MARLBORO — The Monmouth County Planning Board has yet to schedule public hearings on the proposed relocation of an existing concrete recycling facility and the expansion of another concrete storage and distribution facility, both on Amboy Road.
Both operations, which have received approval from the county’s Solid Waste Advisory Council (SWAC), must be scheduled for a public hearing at a Monmouth County Board of Freeholders meeting, according to Larry Zaayenga, the county’s solid waste coordinator and SWAC secretary.
One issue is the proposed relocation of the Lucas Brothers Inc. concrete recycling facility, presently located on a 7-acre site on Amboy Road, near Texas Road, to a 10-acre parcel of land owned by Lucas Brothers on Amboy Road near Tennent Road.
The other operation, Gold Star Paving, which is presently running a concrete storage and distribution operation on Amboy Road near Route 18, is seeking to expand its operation to include concrete crushing at the site.
The Lucas Brothers application has drawn objections from a nearby resident, Alexander Ingham, Tennent Road, and a homeowners group from Triangle Estates, a residential development in proximity to the proposed new site.
"The proposed new location is a quarter-mile from my house and even closer to my neighbors on the north side of Tennent Road," Ingham wrote in a letter to SWAC in April. "The proposal to move such a facility, with its noise, dust and heavy truck traffic, further away from the Millponds and the new Bellemont housing developments is a good one, but not at the risk of imposing these hardships on a neighborhood, mine, that has been in existence for more than 100 years."
According to Ingham, who said he visited the present Lucas Brothers site after learning of plans to relocate that facility to Commercial Court, a light industrial park off Tennent and Amboy roads, he remains unconvinced that Lucas Brothers will adhere to certain conditions imposed on them when they received Planning Board approval in 1991 to construct the industrial park.
Ingham appealed the Planning Board decision and subsequently lost his case in Superior Court in 1994.
Marlboro Councilwoman Mary Singer said she views the proposed relocation of the Lucas Brothers facility to the industrial park site as a "positive move" for the township.
"I would prefer that they move away from development areas and be located in a space further removed and more isolated," Singer said. "This is a better spot for their facility."
Singer, who started attending SWAC meetings in January after learning of the Gold Star Paving application to expand its concrete recycling facility to include concrete crushing, said she is concerned about the impact that expanded facility would have on neighboring residential developments.
"The township is objecting to the expansion of the concrete crushing operation which will have an impact on surrounding developments and roads, due to noise and increased heavy truck traffic in and out of the facility," Singer said. "It’s a quality of life issue that we’re addressing as objectors to this application, which must receive approval from the freeholders."
Singer said she believes it is unfair for Marlboro residents to have to deal with a third concrete crushing operation in the municipality.
"We already have Lucas Brothers and the Manzo operation (Route 34) in our township that do concrete crushing," she said. "If we add the Gold Star application, that would give Marlboro three of the nine concrete crushing facilities in Monmouth County. We don’t need to support one-third of the county’s concrete crushing operations in our community."
According to Sid Leveson, Marlboro’s recycling coordinator and a SWAC member, the town’s objection to the expanded operation at Gold Star is based entirely on the impact of noise, increased truck traffic and dust on neighbors in proximity to the site.
"We’re not objecting to their current operation, which is storage and distribution, just to the concrete crushing plans," Leveson said. "They’ve made certain concessions and changes in their plans, but we’re still objecting to their application before the Monmouth County Planning Board."
Some of the concessions made by Gold Star in an attempt to address the town’s concerns include reducing daily concrete crushing tonnage from 300 to 200 tons and limiting hours of operation to Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. instead of six days a week as previously planned.
"Gold Star has agreed to schedule truck trips outside of the hours that school buses would be traveling Tennent Road," Leveson said. "They’ve also agreed to a number of noise abatement measures recommended by the township engineer that would reduce noise levels near surrounding developments."
According to Leveson, all truck traffic would exit onto Tennent Road, reducing truck volume on Amboy Road in the process.
Singer, who resides in the Alexander Woods development near Tennent Road and Route 520, less than 3,000 feet from the Gold Star facility, said she is opposed to the expanded operations there due to the site’s proximity to a planned early childhood learning center to be built by the Marlboro School District on Harbor Road near Tennent Road.
Leveson, who recused himself from the SWAC hearings and voting on this application since he was representing Marlboro as an objector, said SWAC approved the Lucas Brothers and Gold Star applications separately and now both must be scheduled for public hearings before the county freeholders.
"If these applications are to gain approval at the freeholders level, they must be included in the county’s solid waste plan and submitted to the state Department of Environmental Protection as a final approval," Leveson said.
Zaayenga told the News Transcript last week that no dates have been set for the public hearings on the two applications.
"The Lucas Brothers application will be heard before the freeholders first," he said. "The Gold Star application is further out for a public hearing."

