ABERDEEN – The Cliffwood Boarding Home will remain operating as a residential health care facility at its location at 351 Myrtle St., according to boarding home attorney Jeffrey Gale.
Dr. Marshall and Rosemary Sherman, of Sea Bright, had initially sought approval to add on to the 17-bed facility last year.
That application was withdrawn in February. But the matter reappeared on a recent Zoning Board of Adjustment agenda.
“The application for the Shermans’ Cliffwood Boarding Home has been withdrawn,” Zoning Board Attorney Marc Leckstein said at the June 25 meeting. “Therefore, the application no longer exists.”
According to the agenda for the June 25 meeting, the only issue left for the boarding home was for the municipal court to decide if the facility could continue to operate as a licensed residential health care facility.
The facility currently operates as a pre-existing, nonconforming use, said Gale, of Hazlet.
According to Catie Moelius, deputy municipal court administrator, a complaint filed by the Zoning Office seeking information on the type of services the boarding house provides was dismissed on June 25.
“The Zoning Board excused their [the Shermans’] application with no prejudice,” said zoning officer Maxine Rescorl. “However, the matter can be brought back to court if it is found that the boarding home is not operating as it should.”
According to Rescorl, a summons was issued to the boarding home earlier this year after they failed to respond to inquiries as to how the facility operates.
Questions were previously raised at Zoning Board meetings as to exactly what kind of facility the Cliffwood Boarding Home is.
One of the objectors to the facility’s expansion was the Matawan-Aberdeen Regional School District. The Matawan-Aberdeen Middle School is located around the corner from the facility on Myrtle Avenue.
“I would have to reserve comment until I know more about the current matter,” Douglas Kovats, attorney for the district, said last week.
Kovats had stated in February that the school district felt a drug rehabilitation center was not appropriate near the school.
Gale clarified the main use of the facility in an interview in February.
“The Shermans do operate a drug treatment facility in another municipality,” Gale clarified. “I think the false assumption that the Aberdeen property is a drug treatment facility is a result of people connecting the Shermans with the other facility that does do drug treatment.”
Gale added in an interview last week that the facility had been improperly listed on several Web sites claiming drug rehabilitation was offered there.
“There is no counseling of any kind there,” Gale said last week.
According to Gale, former Cliffwood Boarding Home owner James Lawson, who had been a nurse at the former Marlboro Psychiatric State Hospital, ran the facility as a boarding home, but the definition of boarding home and residential health care facility now overlap.
Gale explained in February that the facility operates as a boarding home and does not offer any type of treatment, but the owners are required by law to monitor the health of the residents.
Rescorl stated that the Zoning Board had dropped the complaint because the Shermans had recently presented state licenses that proved that the facility is currently operated as it always has been.
“The Shermans have acquired records from the state as proof that the state had actually licensed the facility as a residential health care facility and that that is the nature of the boarding home right now,” Gale explained. “The town did not have any evidence that I am aware of that would have contradicted the facility as a pre-existing, nonconforming use. To the best of my knowledge, my client is going to run the facility as it has been run since 1963.”