BY SHERRY CONOHAN
Staff Writer
WEST LONG BRANCH — The planner for a couple opposing the construction of a Monmouth University residence hall told the Planning Board this week there are four other locations on campus better suited for the dormitory.
Victor Furmanec, a professional planner, told the Zoning Board of Adjustment on Oct. 28 that three of the sites he was proposing were in the institutional zone, for which a use variance would not be needed, whereas one is needed for the site at the corner of Cedar and Pinewood Avenues, which lies in a residential zone.
His clients, Joseph and Pam Hughes, live on Pinewood Avenue.
Wendell Smith, attorney for Monmouth University, retorted that three of the sites proposed by Furmanec were presently used as sports fields and the fourth was an historic site.
Furmanec said the proposal before the board was inconsistent with the borough’s master plan and detrimental to it. He said there is no apparent hardship to justify locating the dorm at Cedar and Pinewood and that it would create the noise and traffic the Hughes’ fear.
Furmanec used an aerial photograph of the campus in his testimony. The sites in the institutional zone that he proposed were just north of the baseball field off Larchwood Avenue, which Smith said is used as the football practice field; the south end of the Great Lawn, which Smith said is used for soccer fields, and in front of the Guggenheim Library on the north side of Cedar Avenue between the two Norwood Avenues, which is an historic site with a reflection pond. The fourth site he proposed is north of the football field off Larchwood Avenue, in a residential zone, which is used as a field hockey field.
In addition to a 196-bed dormitory, the proposed development includes expansion of a parking lot behind the dormitory complex by about 150 spaces, construction of six tennis courts with a small parking lot and moving a detention basin.
Under direct questioning by the Hughes attorney, James Siciliano, Furmanec said the university would be considered an inherently beneficial use, one of the criteria for granting needed variances for the project, but the development proposed was for ancillary uses and not covered.
The alternate sites he was proposing could accommodate the development without variances, he said.
The hearing got off to a slow start as the result of a challenge to the eligibility of the board members hearing the case by Jason Harkavy, of Hollywood Avenue.
Harkavy demanded to know how many of the board members attended Monmouth University and suggested that created a conflict of interest on their part. Board attorney Thomas Klein said those who had gone to school at Monmouth were Miller, Robert Springman, Susan Juliano and Rocco Christopher, the chairman.
Asked by Siciliano if any of them had contributed to Monmouth University, Christopher said no, Juliano said she hadn’t since taking her seat on the zoning board, and Miller said he had. Springman was absent from the meeting.
The hearing was postponed to an indefinite date. Siciliano said he still plans to present a professional engineer and a traffic enginee at the next hearing, plus several residents from the area.