MANALAPAN – An application that proposed the construction of an aerial adventure park has been denied by the Manalapan Zoning Board of Adjustment.
No one who spoke during the board’s Oct. 5 public hearing took issue with the proposed use, which was to construct a Boundless Adventure facility on property owned by the Monmouth Council, Boy Scouts of America.
However, residents and zoning board members expressed significant concerns with the applicant’s plan to have guests of the facility park at a farm on Daum Road and be transported by a shuttle to the aerial adventure park at the Boy Scouts property on Iron Ore Road near LaValley Drive.
Issues associated with the logistics of the parking plan and an increase in traffic on Daum Road led the board, after the applicant’s testimony had been presented and residents had spoken, to make a motion to deny the application.
Board Chairman Stephen Leviton and board members Barry Fisher, Larry Cooper, Mary Anne Byan, Eve Strauss and Terry Rosenthal voted yes on the motion to deny the application. Board member Mollie Kamen voted no on the motion to deny the application.
Residents of Daum Road, Iron Ore Road and LaValley Drive who packed the meeting room at the municipal building applauded the board’s vote to deny the application, although none of the residents who asked questions of the applicant’s professionals or offered an opinion about the plan objected to the construction of the aerial adventure park itself.
Attorney Sal Alfieri, representing the applicant, said the Monmouth Council, Boy Scouts of America, which operates the Quail Hill Scout Reservation on LaValley Drive, was planning to lease property on Iron Ore Road to Boundless Adventure Inc. for the operation of an aerial adventure park.
The applicant was seeking preliminary and final major site plan approval and a use variance from the board.
Commercial recreation facilities (i.e., Boundless Adventure Inc.) are not a permitted use in the Rural Agricultural zone where the aerial adventure park was proposed, according to planner Marcia Shiffman, who testified on behalf of the applicant. That is why a use variance was being sought.
Recreational uses are a conditional use in the Rural Agricultural zone if they are proposed by a nonprofit entity, she said.
Parking for the aerial adventure park – with an operating season from April through November – was proposed to be available at the Anne Ellen tree farm, 110 Daum Road, about 1 mile from the Iron Ore Road site.
Testimony offered by professionals representing the applicant indicated that everyone visiting the aerial adventure park would do so by making a reservation and would be issued a parking pass for the Daum Road location.
Testimony indicated that six parking passes would be issued for every 15 minutes – or 24 parking passes per hour – during daily operation. After parking at the tree farm, the guests would be transported by shuttle to the aerial adventure park on Iron Ore Road.
The applicant’s representatives testified that environmental constraints on the Boy Scouts’ property on Iron Ore Road prevent parking at that location and led to the proposal for parking at the tree farm parking lot on Daum Road.
The tree farm operates from late November through Christmas and would not have conflicted with the operating season of the aerial adventure park, according to the testimony.
Residents who spoke near the end of the three-hour meeting said this area of Manalapan is rural and they expressed concern about an influx of vehicles from guests of the aerial adventure park.
Resident Rex Lazewski said “traffic flow is a mess” and cited the number of vehicles heading to and from Raceway Park on Pension Road in Old Bridge, the Englishtown Auction Sales on Englishtown-Old Bridge Road in Manalapan and farms in the vicinity that host special events and draw large crowds.
Resident Benjamin Levy, who identified himself as an Eagle Scout, said, “I heard no one objecting to the (aerial adventure park). Everyone in the audience is telling you one thing (traffic concerns) and the applicant is telling you another. I am all for activity, but not to the detriment of people who have been living there.”
The zoning board members generally agreed with the residents who expressed concern about the parking aspect of the application.
Kamen expressed a different viewpoint about the Daum Road parking site. She said the location would be a “controlled environment” with a regulated number of guests who had made a reservation to visit the aerial adventure park.
Kamen said the parking aspect of the Boundless Adventure application was not similar to a theme park that does not take any measures to regulate the number of vehicles that visit the facility on a daily basis.
Board members asked questions about several aspects of the aerial adventure park site itself – security, first aid services, a temporary unit that would serve as rest rooms, details about the access drive from Iron Ore Road – but they did not specifically object to the proposal for such a facility to be constructed and operated in this area of Manalapan.
A website promoting Boundless Adventure stated that it would be “for anyone looking for an aerial adventure park experience. Maneuver through nature in a range of obstacle courses that offer exhilarating activities such as extreme tree climbing, ziplining and bridge traversing.”