Residents to developers: Leave our homes out
Homes remained in original redevelopment plan, Vendetti says
BY CHRISTINE VARNO
Staff Writer

Residents facing loss of their homes through eminent domain are appealing to developers to leave their homes out of the redevelopment plan for their Long Branch neighborhood

“We figured we have tried everything else,” said Lori Vendetti, who lives in the Beachfront North, phase II redevelopment zone known as MTOTSA (Marine and Ocean terraces and Seaview Avenue).

MTOTSA, a group of some 26 homeowners living in a three-street neighborhood, is slated for eminent domain, and plans call for the properties to be razed and replaced with luxury condominiums and townhouses.

The group has pleaded unsuccessfully with the Long Branch City Council for two years to end what they say is an abuse of eminent domain because their homes are being taken to build upscale private residences.

According to Vendetti, the group has tried everything to save their homes, including asking Mayor Adam Schneider and the City Council to remove the neighborhood from the redevelopment plan, developing their own plan for the revitalization of their neighborhood and organizing rallies to fight for their cause.

But Vendetti said nothing has worked, and the reality of eminent domain is looming closer.

“None of the [MTOTSA] members has ever asked the developers to take us out of their plan,” she said. “We thought we had nothing else to lose.”

Matzel & Mumford Corp., Hazlet, a division of K. Hovnanian Enterprises, Red Bank, was designated by the city as joint developer for the Beachfront North, phase II redevelopment zone that encompasses MTOTSA, along with the Applied Companies, Hoboken.

According to Applied Cos.’ Web site, plans for Beachfront North, phase II, call for a mixed use development of 750 upscale rental residences, condominiums and townhomes, plus 100,000 square feet of entertainment and lifestyle retail shops including a beach club, gourmet restaurants and shops. Prices range from $800,000 to $2 million.

MTOTSA sent a letter Aug. 3 to K. Hovnanian, Applied and Matzel and Mumford, asking that MTOTSA be withdrawn from the plan.

“By submitting your plan, you will be directly contributing to forcibly removing and displacing property owners that do not want to leave,” MTOTSA wrote in the letter.

“You can stop this now. We do not believe this is an outrageous request to ask of your company and from the city of Long Branch.”

Greg Russo, senior vice president of Applied, said Tuesday he had not seen the MTOTSA letter and could not comment on it.

A spokesman for K. Hovnanian referred inquiries to Matzel & Mumford, where officials could not be reached for comment.

Vendetti said she is trying everything she can to save her home, which she said was included in the original redevelopment plans for Beachfront North.

“In 1996, [MTOTSA] went to meetings with the city that showed diagrams of the oceanfront redevelopment zone and we were told our neighborhood was going to be an in-fill project,” she said.

“Years later when we saw townhouses and condominiums being built we said, ‘This was not the plan.’ So two years ago we went to the city for answers.”

At council meetings, Mayor Adam Schneider repeatedly told MTOTSA members that the group should have gotten involved in the redevelopment process 10 years earlier.

“Plans have never changed,” he said this week. “Somebody could potentially build in-fill housing, but the [designated developer’s plan] does not call for it.”

While the Applied Cos. Web site says the redeveloper “respects the dominant aesthetics of a community and recognizes a concern for the varied voices of the community, including neighborhood groups,” Vendetti said that is not the case.

“MTOTSA should be saved as historical documentation of life at the Jersey Shore, and in Long Branch specifically, where seven presidents once vacationed,” MTOTSA wrote in the letter.

“If you move forward, you will not simply be destroying inanimate structures of brick, metal and wood. You will be taking our land, the land that we invested in with our money and our hearts and our souls.”

The oceanfront redevelopment area in Long Branch is divided into five zones which extend from the MTOTSA area along the shore to Bath Avenue.

K. Hovnanian has already razed the properties in four of the zones and constructed luxury townhouses, condominiums, restaurants and retail stores in their place.

MTOTSA wants the redevelopment to stop.

“Our neighborhood is not blighted, we are not crime-ridden, we have no boarded-up houses, and our homes are being utilized as intended,” the letter continued.

“It is a viable neighborhood, which is exactly the objective Long Branch’s Master Redevelopment Plan states that it is trying to accomplish.

“We are a true neighborhood, where children play, adults congregate, meaningful and significant relationships are created and preserved through social settings that the ownership of our properties has produced.”

The companies poised to raze the MTOTSA properties are among the largest developers in the U.S.

K. Hovnanian, parent company of Matzel & Mumford, ranks among the nation’s top 10 homebuilders with total revenues of $4.2 billion last year and 14,586 home delivered, according to the company Web site.

The Applied Development Company had revenues of $108 million in 2003, and according to its Web site, is currently engaged in developing more than $1 billion of residential and commercial real estate.

In addition to Beachfront North, Applied is redeveloper of Pier Village, another mixed-use development on the Long Branch oceanfront that involved eminent domain proceedings.

The Web site features a testimonial by Long Branch Business Administrator Howard Woolley.

Applied co-founder Joseph Barry pleaded guilty last year to charges in a federal corruption indictment of making cash payments to the former Hudson County executive in connection with securing federal and state grants and loans for Applied’s development projects, according to U.S. Attorney Christopher J. Christie.

The indictment detailed a total of $8.8 million in federal and state loans and grants that Barry and the Applied Cos. secured through bribery.

MTOTSA has asked The Institute for Justice (IJ), a nonprofit law firm based in Washington, D.C., that specializes in the protection of private property rights when eminent domain is not used for a public use project, to represent the group if the city initiates eminent domain proceedings to take their properties,

Senior IJ attorney Scott Bullock represented the plaintiffs in Kelo v. New London, a property rights suit heard by the U.S. Supreme Court that challenged the taking of properties in a New London, Conn., neighborhood, to clear the way for private redevelopment.

In a 5-4 split, the court ruled in June in favor of the use of eminent domain by local governments and private developers.

MTOTSA has retained attorney Peter H. Wegener, of Bathgate, Wegener and Wolf, Lakewood, to represent the group should the city move to begin eminent domain proceedings by condemning the properties.

“We are not willing to sell our homes for any price,” Vendetti said. “We are fighting to save our homes form the abuse of eminent domain.”