By Chris Rotolo
HOLMDEL – An applicant witness was prodded by concerned residents and a zoning board official during a continued hearing for The Enclave, a dementia center proposed for the Potter’s Farm property situated between Red Hill Road and The Garden State Parkway.
During the May 4 meeting of the Holmdel Township Zoning Board, Hal Simoff, of the Madison firm Simoff Engineering Associates, provided testimony about the variables surrounding a wastewater pump station and an associated backup power generator included in the site plan.
Simoff testified that consultation with the development’s architect was necessary to determine the size of the generator, which would then dictate the type of noise-baffling enclosure needed to ensure compliance with the local noise ordinance.
But the most integral prerequisite step, Simoff said, was for the township and other interested parties, including Monmouth County officials and the Bayshore Regional Sewerage Authority, to choose the preferred location of this wastewater infrastructure.
According to Simoff, the applicant proposed a plan in which the pump station and backup generator are contained to the 20-acre Potter’s Farm parcel, approximately “three to four hundred feet away” from the nearest residence.
However, the township is currently deliberating about the placement of this pump, and whether there are potential benefits to having the developer install its new sewage infrastructure near Williams Way, which would allow multiple households a viable connection to the local sewer system.
“What can be said is that, if we are required to move the pump station, and if we are required to place a generator at the location designated for us, because we don’t know yet, (the generator) would be much smaller than what would be used on site,” Simoff said. “A smaller, boxed generator won’t be excessively noisy.”
Zoning board member Valerie Avrin-Marchiano de- clared her pessimism regarding the testimony and pressed for a more substantial study of any future installation in a residential area.“With all due respect, I don’t trust anyone… I’m already deeply concerned about how close this pumping station is to the homes that border the site. So I do want to make sure that any pumping station in any location isn’t going to be making any noise. I do want to see something official regarding the noise,” said Avrin-Marchiano, who cited concerns about prior testimony during previous zoning board applications, which promised compliance only to fall short following ensuing noise studies.
The Enclave would be located off Garden State Parkway Exit 114, with a northern property line marked by natural growth that separates it from three homes on Country View Road and another Twin Brook Court residence. The health care center would support up to 105 residents in 11 one-story structures.
In regard to the wastewater pumping station, zoning board chair Ralph Blumenthal agreed with Simoff that requiring the applicant to conduct a study of infrastructure without a designated location would be a premature mandate. Blumenthal also confirmed with Simoff and applicant attorney Anne Studholm of the Princeton firm Post, Polak, Goodsell & Strauchler, that the generator would only be active when the primary power source malfunctioned, and for a 30 minute midday self-maintenance operation.
Blumenthal also requested that the developer investigate reworking their proposed site plan to reposition the pump station to the southern end of the property, closer to the parkway.
“We can’t control where the town, or Bayshore (Regional Sewerage Authority) or the county tell us to put (the pump station). Sometimes you get the bitter with the better, and if it’s offsite residents can connect to it,” Studholm said. “We’ve proposed something that will be as innocuous as possible. But we would be remiss if we said that we control (the final location). It is possible we’ll be asked to put the pump station in (a residential location). In this situation, what we’ve proposed doesn’t matter.”
The application hearing will continue at a future zoning board meeting when licensed planner James Higgins will testify.
This article originally appeared in the May 12-18, 2022 print edition of The Two River Times.
