Highlands Seeks Church's Property for New Borough Hall

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By Jay Cook |
HIGHLANDS – After working on a deal for nearly two years, the borough and the Diocese of Trenton have come to an agreement for Highlands’ purchase of two buildings and a parking lot now operated by the Our Lady of Perpetual Help-St. Agnes Parish.
Local legislation paving the way for the site purchase was introduced at the June 7 Highlands council meeting. The terms of the deal say an existing parking lot used for congregants, the St. Jude Thrift Shop and the St. Vincent De Paul community center, totaling about 1.5 acres, would be sold to Highlands as a package deal for $450,000.
“They’re winning, the town’s winning,” Borough Councilman Doug Card said on Tuesday, referencing the agreement. “I believe it to be a very positive thing.”
The goal is to demolish the existing buildings and construct a new borough hall for all administrative offices, Highlands Police Department, Highlands First Aid and possibly a courtroom. Kevin Settembrino, founding principal at Settembrino Architects in Red Bank and a Middletown Township committeeman, has been retained by Highlands to design the new building.
Highlands Mayor Rick O’Neil said while the new location would be an upgrade over what currently exists, he questioned the impact it would have on Highlands as a whole.
“This is a ways off, and I think we’re going to have problems with the neighborhood,” he said.
After being sworn in as mayor in January, O’Neil said he had meetings with residents roughly 200 feet away from the property to talk about a prospective new town hall.
“They’re not used to the police cars and ambulances rolling out there at 2 o’clock in the morning,” O’Neil said. “That’s going to be a whole new thing with them up there.”
Admittedly not sure of another reasonable place for a new complex, O’Neil did confide that the purchase was a great deal, saying “If I had the money, I’d buy it myself. It’s a good price for that piece of property.”

Much of the borough’s administrative offices work out of trailers here at 42 Shore Drive in downtown Highlands.

Currently, the borough administration works out of a series of trailers at 42 Shore Drive. About a block east, the police department is set up in a trailer with a small lot for its police cruisers.
The building department is situated at 19 Bay Ave., just a few residences down from The Chubby Pickle restaurant and Veterans Park.
Borough council meetings are held at the community center, 22 Snug Harbor Drive, and Highlands has a shared service agreement with Atlantic Highlands to use its municipal court.
Although the borough council vote is still pending, likely to come at the next meeting on June 21, Monmouth County public tax records filed on June 6 show a settlement had already been reached as of May 22.
Another concern for the new borough hall would be how much of its cost FEMA would cover.
According to Card, Highlands hopes to receive up to a 90 percent reimbursement for the cost of the facility, still to be determined. By buying the property at OLPH, which resides at the top of the Miller Street hill and far from the floodplain, it gives Highlands the best chance to recoup that money.
“To get the full benefits of the reimbursement, to the best of my understanding, is to do this as we qualify,” Card said.
O’Neil is far from optimistic that a 90 percent reimbursement could happen. FEMA determines the extent of damage at the old municipal building at 171 Bay Ave.

The old Highlands municipal building sits boarded up and vacant at 171 Bay Ave. Based on this building’s condition, Highlands may receive a nearly 90 percent reimbursement from FEMA for a new borough hall.

That complex was closed from flood damages incurred during Super Storm Sandy, and is currently boarded up. Last June, two borough officials were retrieving documents from the attic and fell nearly 20 feet when the floor beneath them collapsed.
Regarding the condition of that original municipal building, O’Neil said “that will have to do with the funding that we’re going to get.”
If the borough resolution is approved, an agreement exists between the two parties to allow OLPH congregants to park on site on both Saturdays and Sundays for church services.
According to Scott Pirozzi, the Diocese’s director of property and construction, the sale benefits all parties. It allows OLPH to downsize, sell some land and to “help the community as well, because they need to get out of the flood plain. Our site was one of the potential sites and we were able to accommodate them.”
Looking to clear the air of rumors surrounding OLPH’s future, business manager Patty Dickens said both St. Jude Thrift Shop and the St. Vincent De Paul community center would move over to the vacant OLPH school, closed in 2005 at the direction of the Diocese of Trenton.
“I can tell you that we have zero intention of closing that church,” Dickens said about OLPH. “We’re doing everything to keep our church open.”
Regardless of where the borough hall ultimately goes, O’Neil said a main complex is necessary for Highlands, one of the remaining Monmouth County towns yet to take the next step in the post-Sandy era.
“Bottom line is it’s going on almost five years late,” he said. “Something has to get done.”


This article was first published in the June 15-June 22, 2017 print edition of The Two River Times.