Waterfront Apartments Set For Toms River Planning Board Hearing

TOMS RIVER, NJ — The Toms River Township Planning Board is set to hear a proposal Tuesday night for a four-story downtown apartment building following a second order from a judge to hear the application.

The hearing is set for 6 p.m. Tuesday in the meeting room at Toms River's Town Hall, 33 Washington St.

The developer, Waterfront Development Partners LLC, first filed its application in November 2023 for the proposed building, which would have 64 apartments and 5,000 feet of retail space.

In court documents, attorney Robert Shea accused Toms River officials of dragging their feet on the application, including failing to provide correspondence about the status of the application. In April, Superior Court Judge Francis Hodgson deemed the application complete and ordered the Planning Board to hear it.

In August, after the township canceled the Planning Board meeting where the application was supposed to be heard in favor of a special meeting of the Township Council, Waterfront Development Partners sued again, asking Hodgson to approve the application, saying the town was continuing to drag its feet at the behest of Mayor Dan Rodrick.

Rodrick campaigned on stopping all downtown development; the project in question is on the site of a parking lot owned by Waterfront Development Partners at the corner of West Water Street and Irons Street.

In September, Hodgson again ordered the Planning Board to hear the application, declining Shea's request to grant automatic approval for exceeding the statutory time limit on applications. Under New Jersey land use laws, the planning board has 120 days to hear an application in full unless there is a mutual agreement with the developer to extend the time.

Shea said the developer is just trying to build on land he owns. The application does not require any variances; in court documents, the design was modified after the town flagged an item that would need a variance.

In the August court filing, Shea said the planning board and town officials failed to provide the documentation needed to obtain a developers agreement, which officials said was needed, and cited efforts by Rodrick and assistant township attorney Peter Pascarella, who now sits on the planning board, to refuse to hear the application.

The proposal includes 15 1-bedroom, 41 2-bedroom, and 8 3-bedroom units apartments, along with 2,560 square feet of retail space on the first floor, a lobby area, a mail room, a mechanical room, trash area, an area designated for bicycles, and 83 indoor/outdoor parking stalls.