Proposed adult community calls for 319 residences

Hearings continue
on Village Grande
at Pheasant Park
By sue m. morgan
Staff Writer

It offers easy access to Route 9, represents a clean tax ratable for Old Bridge, and fills a growing need for senior housing in the area.

Those reasons, presented by a planner on behalf of developer SGS Communities, may all be taken into consideration by the township’s Zoning Board of Adjustment as it continues hearing an application to build Village Grande at Pheasant Park, a 319-unit age-restricted community off Spring Valley Road, near Route 9 northbound and adjacent to the Marlboro border.

Carolyn Neighbor, a planner with Schoor DePalma, Manalapan, told the board at its Jan. 16 meeting that the condominiums would strengthen the township’s tax base and offer desirable housing to an increasing senior population without adding students to the school system.

SGS Communities, based in Freehold Township, is seeking preliminary and final site plan approval as well as bulk variances from the board.

Because testimony presented by Neighbor and another expert witness ran up to the board’s 11 p.m. curfew, the application will be continued on March 6.

If constructed, the complex would consist of 11 three-story buildings holding a combination of one-, two- and three-bedroom units, according to Mitchell Newman, an attorney and senior vice president for SGS Communities.

Prospective buyers would have to be at least 55 years old to reside in the complex, and no school-aged children would be permitted to live with homeowners, Newman said.

Collectively, the units would generate over $1 million in tax revenue annually, as well as additional funding for the school and fire districts, Neighbor testified. A homeowners association within the community would provide its own snowplowing, road maintenance and landscaping rather than use municipal services, she added.

Depending on the size of the unit, initial sale prices could range from $130,000 to $160,000, Neighbor said.

In lieu of building affordable housing units within the upscale complex, the applicant would make a monetary contribution to the township’s affordable housing trust fund to help satisfy its obligations with the state Council on Affordable Housing, Neighbor added.

While acknowledging the site’s master plan designation as a commercial-office-industrial (COI) zone, Neighbor told the board that based on the projected tax revenue benefits, age-restricted housing would be a better use for the site than office or commercial use.

"It doesn’t work well for (commercial) use," Neighbor said. "It is well-suited to senior housing with the units spread around the existing open space and wetland areas."

Due to the buildings’ three-story, pitched-roof design, the developer is also seeking bulk variances, Neighbor said. One particular bulk variance is needed to construct the three-story structures in the R120 zone, which presently allows for structures up to two-and-a-half stories in height, she added.

Trees buffering the property from the view of travelers on Spring Valley Road would be proportional to the height of the buildings, Neighbor testified.

A second expert, Fred Cocoa, an engineer with Menlo Engineering, Highland Park, testified that an underground parking garage would be located under each of the 11 buildings. Altogether, the community would have 695 parking spots under the complex’s 11 buildings, he said.

In anticipation of the need to hook the proposed community into the municipal water and sewer system, SGS has filed an application with the Old Bridge Municipal Utilities Authority (OBMUA), Cocoa said.

In August 2001, the board granted a use variance allowing for the construction of a multiple-unit, active adult community on the property in question, Newman said.

Village Grande at Pheasant Park is the second application for a multiple-unit, private, age-restricted community to be reviewed by the board within a one-week period. On Jan. 9, the board heard the initial details of a use variance application by East Brunswick-based Kara Homes to construct the 285-unit Birch Hill Estates on land now occupied by the Birch Hill entertainment complex.

A continuation of the hearing on the Birch Hill Estates application is scheduled for tonight’s 8 o’clock zoning board meeting at the municipal complex.

If constructed, the gated Birch Hill Estates would occupy a 55-acre site bordered by Route 9 south, Texas Road and Marlboro Road. It would be located just south of the proposed Village Grande at Pheasant Park site.

Because 5 acres of Birch Hill’s site are located in Marlboro, Monmouth County, the applicant will also need to secure approval from that jurisdiction to build the complex consisting of townhouses, attached ranches and condominiums.

Unit prices in the proposed Birch Hill community would range from $220,000 for the smaller condominiums to $300,000 for the townhouses, according to Robert McGowan, an executive vice president and attorney for Kara Homes.

McGowan told Greater Media Newspapers on Jan. 9 that sale of the property to Kara Homes by its owner of record, nightclub impresario Art Stock of Wall, is dependent upon the developer obtaining the approvals.

Like the development proposed by SGS Communities, prospective buyers in Birch Hill Estates would have to be at least 55 years old and have no school-age children living in the home, McGowan has said.

The township’s master plan has also placed Birch Hill in a COI zone. However, according to McGowan, the proposed age-restricted community would have an assessed value of $90 million, amounting to a $3 million tax benefit.

An office complex on the Birch Hill site would only generate $44 million in tax revenue, less than half of the expected tax benefit of the age-restricted community, McGowan has said.