Council expected to vote on rezoning Jan.7 The Planning Board asks for town's master plan to be updated BY DANIEL HOWLEY Staff Writer OCEAN TOWNSHIP - Council members introduced a measure last week to bring the town's master plan up to date by rezoning a West Park Avenue site. Council is expected to hold a public hearing and final vote on ordinance No. 2083 at the Jan. 7 municipal meeting. The measure calls for a former office complex site at 777 West Park Ave. to be redesignated from a general office zoned area to a highway commercial zone. "We are always looking at [the master plan]," Planning Board member and Councilman Chris Siciliano said last week. "We want to make sure that we are not swelling up other areas," he said, adding, "We are trying to preserve what space we have left." Updating the master plan to make the West Park Avenue site a highway commercial zoned area would better reflect the conditions and operations currently in the area, according to Siciliano. The ordinance was introduced at the Dec. 3 municipal meeting after the town's Planning Board recommended that council take action on the issue. There were no comments on the ordinance by members of the public or town officials at the meeting. Currently located on the 9.7-acre West Park Avenue site are a bank, a post office building and a vacant lot that once housed an office building. The bank and post office are not permitted uses in the general office use zoned area, according to Siciliano. "At the time the master plan was prepared, the subject site was designated for general office use in the master plan … due to the fact that the primary use of the site was general offices," according to a reexamination report conducted at the site by James W. Higgins Associates of Ocean. "In the late 1990s, the office complex on the site was destroyed by fire, and the bulk of the site remains vacant at this time," the report, which was presented to the board in November, states. While the office building was operational, the uses at the site "partially conformed" to the master plan, according to the report. Since the office building was destroyed, the site has been considered "completely nonconforming," according to the report. The re-examination report was requested by the Planning Board to study the uses in the area, according Siciliano. A highway commercial zone permits uses for "retail sales and services to serve the residents of Ocean Township and adjacent communities," according to the Ocean Township Comprehensive Land Development Ordinances, which lists guidelines on the town's zoning regulations. Siciliano explained that smaller businesses and stores such as financial offices, delicatessens, appliance stores, florists and liquor stores are generally located in highway commercial zones. Currently there are no plans to develop the vacant land that once housed the office complex on the West Park Avenue property, according to Siciliano.