By Sunayana Prabhu
RED BANK – Brimming with ideas and concerns over potential plans for redevelopment of the train station area, more than 60 residents attended a public workshop hosted by borough officials at the senior center July 31.
The interactive workshop aimed to gather community feedback on the planned revitalization of several parcels covering 13 acres around the train station, including the NJ Transit rail yard and the borough’s Department of Public Works facility, among other privately owned properties. The primary land use in this area is surface parking utilized by NJ Transit. The total assessed value of the properties as per tax data is $13.5 million and the 2023 tax revenue is $109,530.
Shawna Ebanks, director of community development, planning and zoning, opened the public discussion, followed by a presentation on the proposed changes by Susan Favate, principal planner at BFJ Planning, who also drafted the borough’s master plan in 2023.
“This is not out of the blue tonight,” Favate said. “This is the culmination of a lot of planning work that has happened in the last at least four or five years.”
The redevelopment plan is part of broader efforts to revitalize the area around the train station, which borough officials envision as a crucial link between Red Bank’s downtown core and the Shrewsbury Avenue business district.
Several residents expressed enthusiasm for the redevelopment while many others were concerned about the potential impact of this transformation on parking, traffic congestion and the use of tax abatement agreements.
Borough resident Peter Herms, owner of the Red Bank Armory Ice Complex, highlighted the importance of maintaining adequate parking near the train station. “We need that parking right on West Street and right in front of that. You might be carving that out for parking for the train station and the facility but that is going to kill us,” he said.
Marjorie Cavalier, resident, echoed these concerns, noting that the dynamics of parking usage have shifted in the borough especially after social distancing restrictions of COVID-19 pandemic phased out. “There’s more pressure now to go into the city as opposed to working from home. So, I think that’s also another shift,” she said, further pointing out that many people taking the train have been parking in the Galleria parking lot because the train station parking spaces are full. Traffic congestion was another major point of contention for residents. Peter Cavalier, a Red Bank resident, expressed frustration with the current state of the main thoroughfares – Shrewsbury Avenue, Front Street, Drs. James Parker Boulevard – among others. “If you’ve ever driven down these main streets between the hours of 8 and 9 in the morning or 4 and 5 in the afternoon, traffic is just choked,” he said.
The potential for tax evasion through the use of payment-in-lieu-of-taxes (PILOT) agreements also raised some concerns. Resident Mary-Ellen Mess, said she had done her “own analysis” and found “more than $73 million worth of tax-exempt property in town.” “I really have a strong objection to negotiating something with a developer with the sole purpose of increasing his profits,” Mess said.
In response, Christopher Otteau, a chief appraiser with the Otteau Group and a financial consultant working with Denholtz Properties who is listed by New Jersey Transit (NJT) as a developer for the borough’s Transit Village plan, sought to allay these fears.
“This project is going to be a large multimillion-dollar development. Now, if this project were just being built with no PILOT, only 31% would go to the borough, that’s it. Under this scenario, 95% goes, and when you’re talking about numbers this large, that adds up to a lot of money for a town to be able to fund programs and services and everything else for 35 years,” he explained. Eventually, “the PILOT comes up to market value” he said. Halfway through the PILOT, there’s “almost no break in the taxes, but the town’s still getting 95%. So, it’s largely beneficial to the borough,” Otteau said, because it helps bring a “large influx of cash into the municipality.”
Despite the concerns raised, some residents expressed cautious optimism about the redevelopment plan. Stephen Hecht, a 22-year borough resident, acknowledged the need for change, “I think it’s a long time coming. And it needs to be done.” However, he cautioned against getting “embroiled at this point, in trigger words, like tax abatements and so forth,” urging the community to focus on the broader vision for the area.
Favate emphasized that the public workshop was just the beginning of the redevelopment process and “not the end of the process.” The next step will be to draft a redevelopment plan, which will be presented to the public for feedback in the fall. The borough council is expected to adopt a final plan by the end of the year, paving the way for negotiations with developers and the implementation of the project.
After the presentation, many residents posted handwritten notes about their preferred land uses on the boards displaying area maps exhibited around the room.
“We appreciate the voice of the public, which is extremely important because this is your town. And we don’t want to write a plan that doesn’t reflect the residents of Red Bank,” Ebanks said, emphasizing the need to balance the interests of all stakeholders and ensure they will work closely with the public to create a redevelopment plan that eventually reflects the needs and aspirations of the Red Bank community.
The redevelopment of Red Bank’s train station area has been a key focus in the governing body’s agenda for smart growth in the area. The state has recognized Red Bank as a “Regional Center,” and the borough first applied for Transit Village designation in 2019. However, the New Jersey Department of Transportation (NJDOT) noted that the current transit overlay zoning doesn’t support this designation and suggested allowing Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) through new ordinances or a redevelopment designation.
The 2023 Master Plan closely examined the train station area and recommended restarting the Transit Village designation process, replacing the overlay zoning with a more specific TOD zoning district, and considering the use of redevelopment tools to facilitate TOD.
On Dec. 14, 2023, the borough council directed the planning board to conduct a preliminary investigation to determine if the station and surrounding area qualify as a non-condemnation area in need of redevelopment.
The article originally appeared in the August 8 – 14, 2024 print edition of The Two River Times.
