Proposed zoning changes in the West End area of Long Branch are expected to bring new life to several properties and attract an influx of people to the eclectic neighborhood.
The changes were introduced by the City Council in an ordinance to amend the zoning in West End at a meeting on April 14.
The new zoning would permit mixeduse development that is now prohibited. addition, the amended rules would permit religious operations as conditional uses, and would relax parking requirements that have been an impediment for development proposals.
Mayor Adam Schneider said the changes could lead to the rebuilding of a Brighton Avenue block that was destroyed in a 2012 fire, and the conversion of the West End Elementary School into a performing arts theater.
In addition, the amendment could pave the way for a revised version of an application by the Chabad of the Shore to convert the long-vacant West End movie theater into a religious school and community center.
“I think it is well within the realm of possibility that two years from now you could have 20,000 or 30,000 people coming to shows, going out to dinner,” Schneider said.
He said potential patrons would also come from the Chabad house.
The Planning Board recommended a set of zoning changes at the March 17 meeting that would create a C-3 West End Overlay District and permit both institutional and residential uses on the second floor of retail buildings.
Schneider said one of the consistent concerns from West End business owners is that while they thrive in the summer, they struggle the rest of the year.
“Everything you hear about West End is great during the summer. College kids keep us afloat, but we need help,” Schneider said. “Now you [would] have new businesses on the empty lot, you [would] have the theater and the Chabad.” According to Schneider, the amendments reflect the current situation in West End.
“The zoning is supposed to reflect the reality of the area — a combination of what you want to be there, what’s actually there and where you want to be in the future,” he said.
The proposal would allow the New Jersey Repertory Co. to move forward without seeking a use variance in its effort to convert the West End Elementary School to a performing arts theater, a proposal announced earlier this year.
Under the zoning changes, the West End Elementary School site would be zoned for use as a visual and performing arts facility; as a school for specialty education including culinary, secretarial, computer training or cosmetology; or as professional offices.
Schneider said the theater would benefit the entire zone.
“You are getting an arts/entertainment use that fits in perfectly in West End,” he said. “You have people that are going to be coming in, going to the theater, going for dinner, going out for drinks and walking around.”
The overlay zone is a result of recommendations in the 2010 master plan.
Those changes were put on hold after an application by Chabad at the Shore was denied by the zoning board because the religious use was not permitted in the zone.
Menachem Learning Institute filed suit against the city and the Zoning Board of Adjustment after the application was rejected in 2013.
By allowing a religious operation as a conditional use, the zone change would likely eliminate the litigation. “By making the Chabad house a conditional use, now you can invest in the property, make it more than what it was and have a commercial use on a block that, frankly, everyone would concede has been very dingy over the last 20 years,” Schneider said.
Changes in the zoning would allow owners of the buildings, which housed the nine businesses and 14 apartment units that were destroyed in a 2012 fire, to rebuild without seeking a use variance.
The zoning changes would permit secondfloor apartment units above businesses in the zone, which the current ordinance does not allow.
“The apartments on the second floor, which exist on Brighton and some of the buildings on Ocean Avenue, are not permitted uses,” Schneider said. “Some of the buildings that will be a part of the Chabad application will have apartments above them.
“The second-floor, mixed-use arrangement was something we found very successful.”
The West End neighborhood extends from West End Avenue to the north, West End Court to the south, the NJ Transit railroad tracks to the west and Ocean Avenue to the east.
The zoning amendment also relaxes some of the regulations on parking. Schneider said part of the application process for the vacant movie theater would involve negotiations with the Chabad to provide public and quasipublic parking.
“There has to be more spaces than would be needed [by the Chabad], so there is public parking,” Schneider said.