Former Eatontown councilman Theodore Lewis comments during the Jan. 28 Planning Board meeting on a development proposal for the site of the Old Orchard Country Club. KEITH HEUMILLER The newest set of proposed plans for the Old Orchard Country Club, off Monmouth Road in Eatontown, is already under fire before the developer has even filed an official application to build.
During an informal presentation and public forum held by the Eatontown Planning Board Jan. 28, professionals on behalf of developer National Realty & Development Corp. (NRDC) presented a preliminary concept plan for the 145-acre property.
The preliminary proposal, which would bring 175 active-adult units to the north end of the property and a 450,000-square-foot commercial complex to the southern end near Route 36, was roundly criticized by many of the nearly 100 residents in attendance during a public comment period at the end of the meeting.
One of the primary concerns raised was the size of the proposed commercial space, which residents said was unnecessary in a borough with a large mall and a significant retail and business corridor nearby.
“Eatontown, in my opinion, over the past 10 or 15 years is becoming a less desirable community, in part because we have been saturated with commercial properties,” said Brentwood Road resident Steve Cichetti.
Others brought up the recent or pending closures of area commercial properties, citing them as a sign that the borough’s business district couldn’t support and doesn’t need 450,000 square feet — or more than 10 acres — of additional space.
Christine Mazzaro Cofone, planning consultant for NRDC on the project, said the retail space would provide a significant financial boon to the borough.
“We project about $2.5 million of positive net fiscal impact to the borough,” she said, explaining that the projection factored in tax revenues from the commercial space, as well as costs to the borough related to the estimated 400 residents who would live in the 175 age-restricted units on the site.
She also said the commercial property was expected to create more than 650 jobs in Eatontown. The developer’s plans, according to Jerrold Bermingham, executive vice president of development and acquisitions for NRDC, would require changing the zoning on the site from a residential R-32 zone, which supports single-family homes, to a split zone allowing commercial property on the southern end and age-restricted housing to the north.
Former borough councilman and Planning Board member Theodore Lewis spoke about the proposed zone change during the public comment period, saying the developer needs to explain the reasoning behind the change more fully to the board.
“This property has always been zoned R- 32, forever. I think it becomes the burden of the applicant to explain why this would be a better zoning arrangement,” he said.
Planning Board member Mark Woloshin agreed, telling the NRDC professionals they need to justify the move to both the governing body — which would have to approve any zoning change — and the board before the developer could move ahead with the plans.
Lewis also attacked the proposed size of the single-story commercial facility, which he said would be bigger than two three-story department stores laid out flat across the property.
“While it makes sense to have commercial [property] along the highway, that’s way more than you need.”
Another major concern for many of the residents who packed Borough Hall on Jan. 28 was traffic, the possible congestion the added residential units and commercial space could bring to highways and side roads throughout the borough.
“For the people trying to get out of Red Fern, Holly Glenn, Princess, but also the Meadow Brook folks and Reynolds of course, this plan is not going to work,” said Red Fern Road resident John Sciarappa.
Henry Ney, traffic consultant for the NRDC project, walked residents through a sweeping plan for the redesign and augmentation of routes 36 and 71, which he said would not only mitigate the impact of the development, but actually improve traffic congestion on the highways and at the Motor Vehicle Commission facility next door.
The plans would bring an additional traffic signal and improve jughandles to the south end of the project on Route 36, where he said most of the increased traffic would be coming from and departing. The developer would also add lanes to the Route 71 intersection, he said, allowing for designated right and left turns in both directions.
A number of residents expressed displeasure with the project’s single ingress and egress lane for the residential development, however, which they said would lead to increased backups and wait times on Monmouth Road.
After the meeting, Bermingham, who said he expected the public reaction the professionals received after researching previous development proposals for the site, said he would take the residents’ concerns to heart and try to implement them into future plans.
“I got some good input as to the issues that I hear. I’ll have to huddle up with the people who work on this and see what they can do about making any changes that would effectively help the residents who live in the area,” he said.
“Clearly the people who live on the golf course don’t want any development, they want to look out at a golf course. I can appreciate that. There’s nothing I can do about that. But for changes and concessions to the plan, those are things we can look at doing.”
In 2009, developer Joseph Safdieh presented a high-density plan for the property that called for 700 housing units and a largescale commercial shopping center. That proposal was soundly rebuffed.
Following the Jan. 28 meeting, Woloshin explained to the crowd that some form of development may eventually replace the golf course.
“Residents have to understand. If somebody wants to purchase that property, right now they could build homes with not much problem,” he said, referring to the site’s current residential zoning.
“Unfortunately, obviously, nobody wants to run it as a golf course anymore.”
NRDC, according to the company’s website, has been in the development and sitemanagement business for 50 years. Based in New York, the company has developed more than 70 shopping centers and corporate business plazas, including Shrewsbury Plaza.