Superior Court to Hear Neptune Zoning Case
By DON STINE
A lawsuit challenging a Neptune Board of Adjustment decision granting construction of a car wash/lubrication facility on Old Corlies Avenue next to the oldest house in Neptune is scheduled to be heard in Monmouth County Superior Court on Mon., Sept. 29.
Residents angry over the zoning board’s decision formed the Old Corlies Avenue Preservation Alliance (OCAPA) to prevent commercial development in the mostly residential and historic area.
The group filed the lawsuit earlier this year.
“The prospect of this site becoming a car wash and lube facility is regarded by OCAPA as an unwanted incursion into the residential corridor,” the group said in its recent newsletter, which also announced the court date.
“The premise of OCAPA’s legal action against the (zoning board) is that a car wash and lube facility is not permitted in this particular zone,” the newsletter said.
Ron Gasiorowski, the Red Bank-based attorney representing OCAPA, could not be reached for comment about the lawuit and Board of Adjustment Attorney Monica Kowalski said she would not comment on the suit when contacted earlier this week.
Superior Court Judge Lawrence M. Lawson will hear the case at 10 a.m. in Room 307-W at the Monmouth County Court House in Freehold.
An OCAPA win in court, however, does not mean that the site’s developer, Felix Bruselovsky, cannot seek approval to build another commercial use on the site.OCAPA is also seeking to have the property rezoned for single-family residential use only. Neptune is now in the process of reviewing and amending its Master Plan.
The zoning board permit allowed Bruselovsky to demolish a 160-year-old Victorian House at 1019 Old Corlies Avenue to make way for the car wash. The Victorian house was located just west of the oldest house in Neptune- the DeWitt Shafto house built around 1790.
The Old Corlies Avenue neighborhood, also known as the Hamilton area, is the oldest in the township with many old and historic homes still there.
Evelyn Stryker Lewis, a Neptune historian, said she hopes OCAPA is successful in their law suit.
“Old Corlies Avenue, with its historic homes and country-lane atmosphere, is one of Neptune’s best features. It’s a scenic and historic corridor predating the American Revolution and lined with the houses of Neptune’s first families.
“It is sharply separate from Route 33’s traffic and business corridor. No intrusion into the tranquility of Old Corlies Avenue should be allowed by Neptune’s Board of Adjustment,” she said.
Stryker Lewis said that less than 10 years ago the Neptune governing body issued historic home plaques to many houses in this area with the implied message that the township values its historic past.
“Now the question citizens must ask is whether or not Neptune indeed does honor this past?” she said.
OCAPA is also seeking to have the 6.46-acre Welsh Farms dairy site, now unused, on Old Corlies Avenue also rezoned from light industrial to a residential, single-family use.
OCAPA will hold a fund-raising sale of mums on the corner of Old Corlies Avenue and Cedar Terrace on Saturday and Sunday, Sept 27 and 28 from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Visit www.oldcorlies.com for more information.
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