Commercial uses limited in beachfront zone

Commercial uses limited in beachfront zone
BY KENNY WALTER Staff Writer

The Long Branch City Council has approved an ordinance aimed at preserving the residential character of one of its beachfront neighborhoods.

The council voted 4-0 at the Sept. 22 meeting to approve for final consideration an amendment to the RC-1 beachfront mixed zone to prohibit freestanding commercial properties within the zone. Councilman Anthony Giordano was absent for the vote.

At the public hearing for the ordinance, which was also held at the council meeting, City Attorney James Aaron explained what the ordinance would do.

"This solves the problem in the beachfront mixed zone so that ... the establishment of any new stand-alone commercial/retail/food will be prohibited 'adjacent to and abutting an existing commercial stand alone use,'" Aaron said. "No more stand-alone by itself."

"In other words you have to be continuous with something that is there already," resident Harold Bobrow asked.

Aaron explained that stand-alone properties would mostly be prohibited.

"So if you want to build a new structure, it is prohibited unless it is adjacent to something that is already there," he said. "So the stand-alone structures on their own would be prohibited."

"So you can't put something in the middle of a block that is residential." Bobrow added.

A n - other issue in the zone is vacant lots and what can be built on them. That issue, Aaron said, is up to the Zoning Board of Adjust-

ment."

You can't take a vacant lot, but if there is something there, you can add onto it," Aaron said. "It depends on the interpretation of the Zoning Board whether or not the use that was previously there was abandoned or not."

Mayor Adam Schneider said last month that the city had not changed a zoning ordinance in response to an individual property and now that there is no application or litigation in the zone the city may move forward.

"We have never changed a zoning ordinance to affect a specific application," he said. "There is nothing hanging any more in the zone. We want it to be a mixed use," he added.

The zone is bordered to the north by the line for Monmouth Beach, to the south by Seaview Avenue, to the east by Seven Presidents Oceanfront Park, and to the west mostly by Ocean Boulevard, with portions jutting out farther west.

Business Administrator Howard Woolley Jr. said the administration supports the Planning Board on this zoning change.

"The Planning Board did not want to have freestanding commercial buildings there," Woolley said. "They felt it was less than desirable to have them in the zone.

"They felt it should be a mixed zone."

Assistant Planning Director Carl Turner explained that commercial buildings would not be mixed in with the residential buildings, which would create what he called a checkerboard of commercial and residential properties.

Turner said that any potential building that is not a permitted use may apply for a use variance to the Zoning Board unless the property is located within one of the city's six redevelopment zones, where variances are not available. The RC-1 zone is not within a redevelopment zone.

The current commercial properties in the zone can be grandfathered into the new regulations and new development can also happen.

Turner said that current commercial uses in the zone can be sold and a new use can be implemented on the footprint.

"Commercial areas can still develop," Turner said. "It will place a status quo in the areas that are commercial and in the areas that are residential.

"The zone is not supposed to go all in one way or the other," he added.

Turner also said that it is possible to have a residential use on the levels above a commercial use and vice versa.

"We are always reviewing zoning and planning," he said. "We are looking at what the master plan calls for."

Beachfront South resident Diana Multare said she was pleased with ordinance amendment.

"All I can say is it is about time," she said. "Remember we had a lot of discussion about this not too long ago.

"It has certainly been a long, long time, so thank goodness," she added.

Contact Kenny Walter at

kwalter@gmnews.com