Senior's Charm Sways Zoning Board

When the attorney representing Bill Jones couldn’t offer any official proof that a Drummond Avenue home had served as a two-family dwelling for not only years, but decades, the seemed fit to push back the hearing until something, a tax slip, a utility bill, an inspection report, anything, could be provided.

Then the 87-year-old Jones, dressed in denim from head to toe with long white hair hanging loose around his shoulders, took to the microphone and won himself approval with five minutes of testimony and plenty of charm.

You see, Jones purchased the dilapidated and uninhabited home at 13 Drummond Ave. with the intention of fixing it up and renting it out as a two-family home, something he and his lawyer Kevin Asadi told the board it had already served as for decades. But, when Jones went to borough hall for work permits he discovered that not only did Red Bank not consider the home anything other than a single-family dwelling, but also that a two-family home was not even permitted in the zone.

Asadi said he looked for tax records substantiating the claim, but couldn’t find any – he said the records didn’t go back that far. When the board asked if there were any utility bills, if there were separate electric meters on the property, if there were separate boilers for the two units, the answer, again, was no on all counts.

How it came to be that home had never been inspected by borough officials and never found to be a two-family home, and why previous owners never paid taxes reflective of anything other than a single-family dwelling, well, that too went unanswered at the Thursday night meeting.

Though the board was apprehensive about approving the application, Jones’ tales of post-war – World War II, of course – construction, his role in building the Middletown skating rink and several area A & P supermarkets, as well as many houses in the Red Bank area, was enough, apparently, to win them over.

Jones said the home was expanded, it appears, somewhere about 90 years ago, as there’s proof of two separate foundations. He gave his word as a mason that there exist two separate basements on the property, even though both are and have forever been tied to the same utilities. That, it seems, was enough for the board, several of its members left smiling as Jones left the room with board approval.