By Kenny Walter
Staff Writer
LONG BRANCH- Testimony continued last week on the conversion of the former Church Street School to 16-apartment style residential units.
Traffic engineer John Rae, representing Jemal’s Church Street School, LLC, said during the Feb. 22 Long Branch Zoning Board of Adjustment hearing that the proposed use will produce significantly less traffic than a school would.
“The 16 apartments will generate a total of eight driveway movements during the morning-peak hour and 10 driveway movements during the afternoon-peak hour,” Rae said. “The proposed apartment building will generate substantially less peak-hour traffic than the previous use of the property.”
According to Rae, the school would produce 113 peak-morning driveway movements and 68 peak-afternoon driveway movements.
“My testimony is the 35-space parking lot will adequately contain parking generated by this building so that there shouldn’t be any impact on the adjacent streets,” Rae said.
The proposal includes converting the former school building into 14 two-bedroom apartments and two one-bedroom apartments with a 35-parking stalls on-site.
Since previous hearings held in November and January, the developer made changes to the site plan, including relocating the transformer to the southeast part of the property and changing the landscaping and walkways.
Several neighbors have concerns over the project, including noise, traffic and stormwater runoff concerns.
However, the applicant has stated that the project will reduce stormwater runoff and all stormwater will be treated on site.
In 2014, the Long Branch Board of Education reached an agreement with Jemal’s Church Street School, LLC, for the acquisition of the school building for $550,000.
The 16,634-square-foot Church Street School, which dates to the 1890s, is a two-story building that sits on a 1.45-acre site in the city’s R-3 residential zone and the developer would need a use variance.
According to district Business Administrator Peter Genovese, the Church Street School was one of the district’s original school buildings and hasn’t been in use for at least 20 years.
Also known as the North Long Branch School-Primary No. 3, the Church Street School was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1999.
Developer Douglas Jemal also purchased two of the three historic buildings of the former Takanassee Beach Club and relocated the structures and moved them to his Ocean Avenue home in 2012, just months before the third building was wiped out by superstorm Sandy.
The next hearing on the application will be held on March 14.
