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 Creates Special Business District

At the end of 2006 and beginning of 2007 Red Bank began to change their zoning ordinace to expand the Red Bank River Center over towards the westside of town including the train station area. Red Bank River Center is an agency that promotes business and the downtown in Red Bank, NJ. They are also responsible for making sure developers and businesses create a look that is in keeping with the shopping area.

rivercenter ordinance

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