By Allison Perrine
RUMSON – Yellow Brook Property Co. returned before the borough planning board Monday to present its plans to construct 14 luxury residential units on Rumson Road.
The application was brought by Yellow Brook, a Red Bank-based firm owned by local developer Roger Mumord. It falls in accordance with last year’s settlement agreement between the borough and Yellow Brook and calls for the demolition of what currently sits on the 5.8-acre site: a two-and-a-half-story dwelling and covered porch, gravel driveway, fences and landscape walls. The property is located on the west side of Osprey Lane with frontage on Rumson Road, Osprey Lane and Tuxedo Lane in the Rumson Road Housing District, according to the borough.
In its place, the applicant would construct a multifamily residential housing development comprised of 14 family residential units located in two duplex buildings, two carriage homes and two triplex buildings; as well as site improvements including a private roadway, detached three-car garage, paver driveways and sidewalk, curbs, lighting, landscaping, sanitary sewer and a storm water drainage system consisting of an underground detention basin, according to the application.
However, not ever yone feels happy about the plans. Many residents have harshly criticized Mumford since January 2020 when the council signed two settlement agreements – one with Yellow Brook and one with the nonprofit Fair Share Housing Center (FSHC) – to satisfy its state-mandated Mount Laurel fair share affordable housing obligations. Residents urged the council not to comply with the agreements while berating Mumford for his involvement. But if it did not comply, the town would be subject to builder’s remedy lawsuits which could have led to higher density construction projects.
Through negotiations, Rumson and FSHC settled on a realistic development potential (RDP) of 51 units; its total affordable housing obligation is 603 units. The unmet need of 552 will largely be addressed with overlay zoning, which allows a property owner to keep the property as it has always been or also one day develop multifamily housing with affordable set-asides. The borough’s 51-unit obligation will be met with five existing affordable housing units; turning existing market-rate units into affordable units; using rental bonus credits; and bringing in new rental and special needs bedrooms in the form of 100 percent affordable, special needs municipally and developer-sponsored projects.
There will not be any affordable units at the Rumson Road site. Instead, Yellow Brook will donate a property it owns on Carton Street to the borough and will pay $1.45 million to its affordable housing trust fund. Rumson will work with a nonprofit to build a 14-unit, 100 percent affordable project on Carton Street with funds from the trust. This project will go before the planning board as a separate application in the future.
The Aug. 9 meeting included testimony from two witnesses brought by Yellow Brook: civil engineer Brian Decina, senior vice president of French & Parrello Associates; and traffic engineer Frank Miskovich, president of Miskovich Consulting Engineers, LLC. Board members had a chance to ask questions throughout the meeting.
According to Decina, each residence at the site will have its own private driveway and garage. The triplex buildings will front Osprey Lane and will contain three homes; the carriage homes will front Osprey Lane and contain two residences; and the duplexes will front Tuxedo Road and contain two residences. Access to the site will be available from Osprey Lane through a 24-foot private roadway. The entrance will include a concrete decorative paver surface up to the first residential unit and will then transition to a paved asphalt roadway, he said.
The total number of required parking spaces at the site is 31 but the applicant plans to have 37 spaces – two per unit in the carriage and duplex homes, and 2.4 per unit in the triplex homes. Of the 37 spaces, 21 will be within a closed garage in accordance with borough code, Decina said. Additional- ly, there will be 14 on-street spaces available for visitors, two of which will be designated ADA spaces. The parking plans “well exceed” state Residential Site Improvement Standards (RSIS), said Miskovich.
“If I consider this to be a cul-de-sac roadway, RSIS limits daily traffic development to about 250 vehicles per day; we’re estimating about 170, 155 vehicles per day, so we’re well under that requirement for maximum traffic volumes,” he said.
Councilman Clay Kingsbery, who also sits on the planning board, noted that Osprey Lane is sometimes used as a cut-through to the beach as it connects to Shrewsbury Drive, which crosses into Sea Bright. The road “gets all backed up” in the summer, he said. “The town goes through great lengths to try to stop people from cutting through” to avoid disturbing those in the “quiet neighborhoods where people are walking their dogs and walking their kids.”
Adding to that, Rumson Police Sgt. An- thony Ciambrone, a Class II member of the planning board, said one key cause of traf- fic backup down Osprey Lane is due to GPS apps like Waze directing drivers to travel that way. “The streets aren’t engineered for that kind of traffic; they’re narrow, very narrow, no sidewalks in that area,” he said. “I know for a fact that Rumson and Bingham…are hot spots with crashes.”
Miskovich noted that Osprey Lane is a “low-volume roadway” that could see about 50 trips during peak hours. “It is being used by area traffic, I just can’t say if it’s cut-through or people that maybe live on Shrewsbury Drive to some extent,” he said.
The hearing did not conclude that evening and will be carried to the board’s Sept. 13 meeting at 7:30 p.m. when architect Paul Grabowski, founder of Virtuoso Architecture, is expected to testify.
IN OTHER BUSINESS, at the beginning of the meeting, the board memorialized a resolution approving Yellow Brook’s plans for property at 132 Bingham Ave. As reported by The Two River Times in July when board members voted on the application, the plans call for the construction of a multifamily residential housing development with 18 units in nine duplexes on the 5.129-acre site and various site improvements.
Currently, the property, which is already owned by Yellow Brook, consists of a two-story single-family home and covered porch, patio, paved driveway, fountain, pool, cabana, tennis court, dog kennel, shed, fences and landscape walls. It sits about 365 feet south of Ridge Road in the Bingham Avenue Housing (BA) Zone.
The resolution was approved unanimously by board members present at the Aug. 9 meeting.
This article originally appeared in the Aug. 12-18, 2021 print edition of The Two River Times.
