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Athletic Center Still Wants To Call Howell Home
By Keith Hagarty
Despite several residents recently asking the Township Council for their support in keeping a large-scale athletic center off of FairfieldRoad, the applicant is hopeful Howell will still be a prime location.
Last December, the Township Zoning Board of Adjustment denied an application to build an indoor/outdoor multi-sport facility on FairfieldRoad. The builders of the project, known as the Monmouth Athletic Center (MAC), have since filed an appeal of the board's decision with the state Superior Court.
If the applicants, owners Bart and Timothy McInerney, win the appeal, they would still have to reappear before the board for site plan approval. A pre-trial conference for the appeal is scheduled for June 5.
"We've been very public in saying we'd be happy to sit down with the zoning board and resolve this," said T.J. Coan, managing director of the Monmouth Athletic Center (MAC). "We're not like a lot of developers who are contract-purchasers that can just say, 'okay, you know what, we spent $200,000, we can walk away, so forget Howell Township.' No, we're committed to Howell Township. We own the property and we're going to take this as far as it needs to go."
Of the total 45 acres on the site, approximately 28 acres is currently used as an active farm. The balance of the property consists of wetlands and woodlands.
Officials for MAC see the facility as a benefit to the thousands of student athletes throughout Howell, including those in the Freehold Regional High School District, who because of budget constraints have allegedly seen their athletic programs and services dwindling each year.
"If people want their kids to participate, then they come here after school and they can do their training and they can do their softball or whatever they need to do," said Coan. "We're actually creating something in a void that's been left behind by the boards of education … If Howell can't get a recreational use passed on a 45-acre piece of property 1,500 feet from a state highway, then a lot of developers aren't going to be coming."
Coan pointed to the much debated community center planned in Brick, which is estimated to cost upwards of $15 million to purchase the 13.34-acres of land and build athletic and recreation facilities. However, unlike Brick's plan, Coan said the MAC facility would not cost Howell's taxpayers a dime, and would actually provide a valuable revenue source for the town.
"We've spent $3.5 million on the property, and another $18 million to build the facility," said Coan. "That's not taxpayer money. Once the facility is open, we have to pay rollback taxes on the farm tax, and then we're estimating that the taxes are going to be upwards of $250,000 to $300,000 a year."
The only people who would be paying for the MAC facility, according to the applicant, would be the customers and clients who use it.
"We thought we got an incredibly fair shake from four of the board members because they digested the information, and we felt that the other three really did not listen to the record, but came in with preconceived notions," said Coan.
Coan, who attended all six hearings on the MAC application and testified before the board, said he was disappointed when the board voted to deny the application. The board's final vote was 4 to 3 in favor of the application; however fivevotes in favor were needed to approve the use variance.
"We really felt like we presented a meticulous case," said Coan. "We feel that our case will stand up in Superior Court based on our presentation."
The applicants took issue with the reasoning behind the three votes of denial, which focused on flooding, traffic and building the facility in the residential ARE-6 zone.
"There was testimony on the record (that the site) currently floods. It's going to flood even if we don't build, and we're going to size our basins when we come back (before the board) for site plan (approval) to accommodate the run-off from FairfieldRoad, so there will be no flooding conditions," he said.
In terms of the traffic impact caused by the athletic center, Coan said the board's own traffic engineer testified that the improvements offered by the applicant to create a right-hand turn lane from FairfieldRoad onto Route 33 East would actually reduce the wait time at the intersection's traffic light.
"Also, our widening of the road would improve the traffic flowon FairfieldRoad," said Coan. "He (the board member) disregarded his own expert's report to vote no."
As far as the second board member's vote to deny because of the site's location in the ARE-6 zone, Coan said that's only half the truth.
"The property is on a 45-acre piece of land, and for some reason, way back in history, the town drew a line through the middle of the property," he said. "So while the front half of the property can be SED (Special Economic Development Industrial), the back half is ARE-6. There's no way to access the ARE residential part unless you drive through the industrial part. Does that make sense to you? I mean, do you want to ride by a factory or a plant to get to your house on six acres behind it?"
The applicants point to an error in the initial zoning of the site which prompted the third board member to deny the use variance.
"The problem is it's one piece of property," said Coan. "We made testimony that the zoning was flawed because apparently they created that zoning using an erroneous map, which was submitted by one of the objectors … If you're going to zone a property, you don't zone half of the property one thing, and the other half another. It basically creates a hostage zoning situation where you can't utilize the entire property for one use without getting a variance."
In addition, out of the 45 total acres, Coan said they submitted a state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) wetlands delineation map showing there is actually only about a little over two acres of wetlands and about the same amount in buffers.
"There's roughly only fiveacres of wetlands and buffers out of 45 acres, which in the state of New Jersey is pretty minimal," he said.
With talk of the facility proposing a seven story structure, Coan said nothing could be further from the truth.
"Seven stories signifies seven separate levels, which we are not proposing at all," said Coan. "According to the town ordinance, the building 55 feet high, so if you did the conversion into stories, you could make the argument that it's a five-story building, but it's in no way a seven-story building."
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