By Sunayana Prabhu
RED BANK – Ending the year with a packed agenda, the borough council made progress on transit village plans and improvements to Count Basie Park and approved two developments coming up on the east side of the borough.
Count Basie Park
The council authorized an application to fund improvements at Count Basie Park from the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection’s Green Acres Program. According to the agenda, the borough is looking for a matching grant in the amount of $577,875 and, if available, a loan from the state. Improvements would include bleacher replacements, among other upgrades, at a cost of a little over $1.1 million dollars.
This is the second time the borough will be requesting a grant for these improvements as last year’s application was unsuccessful.
Interim borough administrator Darren McConnell explained the project to residents during the Dec. 14 meeting, noting the home-side bleachers need to be completely rebuilt. “If anybody’s seen it lately, the bleachers, aesthetically, are not very pleasing,” McConnell said. The borough has had to remove several of the metal benches because they were damaged and had sharp edges “that could cut somebody,” he said. Although they are safe at the moment, McConnell said the bleachers are about 90 years old and worn out.
“Without some sort of funding from Green Acres or another source, it wouldn’t be necessarily the top priority project for us, but it is a good project for this particular grant,” McConnell said.
Count Basie Park consists of about 14 acres between the New Jersey Transit railroad tracks to the east and South Pearl Street to the west. Park amenities include five baseball fields, two soccer fields, two basketball courts, one football field, track and field areas, a small playground, bleachers for both home and away teams, and a public parking lot. An environmental study that is part of the grant application noted impacts on local wildlife and the community due to the proposed improvements are virtually non-existent since the site is already developed.
The park is an “important asset to the community,” said council member Ben Forest during the meeting, noting it is “not particularly safe.”
Although many graduation ceremonies and events continue to be hosted at Count Basie Park, “it’s in desperate need of attention,” Forest said.
McConnell said the $1.1 million would cover upgrades to everything located within the bleacher area, including a locker room, changing areas and some storage areas used by the Department of Public Works.
The borough will be submitting the application by the end of December and will be informed of the result by July 2024.
Transit Village
The council also authorized the borough planning board to conduct a preliminary investigation of the train station area and make recommendations on whether it qualifies as an area in need of redevelopment. A few residents were opposed to the idea of redevelopment unless it lowers taxes; several others were optimistic about a transit village in Red Bank.
“Put the brakes on the idea of transit village,” resident William Poku.
“People are complaining that despite the fact that we’re pulling in huge amounts of revenue from all these high-density luxury units, the taxes keep going up every year for the past few years.”
Dan Riordan said he would rather see rehabilitation than redevelopment. Riordan explained that the only two reasons to authorize a redevelopment as opposed to rehabilitation are “condemnation – you want to take somebody’s property through eminent domain – or you want to give somebody a 30-year tax break.”
Since the proposed transit village area is currently in a noncondemnation area, it cannot be taken using eminent domain. “If you don’t intend to give tax breaks,” Riordan suggested the borough designate it a rehabilitation area. “Maybe a third of this area is already in an area in need of rehabilitation from five years ago. So, you could just expand that easily,” he said.
He also noted that a redevelopment area is “not a blighted area” or about “trying to give developers the right conditions to build something special. It’s about trying to build something where no one will build,” Riordan said. “That’s not the case” around the train station, he said.
According to the NJ Transit website, Denholtz Properties – which already owns the Rail at Red Bank, a mixed-use apartment building next to the train station – is listed as the developer for The Center at Red Bank, which would replace at least three NJ Transit parking lots with a mixed-use development which would include 20% affordable housing.
“I don’t think we need to go through this sort of twisting of the redevelopment law for the convenience of a developer, for the benefit of development,” Riordan said.
Resident Chris Haven was hopeful a transit village could open up more opportunities for the borough. “In some ways, we’re already a big transit village, so, it makes sense to really focus on these opportunities.”
Incoming borough manager Jim Gant said a professional planner authorized by the borough planning board will study the transit area, the age of the infrastructure, the age of the housing stock and what is commonly referred to as blighted properties.
Gant will be joining the office full-time beginning Jan. 1, 2024.
Two New Apartments Approved
The borough council approved two new four-story apartments on the east side of the borough: One Globe Court Apartments LLC at 19-29 Mechanic St. and Park Valley Monmouth, LLC, at 120 Monmouth St..
According to the agenda the borough authorized a “development agreement” for both developments to set forth certain conditions to be adhered to by the developer, like contributing to the cost of establishing of a new water line, water and sewer upgrades, as well as its fair share of stormwater management improvements, among other items.
The article originally appeared in the December 21 – December 27, 2023 print edition of The Two River Times.
