The existing home at 240 Shrewsbury Avenue. (Photo by Brian Donohue. Click to enlarge.)
By BRIAN DONOHUE
A Holmdel development company named Incredible Oz is hoping to find its own version of the Emerald City at the end of the yellow brick road – or at least the middle of Shrewsbury Avenue: approvals to knock down a two-family home and build 14 apartments.
Attorneys for Incredible Oz LLC will appear before the Red Bank Zoning Board of Adjustment seeking approval for the complex of two-bedroom garden apartments at 240 Shrewsbury Avenue at Thursday’s meeting. Here’s the agenda for the meeting, which begins at 6:30 pm at Borough Hall, 90 Monmouth Street.
Plans call for five, three-story buildings surrounding an open courtyard. Two of the units would be set aside to fulfill the town’s affordable housing obligations, according to the plans. The complex would have a parking lot with 28 parking spaces. The project requires multiple variances from the zoning board because it does not conform to borough zoning ordinances.
You can view the full plans here: Architectural Plans
The two-family home on the lot at 240 Shrewsbury Avenue has sat boarded up with an X spray painted on it and no activity for more than a year since a demolition permit was issued by the borough.
The owners of Incredible Oz are listed on the application as Maryellen and Ermenegildo Santopadre of Holmdel.
Plans call for five three-story buildings surrounding an open courtyard on the lot bordered by River Street and Bank Street. Two of the units would be set aside to fulfill the town’s affordable housing obligations, according to the plans. (see related redbankgreen story below). The complex would have a parking lot with 28 parking spaces. You can view the full plans here: Architectural Plans.
The property was part of a 2021 plan by developer Roger Mumford that called for demolishing the house at 240 Shrewsbury Avenue and one next door, on the corner at 234 Shrewsbury Avenue, to build a four-story structure with 23 apartments.
Zoning board members dubbed it too tall, too dense, and too out of step with where things should be going. Neighbors said it would gentrify a low-income area.
Resistance continued even after Mumford twice reduced the scope of the project, first cutting the number of units to 20, and then lopping off an entire floor.
Mumford abruptly withdrew the application in September 2021 just moments before an expected up-or-down vote by the zoning board, giving opponents a win.
Incredible Oz LLC purchased the three lot parcels in March 2023 for $750,000. An approval of the new plan would mark the latest significant change for a stretch of Shrewsbury Avenue that already has several others in the works.
In September 2023, the zoning board approved plans for 32 single-resident apartments for adults with intellectual or developmental disabilities one block south at 273 Shrewsbury Avenue. That plan calls for the commercial building that once housed a karate school to be demolished.
Meanwhile, several blocks north at 160 Shrewsbury Avenue, construction continues on a three-story mixed-use building that was approved in 2018. That building would have four apartments and street-level office space.
Also on the zoning board agenda Thrursday: another attempt by a Red Bank man in his years-long effort to build a house in town for his mother.
Jacob Morales is scheduled to appear before the board seeking approval to build a single family home at 232 Pearl Street for his mother, who lives in Jersey City. In February 2024, redbankgreen chronicled his previous attempt, which resulted in him being forced to sell the small lot he had purchased for the same purpose at 1 Berry Street. That plan was scuttled by an obscure 1987 legal precedent (which has remained unchanged by lawmakers) giving an adjacent property owner the right to purchase the property. See story below.
RED BANK: FUTILE SEARCH FOR A HOUSE FOR MOM
redbankgreen editor Brian Donohue may be reached via email at [email protected] or by calling or texting 848-331-8331 or yelling his name loudly as he walks by. Do you value the news coverage provided by redbankgreen? Please become a financial supporter if you haven’t already. Click here to set your own level of monthly or annual contribution.
