Toms River Planning Board OK’s 11 Lots for Large-Home Development

The properties at 2030 and 2040 Whitesville Road, Toms River, N.J. (Credit: Google Maps)

Toms River’s planning board on Wednesday night voted to approve an application by a developer to subdivide 11 lots for nine single-family homes that could each include between five and seven bedrooms. Two existing homes will remain.

The board unanimously voted in favor of approving a proposal by Charles Klein, of Four Points Realty, Lakewood, to subdivide two parcels to create the future community. Mathew Wilder, the engineer representing the applicant, said his client did not plan to build the new homes himself, but instead sell the properties to individual buyers who would work with a homebuilder.

The subject properties are located at 2030 and 2040 Whitesville Road, respectively. One is owned by Klein, through a Brooklyn-based LLC, and the other is owned by Lakewood developer David Gluck, according to tax and business records. Though there were no formal objections to the application, several homeowners from neighboring streets voiced concerns over the presence of two retention basins that will be built on two of the 11 subdivided lots. The remaining nine lots, located in the township’s R200 zone, will support the single-family homes at lot sizes of at least 200,000 square feet each. Each lot will measure approximately .83 acres in area.

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“This is going to set a precedent for the larger piece of property across the street,” one resident told board members. Another asked for trees to be planted that would block the view of the basins, and a third resident was concerned over the maintenance of the basins – specifically, whether they could become clogged over time.

Wilders said a homeowners’ association would be formed for the development that would be obligated to perform monthly maintenance on the retention basins, and did not expect runoff from Whitesville Road to become captured in the structures. He also downplayed concerns over the potential size of the future homes.

“This is really the last property that can be developed in this nature,” said Wilders. “There are some streams to the west and the south – so this is it. I believe we are consistent with the master plan.”

The homes that will be built on the site are expected to include five or six bedrooms, though some could include as many as seven. The homes would measure between 6,000 and 6,200 square feet.

“They will be fully conforming to the [zoning] regulations,” said Wilder. “We could conceivably see a two and-a-half story home” with four to five bedrooms on the first level and up to two more on an upper level or in a loft setting.

“We will meet all requirements with the building code, but we don’t have any floor plan or footprint of the homes,” Wilders said. “The township doesn’t have a regulation on the size of homes.”

The applicant’s attorney, Robert C. Shea, would not commit to planting a tree buffer between the new parcels and existing homes, but eventually agreed that his client would build a 500-foot-long privacy fence measuring six feet in height.