Concern Over Hotel Plan Completeness

Throughout the duration of Red Bank resident Stephen Mitchell’s still aimed at curbing a proposed hotel build on a tiny piece of land alongside the Navesink River, his attorney, Ron Gasiorowski, has been thorough in his attempts to delay the process by calling attention to a lack of oversight in regards to the public’s right to know.

And, at Monday’s Planning Board meeting he was back at it again.

Gasiorowski, who for the past few months has dominated the hotel’s planning proceedings with nothing if not entertaining courtroom-style cross examinations of the developer’s planning professionals, challenged that the applicant, RBank Capital LLC, which is seeking to build a 76-room Hampton Inn and Suites at the base of the Route 35 bridge entering Middletown, had failed to provide complete plans. Because of the significance of the application, Gasiorowski said the developer should be made to provide completed plans before proceeding.

“What you get is a public that’s cut out of the process,” he alleged.

Though his opinion was heard and recognized by the board, testimony of the project continued with Mayor Pat Menna, a sitting member of the board, assuring Gasiorowski that no immediate decision would be made. Continuing on, he said, was in the best interest of those forced to spend a lot of money bringing professionals back to meetings every two weeks.

At a previous meeting, Gasiorowski brought up the issue of the plans remaining incomplete and was told they would be updated. Still, at Monday’s meeting, a complete set of plans had not been produced, he said. What the plans being presented lack is clear enough, it seems, having been acknowledged by the board, its engineer, and the applicant, though it’s likely that they’re little more than minor footnotes.

Still, Gasiorowski did not relent.

Martin McGann, the attorney representing the applicant, said the missing pieces of information were minor engineering details. He called them minutiae and encouraged the board to not dally in hearing further testimony.  

Gasiorowski defended his position, saying the scope of the project warrants knowing even the smallest of details. Gasiorowski has used the pressure of the public in past instances as well. He successfully campaigned to have a meeting postponed after the board failed to provide – it opted only to stick a note on the door of the commission chambers at borough hall – following the cancelation of a previous meeting.

“You don’t have a complete set of plans before you,” he said, referring to the applicant. “The public doesn’t have a complete set of plans to review.”

The applicant's planner, Roy DeBoer, disagreed, however, saying that in his 33 years of professional experience he had never seen a more complete set of plans than the ones offered for the Hampton project.

The hotel plan has been a contentious one. In addition to Mitchell’s lawsuit, environmentalists have raised issue with the proposed site. Home to a former gas station, the parcel of land, just 1.04 acres, is and, as a result, prohibited from use for everything from a playground to a senior care facility. There’s also the concern of sprawl, what with Red Bank having developed near every piece of riverfront land in town, and the idea that a viable open space option could be lost forever.

Though his protestations were disregarded for the time being, Gasiorowski’s demands for complete plans will likely result in just those when the to discuss the issue on Dec. 19.