Superior Court Judge Eugene Serpentelli agrees with SBB: You can’t be in two places at the same time! BUT THE BATTLE IS FAR FROM OVER. Keep your eye on our calendar!

On Friday, January 31, Ocean County Superior Court Assignment Judge Eugene D. Serpentelli ruled that the Traders Cove developer could not appeal Brick Township’s repeal of the Planned Residential Waterfront Community (PRWC) zoning ordinance simultaneous with its appearance before the Brick Township Zoning Board of Adjustment seeking a use variance for the Traders Cove site.

Thus, Paramount Homes’s attempt to overturn the zoning in court is indefinitely postponed, while the the zoning board hearings go forward.

Thirty-six hours earlier, Steven Secare, the attorney for the Brick Zoning Board in this matter, had vituperatively informed Save Barnegat Bay’s attorney, Michele R. Donato, that Paramount Homes had every right to be in both forums at the same time. Mr. Secare sits on the Ocean County Democratic Finance Committee with Mark Troncone, who is the atttorney for the applicant, and Mayor Joseph Scarpelli.

If the zoning board were to deny the developer a use variance – which their hostile conduct toward Traders Cove objectors suggests they will not – Paramount Homes would then have the right to come back before Judge Serpentelli for the purpose of appealing the repeal of the PRWC ordinance.

QUESTION FOR HOME STUDY: Why do you suppose that when forced to choose between (1) trying to get Brick’s zoning overturned in Superior Court and (2) trying to get the Brick Township Zoning Board of Adjustment to grant them a use variance, Traders Cove’s would-be developer opted to attempt the latter?

Next Zoning Board Hearing:

– Wednesday, May 16 @ 7:30
at Brick Township Municipal Building, 401 Chambersbridge Road

> Read May 26 Asbury Park Press update.

> Read about Judge Serpentelli’s ruling in the Asbury Park Press.

> Also read about the contentious Zoning Board hearing of Wednesday, January 29.

> And read the lead-up article to the January 29 hearing.

> Read SBB’s letter to the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection concerning the Traders Cove proposal.