By Sunayana Prabhu
RED BANK – After years of delays, construction is slated to begin on the Azalea Gardens housing project at the corner of Hudson Avenue and Harding Road. The original proposal for the project was approved by the borough zoning board in 2017.
A joint venture between Ray Rapcavage of Ray Rap Realty and developer Roger Mumford, the project came back before the borough zoning board Thursday, April 20, where it received approval for modifications to the plan that reduce the number of units to be constructed.
The original plan for 16 townhomes and two cottages has been scaled back by two, with 14 townhomes and two cottages now planned for the site. The cottages will be designated as affordable housing.
“All the other zoning standards, the setbacks, the distances, are consistent with that prior approval,” said Andrew French, project engineer with Ray Rap Realty, adding that the landscaping, decorative fixtures and lighting for the site are the same as originally proposed.
According to the revised proposal, the property will be subdivided into 17 lots.
During the presentation, Edward J. McKenna Jr., attorney for the developers, along with French, addressed mitigation concerns raised by the borough shade tree and environmental commissions.
While the construction plan is not considered a major development because it requires less than an acre of disturbance, project engineer French noted the site required remediation because a gas station was previously located on a portion of the property.
“There was a lot more motor vehicle surface area on the property under the prior condition,” he said.
In his testimony to the board members, French displayed architectural renderings showing the changes made to minimize the motor vehicle surface area. “The soils from the gas station had been remediated and cleaned up,” he said, but “the groundwater is still continuing to be monitored. That could be a process that takes some time.”
McKenna explained that the Department of Environmental Protection only issues a Response Action Outcome that allows construction on a site after they deem that the soil and groundwater have a “clean status.”
“These (monitoring) wells have been in the ground, I believe, eight years,” Mumford said, adding that a lot of areas in Red Bank that had elevated levels of certain contaminants “have dropped tremendously over the last eight years.” He attributed the process to “natural attenuation” that decreases contaminants in soil and groundwater. “There’s nothing from an environmental perspective that would prevent us from building,” Mumford said.
The project would break ground by September and begin construction by mid-winter this year.
The article was updated May 9, 2023.
The article originally appeared in the May 4 – 10, 2023 print edition of The Two River Times.
