Borough trying again to get Howard Commons

Tarantolo hopes to use vacated military complex to meet COAH obligation

BY SUE MORGAN Staff Writer

BY SUE MORGAN
Staff Writer

EATONTOWN – The plan to breathe new life into the mostly vacated Howard Commons military housing complex is back in play.

With the Borough Council’s permission, Mayor Gerald J. Tarantolo will soon be writing to Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army Joseph Whittaker about acquiring more than 200 of the 486 apartment units located off Hope Road on the perimeter of the Fort Monmouth property.

The borough’s letter to Whittaker will serve as an official notice of intent (NOI) to demonstrate Eatontown’s interest in taking the housing units via an economic benefit conveyance (EBC) between the municipal and the federal government entities, Tarantolo told the six-member council at its Nov. 9 workshop meeting.

A portion of the 231 apartment units that the borough hopes to convert into viable, civilian housing could later be used by the town to meet the third round of its state-mandated Council on Affordable Housing (COAH) obligation, Tarantolo went on.

“The letter would become part of the housing element plan that will be submitted to COAH,” he said.

A copy of the letter to Whittaker will also be submitted to Robert Lucky, chairman of the Fort Monmouth Economic Revitalization Authority (FMERPA), the public-private entity that Tarantolo serves upon as Eatontown’s sole representative.

About 165 of the units could be remodeled into a combination of market-rate and affordable units for the general population, while the remaining 56 could be turned into age-restricted housing, Tarantolo went on.

Howard Commons has been on the borough’s wish list for about six years with Tarantolo leading the charge to purchase the property from the military and put it back on municipal tax rolls.

A redevelopment blueprint for the reuse of the complex, once declared surplus by the military, has already been drawn up for the borough, Tarantolo said.

Howard Commons, located close to the borough’s border with Tinton Falls, takes up about 65 acres of Fort Monmouth’s total 1,126 acres.

With the fort due to be shuttered in September 2011 under the Pentagon’s Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) process, the nine voting FMERPA members are assigned to oversee future uses of the base once the military leaves it.

Howard Commons, has been largely vacant since 1991, Tarantolo has said.

In addition to the proposed affordable units at Howard Commons, the borough is also moving ahead with its proposal to add 81 units of COAH-approved housing at the proposed Meadowbrook II senior housing complex.

The board of trustees for the complex proposed off Wyckoff Road have been submitted to the borough’s Planning Board and are awaiting clearance for a public hearing, Tarantolo said.

The borough government is prepared to supplement the funding lined up to construct the new senior complex with $1.5 million collected from applicants receiving site plan approvals in town.

As a condition of the site plan approval, applicants for new construction must contribute to the municipality’s COAH fund.