the FBI to request a full investigation of these comments.”Curley then immediately segued into a reference to the borough’s $2.45 million purchase last February of property on which the Cedar Crossings affordable housing project is to be built. Curley said he had asked the FBI to investigate that as well.“I do not believe that deal was legal,” Curley said with rising anger.

The town then sold the property to Red Bank Affordable Housing Corporationfor $1 and leading the public to believe the Red Bank Housing Authority would develop the property. From Red Bank Green  Red Bank was the first town to apply for and obtain funds under the DCA’s Municipal Acquisition and Construction Program. Next: the Red Bank Housing Authority will kick into gear to oversee the construction, Menna said. he expects the agency to work with the federal Housing and Urban Development bureaucracy and others to pay for construction.

. Red Bank Affordable Housing Corporation then obtained Grant money as well as loans from Investors Savings, the NJ Mortgage and Finance Agency and the Federal Home Loan Bank of New York The loans and grants totaled $5 million to build (36) 1150sqft (on avg) townhomes to be sold at an average price of $115,000. This would have generated approximately  $4.2 million in sales. The estimated cost to build was $4.4 million which would be more than $100 per square foot and this was modular construction which usually costs less than $100 sqft to build. In either case there would be somewhere between $600,000 and $800,000 extra dollars then was needed to build the affordable housing units. I know that in 2006 when the property was agreed to be purchased, we were at the top of the market, but the market in Red Bank did not drop by approximately 50% over the past 5 years. The purchase was around 2.4 million for the land and now they are assessed for $30k per unit for the land which makes the land value $1,080,000. Here are the tax records for the units.Each of the 36 units were assessed the same. Non-Profit Corporations take money out in the form of fees. Here is a copy of the DeCotiis Law Firm charging the Red Bank Affordable Housing Corporation nearly $3,000 for legal work. in 2010. During 2009 the Decotiis firm charged nearly $5,000 to Red Bank Affordable Housing Corporation. Frank Borin of the DeCotiis Law Firm is a member of the Red Bank Affordable Housing Corporation.

rb_10-101resolution[1]

rb ordinance 2010-26

rb borough website for cedar crossings

rb fed home loan bank 400k grant

rb investors savings 1.1 loan

rb green article cedar crossing deal closes

rb green article cedar crossing plan breezes

rb green article cedar crossing work begins

rb green article barking mad

rb_10-182resolution[1]

rb10-37resolution[1]

Master Deed of Cedar Crossings rb iManage_1285186_1_1_

Cedar Crossing bylaws rb cedard crossing bylaws iManage_1285187_1_1_

Hub article on purchase of cedar crossing

Hub article on ground breaking at cedar crossing

William Katchen member of Red Bank Afffordable Housing Corporation

Tax information related to Red Bank Affordable Housing Corporation

Two River Times Article about approval at cedar crossings

Hub Newspaper Article on Creation of Red Bank Affordable Housing Corp

There are laws in NJ that govern the conduct of elected officials working in government.

52:13D-17. Post-employment restrictions

No State officer or employee or special State officer or employee, subsequent to the termination of his office or em-ployment in any State agency, shall represent, appear for, negotiate on behalf of, or provide information not generally available to members of the public or services to, or agree to represent, appear for, negotiate on behalf of, or provide information not generally available to members of the public or services to, whether by himself or through any partner-ship, firm or corporation in which he has an interest or through any partner, officer or employee thereof, any person or party other than the State in connection with any cause, proceeding, application or other matter with respect to which such State officer or employee or special State officer or employee shall have made any investigation, rendered any ruling, given any opinion, or been otherwise substantially and directly involved at any time during the course of his of-fice or employment.
Any person who willfully violates the provisions of this section is a disorderly person, and shall be subject to a fine not to exceed $ 1,000 or imprisonment not to exceed six months, or both.
In addition, for violations occurring after the effective date of P.L.2005, c.382, any former State officer or em-ployee or former special State officer or employee of a State agency in the Executive Branch found by the State Ethics Commission to have violated any of the provisions of this section shall be assessed a civil penalty of not less than $ 500 nor more than $ 10,000, which penalty may be collected in a summary proceeding pursuant to the “Penalty Enforcement Law of 1999,” P.L.1999, c.274 (C.2A:58-10 et seq.)

Example of Linden NJ Mayor violating ethics laws

League of Municipalities Ethic Violations

conflict land development cases

conflicts of interest with elected officials

Nj League of Municipalities Ethics Course

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.

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.

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.