Residents have one last chance on B&L plan

I would like to thank everyone who supported our neighborhood’s effort to scale back the size of Building & Land Technology condo/townhouse project. While unsuccessful in persuading the Zoning Board of Adjustment to consider a smaller project, light was shed on a few particular issues which arose over the last year of meetings.

Allowing this application’s bifurcation, whereby the density variance was heard separately from the site plan, was a mistake on the part of the board. However, not having an attorney and expert testimony during the density hearing on the part of the opposing residents also was a mistake. Unfortunately, if you don’t have an attorney and expert witnesses, this board will not properly consider your position, regardless if the zoning ordinance and zone plan support you.

The main reasons cited for allowing such a deviation from our ordinances were centered around the Red Bank Master Plan and a State of New Jersey program called the Transit Village Initiative.

The Transit Village Initiative is a "NJDOT and NJ TRANSIT multi-agency Smart Growth partnership" to help "redevelop and revitalize communities around transit facilities…thereby reducing reliance on the automobile." However, Red Bank has not achieved the "transit village" designation. When we do, the State of New Jersey will cut Red Bank a check for $200,000, like it has done for fourteen other municipalities in New Jersey. The reason we have not received this designation is because we do not yet meet the Transit Village Criteria. "A good candidate will have ‘ready-to-go’ projects. This means at least one transit-oriented project that can be completed within three years." This according to the NJDOT web site.

The BLT project is the one thing we lack in order to get the designation and the money associated with it. This program doesn’t interest itself in the concerns of the existing residents or the demographics of the borough. Rather, it is a "if you build it they will come" program, which will then claim to save farmland and open space. In reality, this program is being used to build luxury, upscale housing for the richest five percent of our citizens, and the state is rewarding this activity with grant money that will end up in the pockets of the same.

The board still needs to pass a resolution approving the site plan, and published it in the newspaper. Once that occurs, there is a forty-five day period in a which an appeal may be filed in Superior Court in Freehold. If you feel strongly that this project is too big for the site in question, will be a detriment to the existing neighborhood, and feel that board acted arbitrarily or capriciously in its decision, this is an option which should seriously be considered. The projects are going to keep coming now that a precedent has been set, and the developers always have deeper pockets than the residents. What to do?

Michael W. Reeps

Red Bank