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.

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.