By CHRISTINE BARCIA
Staff Writer
FREEHOLD TOWNSHIP — A new planned adult community zone has been created with the adoption of an ordinance by the Township Committee.
The governing body’s approval of the ordinance will pave the way for an adult community to be proposed and constructed on land known as the Grossman tract.
The property is on the north side of Business Route 33 about a quarter-mile west of Route 9, in the vicinity of an entrance road to the Freehold Raceway Mall.
The ordinance also established requirements and regulations for on-site and/or off-tract affordable housing obligations.
The zoning of the Grossman tract has been changed from CMX-3 (corporate multi-use) to PAC-4 (planned adult community) on the 46-acre parcel.
For many years, a sign posted on Route 33 at the Grossman tract has indicated the site is approved for office buildings. No buildings have been constructed at the location.
“The ordinance will permit the construction of an adult community on Route 33. (The commercial zoning) would have resulted in significantly more traffic and congestion. Of equal importance, the builder will be installing a sewer line for this entire area of Freehold Township which until now did not have access to sewer,” Committeeman Thomas Cook said.
In other action on Dec. 22, the committee adopted an ordinance that will result in the township’s Zoning Board of Adjustment being merged into the Planning Board.
In a Nov. 3 referendum, voters authorized the Township Committee to take action to combine the two boards. The merger will take effect this month.
Municipal officials said a decrease in the number of applications coming before both boards is the reason for combining the panels. They said the move would produce cost savings.
Finally, the committee adopted an ordinance that designates an R-40 overlay zone on the north side of Dutch Lane Road at the site of the John L. Montgomery Care Center.
An overlay zone is a zoning district which is applied over one or more previously established zoning districts, establishing additional or stricter standards and criteria for covered properties in addition to those of the underlying zoning district, according to the American Planning Association.
The ordinance permits long-term-care and nursing home facilities licensed by the New Jersey Department of Health as a permitted development option in the R-40 Residential Zone in designated R-40 Overlay Zones on this 8-acre tract.
“This is a cleanup ordinance that made the Montgomery home property a permitted use,” Cook said.
The Montgomery nursing home was recently sold by Monmouth County to an entity that will take over the operation of the facility.