The decision concerns a 50-year-old apartment building on Bodman Place that the owner wanted to convert to condos. (Click to enlarge)
The state appeals court has upheld the Red Bank zoning board’s rejection of a condo conversion plan for the half-century-old Colony House apartment building.
The plan would have exacerbated a “severe lack of available parking,” the board said in its July 2008 resolution on the rejection.
In a decision dated February 10, the appeals court found that the board had acted reasonably in coming to that conclusion.
The building’s owner, Signature Communities, proposed extensive renovations to the structure, and to increase the number of parking spaces on the site and at a nearby parking lot from 68 to 70.
But the borough’s engineer at the time, Rich Kosenski, argued that the building needed 132 spaces to meet its obligations under state regulations, the court decision recounts.
Signature later revised its plan to include 19 additional spaces. But the board still shot down the proposal, finding that the renovations would increase the demand for parking, among other reasons.
The developer had planned to sell the units at prices starting around $500,000, according to testimony.
Afterward, Signature sued the board, but a state Superior Court judge upheld the decision in September, 2009, finding that the board’s decision wasn’t arbitrary and capricious.
The appeals court agreed.
“The board reasonably found that the number of parking spaces proposed by the plaintiff was substantially deficient,” the three-member court wrote in its unanimous decision.
Dan O’Hern, who became Red Bank’s borough attorney on January 1, argued on behalf of the building’s condo association, which sided with the borough.
Here’s the decision: signature-decision-021011
