Lakewood developers continue to exploit the system and cram in families with no shul and playground.
Serious concerns with this situation - as well as concrete ways to fix it - were once again brought up to the attention of the Lakewood Township Committee at their monthly public meeting on Thursday.
The Committee simply returned yet another round of blank stares.
The Township Open Space Ordinance (18-808) states:
Not less than 5% of land area of every residential major subdivision or residential site plan consisting of 25 or more units shall be preserved as common open space or shall be dedicated to active recreational or community facilities...
For any project consisting of less than or equal to 30 dwelling units, it is recognized as impractical that recreational facilities be constructed and the payment in-lieu-of-construction is encouraged. For any project over 30 dwelling units the above recreation standards shall apply.
Essentially, the Ordinance requires common open space for land use applications with more 25 units, however, there is an allowance - in fact, an encouragement - for developers to make a payment in-lieu-of-construction for land use applications with 30 or less units.
The main issue with the way this Ordinance is worded is that certain developers have been exploiting this ordinance by, time and again, submitting piecemeal applications to the Planning Board for 24 units or less, just to get away from the Open Space requirement!
As previously reported here on FAA News, the Planning Board discussed this concerning issue back in April 2023 after a developer submitted numerous piecemeal applications with no provisions for any open space.
Board Chairman Moshe Neiman noted that unfortunately "one developer could be hiding behind many different LLC's."
Board Attorney John Jackson Esq. agreed that, due to the wording of the Township's ordinance, the Board did not have much leeway to require Open Space despite all the piecemeal applications. Mr. Jackson noted that, "depending on how one structures things, there is a difference between tax evasion and tax avoidance."
Mr. Neiman summed it all up by saying "at the end of the day, when there are 100 families with no shul and playground, the end users (i.e. the families living in the new homes) are the ones being fooled by the developers."
As previously reported here on FAA News, back in May 2023, the Board finally figured out how to tackle part of the problem by reinterpreting the Ordinance to count basement apartments as separate "units." As previously reported here on FAA News, due to this new interpretation, the Board was able to deny one application on Chestnut Street. As previously reported here on FAA News, Ocean County Superior Court Assignment Judge Francis Hodgson upheld the Board's new interpretation to count the basement apartments as separate "units."
However, as previously reported here on FAA News, the Board said their hands were tied in needing to approve yet a fifth piecemeal application - totalling at least 118 families - with no shul and no playground, all because the developer continues to exploit the Township's open space ordinance.
As previously reported here on FAA News, back in July 2023, following all of this exposure on FAA News of this concerning issue, a member of the public brought the concerns to Mayor Ray Coles and suggested the following amendments to the ordinance:
• The Ordinance provides that 5% of land area shall be preserved as "common open space or shall be dedicated to active recreational or community facilities." Some developers argue that this means they can leave open space but with no actual playground equipment. Therefore, this Ordinance should be amended to say that "5% of land area shall be preserved as common open space with active recreational or community facilities" - this will explicitly require actual playground equipment and /or shuls.
• The DEP rules for the CAFRA-zone in Lakewood require a CAFRA application in "a development... that would result, either solely or in conjunction with a previous development, in a residential development having 75 or more dwelling units."
The key words being "either solely or in conjunction with a previous development."
Perhaps the Township can borrow this same term regarding our Open Space Ordinance, meaning that 5% of land space should be required for land use applications which will result "either solely or in conjunction with a previous development" with more than 25 units. This will hopefully stop developers from sneaking away from providing playgrounds by submitting so many piecemeal applications.
• The "encouragement" for the payment in-lieu-of-construction for land use applications with 30 or less units should be eliminated. Our growing families require playgrounds.
At the time, Mayor Coles agreed with the concern and gave a preliminary enthusiastic response. Township Attorney Steven Secare Esq. added that it sounds like it could be a good idea. Mayor Coles then asked the Township manager to distribute the list of suggestions to each of the Committee members for their review.
One month later, in August 2023, the Committee was asked for an update.
Mayor Coles responded simply, "we have not started formal work on that yet, but it is something that is important to the committee as a whole."
The Committee was reminded tonight that it has been an entire year since they first received these suggestions - and since they gave a preliminary enthusiastic response to the matter - yet, we have still not seen any concrete work going on to fix the ordinance.
Mayor Coles and the Committee simply returned yet another round of blank looks.
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