Mayor changes view and, with council, changes city

Says eminent domain necessary
for makeover

BY CHRISTINEVARNO
Staff Writer

Says eminent domain necessary
for makeover
BY CHRISTINEVARNO
Staff Writer


Long Branch Mayor Adam SchneiderLong Branch Mayor Adam Schneider

LONG BRANCH — Mayor Adam Schneider may have been anti-development in the early ’90s, but after 10 years of research and planning he said he is doing what is best for Long Branch by backing development now.

"You do change your mind," Schneider said. "If you don’t, you find yourself stuck in an uncomfortable position."

Today, 140 acres of city property is being redeveloped and approximately 100 of those acres are on the city’s shore line between Seaview and Bath avenues.

This was not a decision that was made overnight, Schneider said.

Schneider was directly elected to the city council at a special election in November 1989 and on July 1, 1990 he became the mayor of the city of Long Branch.

"I asked myself, does Long Branch need to change," Schneider said. "The answer was, Yes!"

"The oceanfront area was getting worse," he said in an interview. "The pier was falling apart, the water slide was not reopening and the quality of housing was getting worse."

The mayor said he was being politically attacked because nothing was happening.

Schneider said he did not support redevelopment plans in the late ’80s because to him, the plans did not make sense. He said the redevelopment areas that were being proposed were too small, there was a lack of local support and the economy was poor at the time.

"I was in opposition to what was going on then," he said.

He said he wanted to develop a plan to revitalize the city the right way.

In his first term as mayor, from 1990-994, he described his council as a dysfunctional group and said within four months, none of the council members got along.

"There was early discussion of beachfront development, but we didn’t agree on anything, so nothing changed," Schneider said.

In 1994, he was re-elected and was able to begin a redevelopment plan for the city because there was now a cohesive mayor and council. Four out of the five council members ran as a team headed by Schneider, with the exception of Dr. Mary Jane Celli.

"I wanted to see the business district rebuilt," he said. "Nothing was opening and things were closing. It was falling apart."

Schneider and the council members researched how the city had gotten to the point it was at and they studied what would be the best solution to bring the city back.

In 1995, Schneider saw the first proposal for a high-density housing plan for the oceanfront from the city’s planner, Pratap Talwar. He said he never thought he would like it, but he was sold on the idea when he saw the plan included narrowing Ocean Boulevard.

"The No. 1 criticism I got from people in town was that they hated Ocean Boulevard," Schneider said. "In some spots there are seven to eight lanes across. It is a highway separating the city."

The council took the plan and made it its job to convey the ideas to the public, according to Schneider. He said the plan was discussed at council meetings, at special meetings and at local schools and churches.

"At that point we needed to know what the public thought because it was going to be a big change for the city," Schneider said.

He said the City Council members tried their best to make themselves available to the community and keep residents involved with the redevelopment plans. He said the responses the council received from the public were positive and in support of the redevelopment plan.

"It [the redevelopment plan] was not meant to be a quick fix," Schneider said. "I said it would take 15 years [to complete]. I have five years to go."

The project would cost approximately $750 million and would consist of townhouses, condominiums, businesses, recreation and a new central road on the beachfront property. The use of eminent domain became a reality and construction began in 2000.

"If eminent domain wasn’t used, nothing would get done," Schneider said.

Three streets [Marine and Ocean Terraces and Seaview Avenue, known as MTOTSA] in the redevelopment zone designated as Beachfront North, phase II, remain, that are slated for eminent domain. Plans call for the properties to be bulldozed and replaced with townhouses and condominiums.

The neighborhood is the last piece of the project, and Schneider said the city is currently in contract with The Applied Cos., of Hoboken, and Matzel and Mumford Corp., a division of K. Hovnanian, based in Middletown, to develop the MTOTSA properties.

He said the MTOTSA area would be hard to rehabilitate if the plan submitted by the contract holders was unacceptable by the city standards and denied.

"They [MTOTSA] would have a lot of work to do [if the plan by Applied and Matzel and Mumford was denied]," Schneider said.

He said if the city didn’t use eminent domain, nothing would get done.

"It [eminent domain] should not be an absolute right," Schneider said. "You have to be cautious. It is an extreme power of government.

"These people have done nothing wrong," Schneider said. "They own a house and have done their best to maintain it."

Residents have attended council meetings and accused the mayor and council of taking their property to help developers line their pockets.

Schneider said that is a deliberate mis-characterization of what the city is doing.

"We are helping an entire city and rebuilding an entire chunk of the city," he said. "We never sought to help a developer. We are building parks, roads, homes and commercial areas and are in the process of accomplishing that goal."

Schneider said after years of researching and planning, the city is at a point that nobody ever imagined it would get to.

"If this [the redevelopment plan] was done any differently, it would have been a failure." Schneider said. "It is very successful because it was done the right way."