Four-minute read

Asbury Park Press

UPPER FREEHOLD - Shouts of “Shame!”, “Sell outs!” and “Vote them out!” erupted Tuesday night after the planning board voted overwhelmingly to approve a controversial warehouse complex totaling 453,720 square feet that would sit less than 100 feet from a residential neighborhood in Allentown.

Nine planning board members — Mayor Robert Frascella, Committeeman Stephen Alexander, Joe Covello, Anthony Garaguso, Douglas Raynor, Jim Rosenbauer, Richard Stern, Mike McGuire and Christopher Hemlinger — voted to approve the warehouse complex, which has seen over 100 residents speak out over 10 months against the applicant in public comments.

Board member Patricia Dorey was the sole vote against the application, arguing that such a large development was inappropriate so close to residential homes.

Allentown Mayor Thomas Fritts said the historic village intends to pursue litigation to prevent the warehouse, which would be built on speculation and potentially run 24 hours for seven days a week, from being developed.

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'Fighting this to the very, very end'

“100% yes,” he said of a lawsuit after the vote. “We have many reasons to appeal and we also have the resources to do so. So, we have put ourselves in the position that we plan on fighting this to the very, very end.”

Upper Freehold resident Sue Kozel also said the fight to preserve the land between Allentown and Interstate 195 was not over. She hopes that either Monmouth County or the state will preserve the land.

Since February, 10 planning board meetings have been devoted to hearing the controversial warehouse development, dubbed AAESUF by the Wall-based developer Active Acquisitions.

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On Tuesday, Allentown’s attorney Stuart Lieberman gave his closing arguments. He noted that about half of residents speaking out against the development were from Allentown while the other half were from Upper Freehold.

“We are joined at the hip. Maybe we’re two separate political entities, but we’re really all one,” Lieberman said, referring to the many comments that highlighted Allentown’s historic role as the downtown to Upper Freehold.

“They’re your people. They’re your constituents,” he continued. “They don’t want the flooding; and they don’t want the traffic; and they don’t want the flooding of the basements on Probasco and they don’t want to hear the OSHA sounds from the trucks backing up — beep-beep-beep-beep. And they don’t want the disturbance; and they don’t want this community to be irreversibly changed and modified.”

He said that Allentown’s municipal engineer, who did an analysis of the warehouse’s stormwater and wastewater systems, used the developer’s own data and argued flooding would be guaranteed.

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He argued that the plan was doing too much on such a site and the plans should have gone to the zoning board. And he said the environmental impact statement claiming that the warehouse would not have an impact on noise and pollution, but would add to the economy, was not backed up with data.

He argued that the board should take in consideration the state Department of Environmental Protection’s denial of the developer’s wetlands permit, which is currently in appeal.

'A lot of emotion'

The developer’s attorney, Craig Gianetti, called the opposition to the warehouses “a lot of emotion.”

He argued that the development conformed to the zone and that the project was improved by being broken up into two warehouses instead of one large block.

He questioned Allentown’s municipal engineer’s assessment of the project, arguing that the data points provided were already the worst-case scenarios. He said the issue brought up by Allentown’s engineer was not that the project does not comply with the Department of Environmental Protection requirements, but that it doesn’t go beyond the minimum requirements.

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“There’s already flooding in the basements of Probasco Drive. It’s an existing condition. Our issue is we can’t make the situation worse,” Gianetti said.

He listed a number of conditions that the developer agreed to, including placing an underground barrier between the warehouse and the residential homes, placing a fence between the two properties and adding truck clearance barriers to prevent trucks from parking on the side closest to the homes. And he argued that a proposed roundabout would reduce truck traffic into the historic village.

Gianetti argued that there were no requirements to calculate the project’s impact on emergency services or go above and beyond the state requirements on protecting threatened and endangered species.

He said if archaeological items were found on site, they would be archived, but finding historic objects would not preclude the site from being developed. Some opponents of the project have argued the site was the home of a British encampment during the 1778 Battle of Monmouth campaign during the American Revolution.Dorey, who was the sole vote against the application, said she was uncomfortable with the warehouses being so close to residential homes, “I think this is a disaster. These buildings need to be in Raritan Center or Matrix or Centerton Square. They don’t need to be at this site.”

Olivia Liu is a reporter covering transportation, Red Bank and western Monmouth County. She can be reached at oliu@gannett.com.