Developer Kara Homes files for bankruptcy
BY SUE MORGAN
Staff Writer

JEFF GRANIT staff The two remaining homesites in Kara Homes' Tradewinds development will be developed by another builder.

SEA BRIGHT - On a site along the town's sea wall, 18 of the 20 homes to be constructed at the Tradewinds at Sea Bright development stand proudly.

Whether or not the other two homes that development builder Kara Homes of East Brunswick was to build will be constructed any time soon remains to be seen.

Last Thursday, Oct. 5, the beleaguered Kara Homes filed for bankruptcy in U.S. Bankruptcy Court, according to Patrick Turner, an attorney for the developer, which has constructed homes statewide since 1999.

Several phone calls to the company's East Brunswick office were not returned. A voice mail system promises to return calls from clients and others later.

Aside from the Tradewinds at Sea Bright, Kara Homes had recently sought to construct housing in nearby Tinton Falls and Shrewsbury, according to its company Web site.

Horizons at Shrewsbury, a development of single-family homes restricted to residents 55 years of age and older, is listed on the Web site as a "coming" project. Those homes were to start in the high $800,000 range.

Another development, Meadows at Tinton Falls, located off Pinebrook Road, though slated for construction, has not been started, the Web site shows.

Kara Homes, founded by its president Zudi Karagjozi, has built, or had planned to build, more than 20 luxury developments, some designed exclusively for residents 55 years of age or older, throughout New Jersey, its Web site shows.

Many of the homes constructed or pending construction were in Monmouth, Ocean or Middlesex counties.

In Sea Bright, the two homes still to be built at Tradewinds have been turned over to another builder, Diamond Developers of Belmar, according to Karen DiBerardino of the borough's building department.

Residents in some of Kara Homes' developments built elsewhere, such as Bridgepointe in Old Bridge, have complained of unfinished homes, exteriors or driveways for some time. However, to date, that has not been the case with Tradewinds, DiBerardino said on Friday.

"We haven't heard any complaints from the owners," she said.

As of this week, the borough had issued certificates of occupancy for 13 of the 18

three-story homes with interior elevators, that now stand.

About half of the homes built back up almost to the sea wall for an oceanfront view.

The backyards of the other homes, located across Tradewinds Drive, the development's sole thoroughfare, back up to Ocean Avenue, also known as state Highway 36.

Homes at the Tradewinds, which replaced the once popular Trade Winds Beach Club and its accompanying nightclub, start at about $400,000 according to the company's Web site.

As the successor of Trade Winds Beach Club, Kara Homes was named as one of several defendants in a civil complaint filed last month by the state's acting Attorney General and the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) in the Chancery Division of state Superior Court, Freehold.

The four-count complaint states that Kara Homes should open up access to its beachfront to the public because a sand replenishment project carried out in 1993 and 2003 in Sea Bright was paid for with taxpayer money.

Seven other Sea Bright beach clubs and the borough government are also named as defendants in the pending suit.

The only problem that has ever been brought to officials' attention came not from those living in the luxury homes, but from their neighbors in the 32-year-old Sea Bright Village condominium directly north of the newer construction.

In September 2005, a group of Sea Bright Village residents appealed to the council to put pressure on Kara Homes to repair a crumbling wall separating Tradewinds from the condominium. The council advised Sea Bright Village's board to negotiate a repair plan with Kara Homes, and keep the governing body advised.

The homes at Tradewinds were first approved by the borough's combined Planning and Zoning Board of Adjustment in 2003 after the beach club's owners sold their property to the developer.

Kara Homes had sought to relocate its corporate headquarters in Old Bridge and received approvals to build in the township in December 2003. The building has not been erected.

Once a partner with developer Matzel and Mumford, Karagjozi was named "Fast Track Builder of the Year" by trade publications in 2002.