Matawan Changes Procedures on Demolition of Old Buildings

Members of the public will now have the opportunity to voice their opinion on the demolition of any building in Matawan Borough that is over 100-years-old.

The passed an ordinance at their meeting Tuesday night amending the building and construction code to change the process for obtaining a permit to demolish a building that is old and possibly historic.

Now, when an application is filed to demolish a building, the construction official must notify the Historic Sites Commission in addition to the tax assessor and health officer, of the application. The Historic Sites Commission must then review the building. If they find it is over 100-years-old, then a public hearing will be held on the demolition before permits can be issued to the property owner.

This amendment comes only two weeks after the council directed the Matawan Historical Sites Commission in the borough that are 100-years-old or older.

Al Savolaine, vice chairman of the Matawan Historical Sites Commission, updated the council on the commission's progress at Tuesday's meeting.

"What we're gong to do here is start with the arbitrary 100 year mark and work from that backwards to see if we can record some of these structures and hopefully some stories that would make for interesting reading for someone who's visiting matawan or any resident or child studying history in our schools," Savolaine said.

Savolaine explained that the project would take a while to complete, because they have to search records at the , old copies of the Matawan Journal and information held by the Monmouth County Historical Society, among other places. One hurdle to identifying buildings is that they did not used to be numbered as they are today.

However, Savolaine noted that the commission had already located about 35 buildings that meet the criteria including the former home of Judge Henry Stafford Terhune, the former and the .

"The one thing that Matawan really has going for it is history," Savolaine said. "We have the revolutionary war with the raid on the borough's mansion; we've got Philip Freneau, the poet of the American Revolution here. We've also got the famous Matawan shark attack of which five movies have been made and a number of books. One reason we're doing the survey is to as much as possible take advantage of this aspect of our town."