‘Mid-rise’ plans sent back to drawing board
Board approves a section of LaMer but balks at plans for a future section
By jennifer dome
Staff Writer

The Sayreville Planning Board granted final approval Feb. 20 to a section of LaMer that will include 200 apartments, of which 30 will be designated as senior citizen units.

Board members at the meeting also expressed displeasure with another section of LaMer that called for mid-rise buildings.

Approval for the 200 apartments, known as 4A, had been postponed during a Feb. 6 meeting so that officials could clarify the definition of senior housing.

Borough Councilman Thomas Pollando informed the board last week that the council would keep age 62 as the minimum age to live in senior housing.

At last month’s meeting, the Planning Board also approved 86 townhouses that make up section 4B of LaMer, which is located off Ernston Road. When completely built, the entire development is proposed to include condominiums, garden apartments, townhouses and patio homes. Sections 1, 2 and 3 — consisting of approximately 756 units — have already been approved and constructed. Developer Michael Kaplan said there are still three sections to be approved and constructed after sections 4A and 4B.

Also at the Feb. 20 meeting, board members disapproved of preliminary plans presented by Kaplan for section 6 of LaMer during an informal hearing. Kaplan said he could have proposed townhouses for the section, but in the interest of preserving more space over the 6-acre section, the preliminary plans called for three six-story "mid-rise" apartment buildings.

The apartments would cost approximately $300,000 and would have more amenities, such as concierge service and valet parking, Kaplan said. Kaplan told board members that many corporate employees, or older people who are looking for less responsibility with a home, desire a high-scale product such as that which he could offer in section 6.

"They want the services that this type of building could provide. They want the security that this type of building could provide," Kaplan said.

Because the developer presented the proposal in an informal setting, Planning Board members were required only to give feedback and recommendations for the site.

Board members raised concerns ranging from the safety of garages that would be installed underneath the buildings to the aesthetics of a mid-rise building that could be seen from the Garden State Parkway.

Though most board members disapproved of the plans, board member Curtis Clark said he liked the idea of using less green space and building upward instead of outward. However, he also felt six stories was too high.

Another point of contention was that, in order to build the six stories, the applicant would need approval from the Borough Council. The proposed mid-rise building was not agreed upon during a court settlement agreement drafted in 1992, board members said.

The LaMer development was initially given preliminary approval from the board in 1982, but was not immediately built and eventually became the subject of a lawsuit between the developer and the borough. The court settlement was drawn up after Kaplan filed a lawsuit against the board, stemming from the borough’s 1988 implementation of a new sewer master plan. The parties settled on a number of issues, including reducing the number of units included in the plans from 1,724 to 1,524 residences.

Clark said Feb. 20 that regardless of the types of buildings, LaMer will still have 1,524 units overall.

Several board members said they are not interested in the look of a mid-rise building. Pollando said he felt that many residents of Sayreville moved from the cities to "suburbia," and that the higher buildings would clash with their idea of aesthetics. He said residents who have always lived in Sayreville would view the buildings as uncomplimentary to the community.

"I don’t believe the people of Sayreville will accept this," Pollando said.

Kaplan is expected to return to the Planning Board in roughly six months, according to member and board Secretary Lois Bobchin. At that time, he could present another plan for section 6, she said.

The formal resolution approving his next section cannot be given for another 18 months, Bobchin said, pursuant to the settlement agreement, which lays out intervals of time for final approvals between sections.