Skip to content

A town square for an unsquare town

redbankgreen

Standing for the vitality of Red Bank, its community, and the fun we have together.

RED BANK: GRANDVILLE RENT HIKE WEIGHED

Grandville Towers neighbors look on as resident Mary Cook, below, questions PRC vice president Tom Arnone, left. (Photo by Sarah Klepner. Click to enlarge)

By SARAH KLEPNER

The Red Bank Rent Leveling Board wrapped up testimony and public comment on a plan for upgrades and higher rents at Grandville Towers Thursday night, but held off on making a decision before next month.

Building manager PRC Group is seeking permission to impose rent surcharges to recover the costs of a proposed $3.6 million rehabilitation-and-upgrade project that has tenants fearing sharp increases.

Most of the board’s questions the special meeting Thursday night came from member Nicola Bowers, who had toured the building and wanted to know why existing facilities were being replaced.

“Why would you want to surcharge tenants for things that are there today?,” she asked. “You’re taking existing storage space to add apartments.”

“I saw a plaque on a door that said ‘community room’ with a dryer being stored inside,” she said. “I’m trying to understand why you don’t fix up existing facilities.”

Bowers also noted that she had not received the current floor plan for the first floor, as she had requested of PRC.

The meeting was attended by about 10 residents. One, Jane Manning, asked, “If five new apartments weren’t being constructed, would there be a need for $700,000 worth of outside structures?”

Board attorney Gene Anthony explained that the board is not charged with assessing the plan itself, only whether the work can be considered a capital improvement, one of two conditions under which a landlord can increase rent beyond the two-percent cap imposed through the borough’s rent control policy; the other is hardship.

The IRS defines capital improvements as work done which has a lifetime of five years or more, he said.

Resident Jim Kowaleska wanted to know if PRC has plans to convert the building to condominiums.

“The intent was to proceed with condo conversion when the plan was approved by the zoning board eight years ago,” said PRC attorney Peter Wersinger, but “it’s not the intention now.”

Anthony reminded the board and residents that “it doesn’t matter to this board why [PRC] drew up these plans initially, only that they were approved.”

“The surcharges are according to the lifetime of the improvements – in some cases spread out over 27 years, some 15, a few seven and very few five,” Wersinger said. “If someone is paying, in theory it should be exactly the cost attributable for their use of the facility for that time.”

At the conclusion of testimony and public comment, Anthony said the board will go through PRC’s proposal line by line to decide whether each item is a capital improvement.

For work that is approved, the board will retain oversight throughout the three stages of the project to ensure that the apportionment process – distributing the costs to residents according to the actual pricing and lifetime of the improvements – is correctly handled.

Because the project has not yet been put out to bid, PRC is using price estimates to approximate the rent surcharges that would be necessary, company representatives said.

The next scheduled meeting of the Rent Leveling Board is June 27 at 7:30 p.m.

Remember: Nothing makes a Red Bank friend happier than to hear "I saw you on Red Bank Green!"
redbankgreen Classics
Partyline
JUNETEENTH CELEBRATION
Performers at Red Bank’s Juneteenth community celebration Sunday at Johnny Jazz Park. (photo by Brian Donohue)      
BUTTERFLIES LOVE THE WEED
Save the monarch, plant butterfly weed. (photo and text by Partyline contributor Roseann DalPra)  
LANTERNFLY PARTY
An invasive ailanthus tree sprouting in front of the US Post Office on Broad Street is covered with invasive spotted lantern fly nymphs Wedn ...
STREETCORNER SERENADE
An Irish doodle named Cheddar listens to native New Jerseyan, singer/songwriter and former Houston resident Tom Foti, (identified in the hea ...
Red Bank 5K Fun!!!
Red Bank Classic – June 14th, 2025 (photo by Partyline contributor Adam Kaplan)  
RAINBOW OVER RED BANK
Saturday, before and after the storm that rolled through town. (photo by Partyline contributor Thomas Doremus)    
Mini Ballers Bring the Heat at Fusion Basketball School
As the temperatures heat up, so does the competition in the mini baller clinic at Fusion School of Basketball. These little tykes are intens ...
DOZENS OF PLEIN AIR ARTISTS “PAINT RED BANK”
Plein air artists take over town for first ever "Paint Red Bank" event. (click to read)
RED BANK: SIGN ON ICONIC DANNY’S STEAK HOUSE COMES DOWN
The sign hanging from the shuttered Danny's Steak House comes down ten months after a manager reported Danny's Steakhouse would be back "bet ...
FOR YANKEES FANS, GOOD TRASH PICKIN’
A collection of framed photographs of Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio and other New York Yankees greats was placed curbside along with a ...
RED BANK: NEW HANDICAPPED PARKING, WEST SIDE MEETING PLANNED
New handicapped parking sign West Side advocate had pressed for is installed, with meeting planned to discuss other concerns. (click to read ...
SUNSET AT SUMMER’S START
Crazy sunset clouds shot from Monmouth Boat Club on the Friday evening at the start of Memorial Day weekend, the unofficial start of summer. ...
SIDEWALK GOES FROM WORST TO FIRST
P (photo by Brian Donohue) What had been, in our estimation – and apparently in the eyes of the several people who have emailed and te ...
RED BANK: PEERING FROM ON HIGH, ACROSS THE DECADES
Roofers on the Azalea Red Bank top off the project in the shadow of a sculpture depicting another generation of construction workers who toi ...
BRICK FACELIFT CONTINUES ON MONMOUTH STREET
A million-dollar brick sidwalk makeover of Monmouth Street in Red Bank continues.
JAY AND SILENT EAGLE
A very loud blue jay squawks at an indiferent bald eagle in a treetop alongside the Swimming River in Red Bank this week. (Partyline photo b ...
PIZZA LOVING SQUIRREL SPOTTED IN RED BANK
Pizza squirrel spotted in Red Bank. (click to read)
GET YOUR MA SOMETHIN’ NICE AT THE RED BANK FARMERS MARKET
It’s a beautiful and sunny Mother’s Day for the first instance of the farmer’s market, held every Sunday, beginning in May ...
SIGN? WHAT SIGN?
Folks in Red Bank Wednesday exercising their riparian rights to access tidal waters first encoded into Roman law in 500 AD and later adopted ...
FANTASTIC MR. FOX
Partyline contributor captures photo of backyard fox.