Claim is that Twin Brook application was falsified to increase building density
BY ELAINE VAN DEVELDE
Staff Writer
TINTON FALLS — One plan for an active adult community in the borough is dead in the water because its developer had designs on filling off-limit wetlands with homes.
The state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has fined developer Twin Brook Village LLC (aka Nutmeg Development, Tinton Falls) and two land consultants associated with the proposed 156-unit Twin Brook Village age-restricted community, $738,000 for falsifying information in the freshwater wetland permit application that had to be submitted to the state before proceeding with building plans.
Twin Brook’s development plans were withdrawn on March 23 after the DEP in February “issued a notice of violation to each respondent for failing to identify in the application all features, which would
be relevant to determining compliance with the Freshwater Wetlands Protection Act,” DEP spokeswoman Erin Phalon said.
Despite the fact that the application was pulled, Phalon said that the allegation that the developer ignored the wetlands delineation on the property to profit by building over sensitive land stands, and so do the fines assessed for the violations.
“Although, the respondents [those accused of the violations] may request a hearing to appeal DEP’s penalty assessment within 20 days,” she said.
Specifically, Phalon said the Twin Brook wetlands waiver application failed to identify approximately 107,000 square feet of “obvious freshwater wetlands, freshwater wetland transition areas, and state open waters on the site of the proposed development. The permit application proposed the construction of parking lots, roads and condominiums within protected natural resource areas such as a 5,000-square-foot pond and extensive freshwater wetlands.”
One engineering consultant fined in association with the project was Gregory Blash, who is now the borough’s engineer.
At the time, Blash was working on behalf of the developer as the representative of Gregory S. Blash & Associates, Air, Land and Sea Environmental Management Services Inc.
He and Twin Brooks Village LLC submitted an application for a letter of interpretation and freshwater wetland transition area waiver in November 2004, according to DEP records.
Also fined was the project’s surveyor, John P. Houwen of B&B Hi-Tech Solutions Inc. Houwen will have to pay $41,000 for failing to identify pertinent onsite freshwater wetlands and state open waters, according to DEP records.
Twin Brook representatives did not return calls seeking comment.
Mayor Ann McNamara said that borough representatives “cannot comment on the Twin Brook issue because it is currently under judicial review.”
However, in a previous interview concerning the developer pulling the application, McNamara claimed that the DEP had not provided the necessary maps to the developer so that wetlands could be excluded from the proposed development.
“The developer never had the maps supplied to them by DEP, so they didn’t know,” Mayor Ann McNamara had said. “So that changed the density allowed and they opted out of it. It ended up being an issue between the developer and the land owner. I suppose it wouldn’t have been lucrative enough for them.”
Zoning on that tract was in place for active adult housing at a density of 3.2 units per acre.
Mayor-elect Peter Maclearie countered that the problem could have been avoided.
He alleged that right from the start, Blash had a conflict of interest, because by the time the application was submitted by Twin Brook, he had become the borough’s engineer, after replacing John Chmielowick, who had died in a car accident.
Blash and McNamara have said that there was no conflict because Blash was not working for the borough at the onset of the application process.