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The Asbury Park City Council granted conceptual approval Wednesday on national homebuilder K. Hovnanian’s proposal to build 28 townhome units in the western portion of the city’s waterfront redevelopment zone.

The vote was 3-1. Deputy Mayor Susan Henderson and Council members John Loffredo and John Moor voted yes. Councilwoman Amy Quinn voted no. Mayor Myra Campbell did not attend the meeting.

Before the vote was taken, Loffredo cautioned against falling into a pattern of stagnation when it comes to making decisions about redevelopment in the city.

“When the Vive was first presented to us, there were people who hated it. They gave us the same thing, ‘don’t do it … this is awful, what are you doing to Asbury Park?’ we hear it all the time. You’re not going to please everybody,” said Councilman John Loffredo. “And folks, we’ve got to be careful going in to this mindset of questioning everything and doing nothing – be careful. Because Asbury Park did that before and we saw what happened, empty property and boarded-up buildings.”

After the meeting, Councilwoman Quinn said the project did not fit her vision of Asbury Park. During the council discussion she also expressed concern that the project proposal was made in adherence to an older version of the waterfront redevelopment agreement when several amendments to the plan are in the works.

“I question whether it meets the requirements of the 2002 waterfront redevelopment agreement,” said Quinn. “I have spent four months asking for a red-line copy of the waterfront redevelopment amendments, so I can t even tell if it meets those requirements.”

Although a set of draft amendments do exist, the waterfront redevelopment plan has not been amended yet and decisions in regard to current development have to be made under the plan as it stands, according to Don Sammet, the city’s director of planning and redevelopment.

Quinn did not find it prudent to grant approval on a project under a waterfront redevelopment agreement that is over 10 years old while having the knowledge that a set of draft amendments to the plan exist, she said.

Neither Moor nor Henderson offered any remarks on the issue.

Developers must now meet with the city planning board to seek further approvals, including a variance for lot frontage.

The project, “South Grand” [shown above], proposes four buildings constructed on the western portion of the block bound by Grand, Monroe and Sewall avenues and Heck Street. The site is located at the western boundary of the waterfront redevelopment zone, adjacent to the downtown business district.

In the plan, two of the buildings front the streetscapes along Grand and Monroe avenues. An additional two buildings face in on each other on the Sewall Avenue side, providing what project planner Keenan Hughes calls a “mews” effect.

All of the units proposed are four stories tall, with the exception of three three-story units along Sewall Avenue, he said.

The project was previously reviewed by the city’s Technical Review Committee [TRC], a subcommittee of the planning board, who made recommendations to change the original layout of the buildings and to make the sides and rear facades of the buildings more aesthetically pleasing along the streetscapes. A “majority” of the recommendations were met by the time Hovnanian presented the project to the council, according to Councilman John Moor, who is the council liaison to the planning board and a member of the TRC.

“With those changes, which we made in consultation with the TRC, we are very excited about where the project is today,” said Hughes.

Several members of the public spoke about the project during the public participation session of the meeting, both in favor and in opposition of the project.

“Personally, I like the aesthetics of the Vive project, I think that sort of set the standard and aesthetic, and if all of that land ended up looking like the vive project, I could live with that. I don’t like the Hovnanian project. I don’t like the design of it, that is my personal opinion,” said city resident Jeffrey Seeds.

“I think it’s important, the point that Councilwoman Quinn brought up, about the amendments that we have heard a lot about over the lase four, five years and the context of those amendments is that, they are the vision of the Asbury Park we want to see in the future and the old amendments from 2001 are outdated,” said resident Joe Woerner. “So, I know legally, it’s their job to judge it based on the old amendments or the old plan, but from the average citizen’s perspective, it makes sense to think of what out vision is, and that does this project fit into the vision of what we want for Asbury Park?”

“Eighty five percent of the city is comprised of renters,” said city resident Pat Fasano. “We’ve had the most valuable property in the entire county vacant for the last 40 years — the waterfront redevelopment area … thank god iStar has it, a billion dollar company bringing in another billion dollar company, Hovnanian, in to build … I”m in favor of Hovnanian, in fact, we need building in Asbury Park because construction is going to get the kids off the streets, not more police.”

“I’ve talked to local business owners, because I almost exclusively buy and shop in Asbury Park, and if you talk to a guy who has to make a payroll, the guy who owns Beckman’s [Deli], I said, ‘hey, anyone talk to you about local business owners you don’t want this stuff, you know you can do without it and wait for some pie-in-the-sky developer,’ he said, ‘you know what? we need more people to come in and buy an egg sandwich and buy a lunch,” said resident Marty Marino. “I personally jumped for joy when I saw that iStar announced Hovnanian was coming and I speak from experience. My spouse and I have previously owned two K. Hovnanian townhomes, in Bridgewater and Basking Ridge.”

Waterfront redeveloper iStar Financial  — the majority owner of Asbury Partners — signed an agreement in November with national homebuilder K. Hovnanian Homes to construct the units. The agreement marks the first time a national homebuilder has entered the Asbury Park market since 1984, when the waterfront was originally designated as a redevelopment area, according to a previous statement from iStar.

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