PROPOSAL: Called for 2,531-home development
PLANNING BOARD CHAIRMAN: Appeal likely
Board shoots down Jackson Mews plan
Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 09/18/07
BY FRAIDY REISS
TOMS RIVER BUREAU
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JACKSON — Engineers and experts did not have a chance to testify before the Planning Board before the panel gave its answer Monday night to a developer who wants to build 2,531 homes.
"No."
Members of the public cheered loudly after the board unanimously denied the Jackson Mews proposal, which is one of the largest developments being proposed in New Jersey by a single developer. However, board Chairman Kenneth Bressi later acknowledged that the developer probably will appeal the decision in Superior Court.
"The odds are we're going to hear it again someday," Bressi said.
Developer Mitch Leigh, a New York City resident who composed the music for the play "Man of La Mancha," could not be reached for comment. Tom Bovino, the manager of Leigh Realty, Leigh's firm, declined to comment.
The board unanimously denied the application after arguing with Leigh's attorney, Raymond F. Shea Jr., over whether the application required a density variance — permission to exceed the limit on units per acre — and if so whether the matter should go before the Zoning Board of Adjustment.
Last month attorney Dennis Kelly, filling in for Shea, promised the board that Leigh's experts would submit calculations about net density — units per acre — by Sept. 10. The figures were not submitted. Instead, Shea declared Monday night that experts would provide oral testimony proving no variances are required.
However, board members insisted they wanted the numbers in writing. They asked Shea to give them more time to decide on the application so he could provide the numbers and their experts could review them.
When Shea refused to grant the time extension, the board was forced to decide on the proposal immediately, because of the deadline by which it must rule on the application, without having heard any experts testify. Not a single member hesitated before voting "no."
Still, Beth Duke of Whites-ville Road, who attended the meeting, said she was not yet celebrating the demise of Jackson Mews.
"I feel that (Leigh) is going to go to court," said Duke, 36. "I'm not so sure it's a real victory yet."
Planning Board member Blanche Krubner was more optimistic. Even if Leigh appeals, she said, Jackson now has more time to ask the state to designate the proposed site of Jackson Mews as an environmentally sensitive area where only "extremely limited housing" is allowed.
Jackson Mews calls for 1,332 townhouses, 790 condominium units, 25 single-family homes and 384 affordable-housing rental units.
All told, the project would have added more than 8,500 people to a town whose estimated population last year was just more than 52,000. The Sierra Club has said it is one of the largest development proposals in the state.
The proposed size of the project concerned some residents who feared Jackson Mews would tie up traffic and lead to overcrowding in local schools.
And the proposed location — on 610.5 acres off Routes 526 and 527 at the headwaters of the Toms River and of the south branch of the Metedeconk — outraged environmentalists, who pointed out that the Metedeconk is the primary source of water for the Brick reservoir. More than 100,000 people in Brick, Point Pleasant, Point Pleasant Beach and Howell get their drinking water from that reservoir, Brick officials have said. |
