Lawsuit challenges
racetrack approval
Manalapan says course approval came from wrong Old Bridge board
BY SUE M. MORGAN and DAVE BENJAMIN
Staff Writer

Manalapan has taken legal action against neighboring Old Bridge in an effort to reverse a decision permitting a new track at Raceway Park.

The lawsuit, filed in state Superior Court, Freehold, charges that it should have been the Old Bridge Zoning Board of Adjustment, and not the Planning Board, that heard the application for the 1.3-mile road course. The Planning Board unanimously approved the course, which had already been partially built, on Dec. 2.

The 40-year-old Pension Road drag strip is located in Old Bridge but abuts the border of Manalapan. Noise from the track has long been the subject of complaints from Manalapan residents who live nearby.

Manalapan Township Attorney Donald Lomurro said his client filed a prerogative writ, which attacks a government action.

"[The racetrack application] should have been before the Board of Adjustment for the proceedings that occurred there," he said. "[We are attempting] to try to set aside the approval that the Planning Board gave to Raceway Park to expand their uses."

Members of the newly reorganized Old Bridge Planning Board were informed of the pending lawsuit during their Feb. 3 meeting.

George Koehler, the board’s chairman in 2003 but now an alternate member, said the board had addressed the issue of whether Raceway Park’s application was within its jurisdiction or the zoning board’s during a hearing last year. At that time, the board had asked Old Bridge Township Planner Sam Rizzo and then-Planning Board Attorney Thomas Norman if it should hear the application or refer it to the zoning board.

The application did include a variance for the height of lighting poles around the low-speed track, Koehler recalled.

Both Rizzo and Norman advised the board that, even with that variance, the application fit the township’s land use regulations and was thus within the Planning Board’s jurisdiction.

Township Engineer John Vincente later agreed that the 16-foot-high lighting poles met township regulations and said the variance was not needed, according to Koehler.

"We felt we had jurisdiction based on the advice we received," Koehler told Greater Media Newspapers.

Throughout the course of the hearings on the application, Old Bridge’s board considered concerns voiced by Manalapan residents before rendering a decision, Koehler said. Those concerns pertained to noise from the track, safety, parking, and whether Raceway Park officials would schedule other events at the same time that the new, 12-turn track was in use.

The track is to be used only as a demonstration course for driving schools and sports car clubs or for car dealers wishing to show new models, according to Raceway Park owner Michael Napp, who testified during hearings. It would not be used for any competitive events or for unmuffled vehicles, Napp said.

"They agreed that they would definitely not run sports car events concurrent with other races," Koehler said.

As a second condition of approval, the board also mandated that the racetrack pass a safety inspection by the Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) and the New Jersey State Police before opening for business, Koehler said. The course had been designed with assistance from the SCCA, an organization which oversees racing events nationwide.

A representative of SCCA, testifying before the board in October, stated that street-legal sports cars, and not loud drag strip cars, would be using the track and that events planned there would not generate excessive noise.

A third condition was that patrons of the new track also be required to park in the lots on the premises of the drag strip. That condition was included to ensure that patrons do not park on nearby residential streets, according to Koehler.

About 20 Manalapan residents attended a board hearing on the application in October, Koehler said. Only one spoke against the application, according to Koehler. He said he thought many of the Manalapan residents appeared satisfied with the proceedings, especially after Old Bridge tacked on its conditions.

"I thought we had covered everything," Koehler said.

The former chairman said he wonders why the neighboring township is now contesting the former board’s decision.

"Why is (Manalapan) spending so much money on this issue?" he asked.

The Planning Board’s new attorney, Jeffrey Lehrer, will represent Old Bridge in the challenge, Koehler said.

Raceway Park is located in a special development zone that allows a unique enterprise such as a drag strip to operate.

Manalapan residents living near the drag strip have often complained to officials in their town as well as to Old Bridge about noise coming from racing events at the track.

The new course in question dates to early 2002 when Napp first put down the paved surface for the track without board approval. He was subsequently fined $1,000 by Old Bridge.

Napp then suspended work on the track until he received the township’s approval.

Asked if Manalapan will seek a restraining order to keep the new track from being used, Lomurro said, "Anything they do has a presumption of validity, so to get a restraining order is very unlikely at this point. We are seeking to overturn that government action [by the Planning Board, which] approved the track that had been previously built."