School’s expansion
said to be impairing
neighbors’ quality of life
BY SHERRY CONOHAN
Staff Writer
JEFF GRANIT staff Monmouth University boosters enjoy the pep rally and luau last week before the homecoming game Saturday. The Hawks beat Albany 10-7. Joining in the dancing, from left to right, are Jenny Sklar, 19; Jeff Humbert, 21; Natalie Curtis, 21; and Matt Soto, 21.
WEST LONG BRANCH — Monmouth University’s plan to build a new dormitory on Pinewood Avenue has two nearby residents questioning whether the school is a good neighbor.
The feedback prompted the university to move the location of the dorm, expected to house more than 200 students, from the middle of the block between Cedar and Beechwood avenues to the corner of Cedar, just south of Oakwood Hall.
Joseph Hughes, who lives on Pinewood Avenue and is president of the West Long Branch Coalition of Neighbors, said university officials advised the coalition that it had a plan in the works to move the drainage basin, now on the Pinewood Avenue site, over to Kilkare farm and put a dormitory in mid-block on Pinewood, across the street from his house.
Hughes said the university also wants to build a bank of six tennis courts on Kilkare farm.
Susan Doctorian, associate vice president for public affairs, and Patricia Swannack, vice president for administrative services, met with the coalition leaders Oct. 7, Hughes said.
Borough officials strongly objected a year ago when the university proposed a parking lot on the Kilkare Farm site, which lies in an R-22 residential zone, and the university dropped the plan. Borough officials said they wanted nothing but single-family homes on the site and they didn’t want the school to expand north of Beechwood.
Hughes said he was very concerned about the dormitory proposal. He said he and his wife are disturbed by a lot of noise now from the dormitories just down the street late at night, and his house would be within 100 feet of the proposed new dorm.
Hughes said on the night of Oct. 14 a wind storm knocked out the electricity at his house between 1 a.m. and 3 a.m. During that time, he said, they heard loud screaming and obscenities being shouted from Pinewood Hall which he believed were rooted in that building losing its power, too. He said he called the university police.
"Pinewood is 300 yards away," he said. "You can imagine what could happen with a dormitory less than 100 feet away."
The coalition is planning a meeting on the proposed dorm for Nov. 7 in the West Long Branch Public Library.
Petra Ludwig, a university spokeswoman, said school officials had reached out to the coalition.
"Monmouth University officials wanted to discuss with them firsthand the ideas being proposed for the new building and to get their input," said Ludwig. "As a result of the meeting with some of the officers from the coalition committee, Monmouth University decided to move the proposed residence hall location to the corner of Pinewood and Cedar Avenue."
Ludwig said the plans for the new dorm are not drawn yet, but it will house approximately 220 students.
"The residence hall is urgently needed for Monmouth to accommodate the students on the wait list for housing and at the Esplanade," she said. She said there are 150 students currently living in the Esplanade Hotel on Route 36.
Ludwig said the administration at Monmouth has submitted the proposal for the new dorm to the university’s board of trustees and is awaiting its approval.
James Flanagan, Lawrence Avenue, took his complaints against Monmouth University to the Borough Council’s Oct. 14 meeting. He cited not only plans for the new dorm but the borough’s high crime rate and the frequent fire alarm calls from the campus. He suggested there was too cozy a relationship between the university and the Zoning Board of Adjustment.
"It seems like every zoning variance they apply for, they get," he said.
Flanagan said the zoning practices in town are not carefully governed.
"To give you an example, it took me 10 months to get a recalcitrant neighbor to put up a fence around a swimming pool. That’s unconscionable," he said. "What I don’t get is how the college gets everything it wants in zoning."
Flanagan, a former borough councilman who served from 1974 to 1976, taught at Monmouth University in the 1970s and returned this fall to teach a graduate education course. He expressed concern about the quality of life for himself and other residents.
Flanagan said Police Chief John Demaree told him there is a two-fold reason for the borough’s high crime rate — the large commercial presence and Monmouth University.
"If that’s the explanation, who’s doing anything about it?" he asked.
As to the false fire alarms, he noted that when there is a false alarm at a private residence, if there’s a second one, the owner pays a fine. He said since the university has its own official police department, it would seem to him that something should be done to stop this.
The bottom line, Flanagan said, is he wants Monmouth University to be a good neighbor.
"I pay taxes, I participate in government, and I shouldn’t expect to be treated as a second-class entity as they expand," he said. "It’s not that I don’t want to have the college as a neighbor, but I want them to be a good neighbor. Their practices now are not as a good neighbor.
"Let’s retain the decent quality of life for us," he urged. "If the college is going to expand, meaning I have to move, or if I have to suffer from a high crime rate, that’s wrong, too."