Cartoon based on candid photograph by Blogfinger on 7/27/16. . Sue Gioulis cartoonist. Brantley is once again Mayor of Neptune—–the town, not the planet.
John-Yves Thibaudet “The Secret Life of Daydreams” from the movie Pride and Prejudice.
North End developers, stalling since 2007, given another year to plot their project in secret. Details kept under wraps–as usual.
February 25, 2022 by Blogfinger
We are posting this email comment for Doubting Thomas:
“If you ever saw the TV series “The Wire” (2002) you would have seen a run-down community in Baltimore where crime, murders, drugs and poverty prevail. No one would want to live there or invest in improvements. That is a true representation of “an area in need of re-development.”
“The OG North End could have been developed profitably years ago by sticking to the pre-existing single family zoning. We could have had a beautiful historic neighborhood.
“But greed prevailed, and soon we will have Asbury Park South and a fundamental change for the worst in our town.
“There is still an opportunity for an investigation by the State.”
At Blogfinger we have been following this situation since 2007 when the CMA conspired with developers (“WAVE”) to cancel the existing single family zoning and replace it with an illegal and more profitable designation of “an area in need of redevelopment.”
That designation should have been cancelled years ago due to failure to implement. Zoning should now have have reverted back to the original plan which was in compliance with the Historic District Master Plan.
Now these “developers” have been given yet another year to fiddle around with the North End. Once again secrecy prevails, and there is no transparency for this “public plan.”
And we still don’t know who the investors are who are associated with OGNED.
This is a disgrace–a failure of government to do what’s best for we the people.
The delay in development actually goes back to 1977 when the North End was described as a “severely blighted area.” There was a plan at that time to build a senior housing project to be called “Aldersgate.”
The debate then closely resembled that of the present day with critics calling it too large. Living at Aldersgate would come with a price and many were offended that this was higher than what they could afford.
“Developed as a life care community offering a combination of housing, domestic service, and lifetime health care, the project will include 272 studio and one- and two-bedroom apartments.”
The North End project should not have been given an extension for the simple reason that the Area in Need of Redevelopment was created in violation of law.
Equal protection under the MLUL requires “that persons similarly situated be treated equally.” And that “regulations in a zoning ordinance shall be uniform throughout each district.”
Because the whole of OG is owned by the OGCMA, and because all of its 99 year leases are held in perpetuity and can never be changed, then every lot must by law be held to single family use.
The MLUL also requires that “the regulations in the zoning ordinance shall be uniform throughout each district.” In other words, all of OG must be zoned only for single family.
This then establishes that the Area in Need of Redevelopment should never have been permitted except for single family housing because both State and Federal law demands that all of OG be zoned equally.
Before the OGCMA is permitted to build houses, it must prove through a legal parking study, that it met all its parking requirements for each and every building and use in its development. This was never done.
Neither the OGCMA nor the Township of Neptune met the requirements demanded by the MLUL to create the Area in Need of Redevelopment for the North End and therefore it was not deserving of an extension.
Editor’s Note: Thanks Kevin. You, I and Jack have been making these points for years and never finding any support for our complaints. Unless some authorities in Trenton look at this, or Brantley and his Gang of Four develop a conscience, nothing will be done.
In all these years (since 2009) only one Committeeman ever responded to Blogfinger, and that was Mary Beth Jahn who opposed the North End Plan and soon was dumped by her own people: the Monmouth County Democrats.
Paul Goldfinger, writing from the Blogfinger Southern Command Post.