The Lakewood, N.J. club’s golf course would be reduced to 9 holes—from 27—if plans for “The Parke” are approved. In addition to homes, a shopping center, four community centers, multiple parks and pedestrian paths will be included.
The developer that wants to build a massive new neighborhood on the Eagle Ridge Golf Club in Lakewood, N.J., has filed an application with the township planning board, signaling a step forward with the project that has triggered vocal opposition and two lawsuits, the Asbury Park Press reported.
Named “The Parke,” the project calls for a development of 556 residential units — 278 duplex buildings — a shopping center, four community centers, multiple parks and pedestrian paths to replace most of the golf course, according to documents filed with Lakewood Township.
“This is a plan for a community that is future-oriented, modern, with more open space than anything close to it in the area,” said Shmuli Rosenberg, a spokesman for the developer, GDMS Holdings LLC, which is doing business under the name The Parke at Lakewood LLC.
The Parke is “a real example of what a development could be,” he said. “We think that will be the ultimate benefit for the future of the community.”
Rosenberg said state environmental regulators asked the developer to include more open space, resulting in fewer homes, the Press reported. New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection permits for the project, granted in January 2018, approved 1,034 residential units at the site.
However, a traffic study for the project says the duplexes will have basement apartments, meaning the total number of new residences could top 1,100, the Press reported. The 27-hole course at Eagle Ridge Golf Club will be cut to nine holes after construction, according to the application.
The Lakewood Township Planning Board will hold a public hearing on the application February 5.
The future of the public golf course has become a flash point in an ongoing debate over how Lakewood Township should grow, and whether there should be limits on new construction, the Press reported. Lakewood’s population has more than doubled in the last 30 years, and vast green spaces that brought vibes of rural living have been turned into homes.
The most vocal opponents to the Eagle Ridge development plan are residents of The Fairways at Lake Ridge, an age-restricted development built around the golf course, the Press reported. Residents there and the homeowners association have filed two lawsuits over the development proposal and the township’s handling of a planning process in 2017.
The lawsuits have continued despite an August attack in The Fairways that left Frederick “Rob” and Patricia Robison, a couple leading opposition to development, hospitalized for months, the Press reported. No arrests have been made in the assault, and authorities have released little information about their investigation.
Michele Donato, a land use lawyer representing the Fairways homeowners association, said she recommended to the association board that it seek an injunction, a court order that could at least temporarily stop construction at The Parke until the opposition can be heard, the Press reported.
“There are very significant challenges to the validity of the ordinance under which they are seeking approval,” she said.
In 2017, after a months-long process that brought residents out in droves to raise concerns that infrastructure wasn’t keeping pace with new construction, the planning board and township committee adopted ordinances as part of a new master plan, a tome that dictates growth and zoning in the 25-square-mile township of 102,000 residents, the Press reported. The new ordinances allowed for planned developments, like the one proposed at The Parke, on the Eagle Ridge site.
But Donato says New Jersey’s Municipal Land Use Law forbids that ordinance from trumping the decades-old ordinance that permitted The Fairways to be built, exchanging higher density for more open space — the golf course, according to the Press report. The conflicting ordinances are one issue raised in the lawsuit.
She also noted that the master plan ordinances made construction along an adjacent street, which is right at the border of Jackson and Toms River, N.J., contingent upon road improvements coming first, the Press reported. Those improvements have not been made.
However, the traffic study for the housing development says Ocean County plans to widen the street to three lanes, adding a left-turn lane, and adding a traffic signal “in the near future.”
More than 1,800 cars would come and go from The Parke development each day during peak traffic hours if it is built, the traffic study says, according to the Press report.
In trying to calm opposition to the plan last year, GDMS Holdings sent promotional materials to The Fairways residents and invited them to a symposium on the development, an effort that was met with skepticism, the Press reported. Rosenberg said that aside from a few residents, those discussions didn’t get “as far as we would have liked.”
Still, he said, The Parke plan reflected less density than previous proposals.
“It’s far less dense than the Fairways now,” he said. “From the research we did, there’s nothing like it in the area.”
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