BY JOHN DUNPHY
Staff Writer
A revised plan to bring a senior community to the site of the former Krome nightclub will be the focus of a meeting this month in the Morgan section of Sayreville.
The new plan lowers the number of residential units that would be built on the site at Route 35 and Old Spye Road, though not to the extent recommended by the Planning Board.
The board will discuss the plan at 7:30 p.m. April 20 at the Morgan Firehouse, the location chosen as part of an effort to give residents of that area a greater opportunity to voice their opinions.
In February, the Planning Board rejected a builder’s proposal to allow 264 units in an age-restricted community on the 31-acre site of Krome, formerly Club Bené.
At the February meeting, the board recommended to developer Zigga Roshanski, a partner in Continental Properties, Woodbridge, that his firm reduce the density to 144 units.
Roshanski recently submitted a revised plan that reduces the number of units to 198. The developer said this latest density is as low as he can go without the project becoming financially unfeasible.
“This is the bone. The meat is gone,” he said. “Obviously, the [fewer] units you build means the less value of the land. To devalue the property, [from 264 units to 144 units] is absolutely not attractive to the Beninato family or even to the builder.”
The Beninato family, the longtime owner of the nightclub, hopes to sell the land to Roshanski’s firm upon receiving approval of the development.
Debra Jackson, who has lived next to the former nightclub for 26 years, can recall earlier times, prior to the club beginning its controversial “teen nights” in recent years, when she said it was a pleasure to sit in her backyard on warm summer nights while performances were going on a stone’s throw away at Club Bené.
“The music didn’t shake your windows,” she said. “My family had been to shows there. It was nothing like what it had become.”
The Beninato family closed Krome in September following the fatal shooting of a Union Township man outside the club.
Since Krome closed, Jackson said the quality of life in the area has greatly improved.
“It has been like night and day,” she said. “I sleep better at night.”
In addition to the reduced number of units, the revised plan also addresses the Planning Board’s concern with the building height. The proposed senior apartment building has been reduced from four stories to three.
As for the density, Roshanski said he does not think he would be able to reduce the number of units any further, should the board ask for it.
“We cannot go lower for a lot of reasons,” he said.
Dr. John Misiewicz, chairman of the Planning Board, hopes residents will come out and offer feedback at the April 20 meeting.
“The Planning Board has made a decision on density,” he said. “The developer isn’t happy with the density. He wants the Planning Board to approve the increased density. [We] want the area neighbors to look at it and see what they think.”
Misiewicz could not say if the borough is risking the loss of the entire project if officials are unwilling to make a compromise on the number of units.
“I don’t know, I really don’t know,” he said.
For Jackson, however, there really is only one solution.
“If I had no choice, they could build almost anything, just so long as they rip that building down,” she said of the former club. “Obviously as a homeowner, the less traffic and a lesser amount of units will make for a nicer neighborhood.”