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City officials to seek views on development Published in the Asbury Park Press 03/9/05ASBURY PARK: City officials will hold a meeting at 7 p.m. Thursday at St. Stephen AME Zion Church, 1001 Springwood Ave., to seek comment from residents and businesses on how they want to see blighted sections of Springwood Avenue redeveloped.The City Council last month postponed a decision on a plan calling for 50 market-rate single-family homes, of which 10 would be set aside as affordable and 70 as low- and moderate-income rental units. The new housing would be built along both sides of Springwood Avenue between Memorial Drive and Atkins Avenue. Nancy Shields View proposals in broad context Published in the Asbury Park Press 02/10/05The Asbury Park City Council will hold a public hearing at 6 p.m. tonight on the Springwood Avenue Redevelopment Plan, which would allow construction of 70 affordable rental units and 50 market-rate, single-family homes.City officials are rightfully anxious to see the property in the city's impoverished west side developed. It has been largely untouched for decades. Building new housing there would send a signal that all parts of the city â not just the beachfront and the downtown â are being reborn. The city's planners, however, and some west side residents believe the properties in the four-block redevelopment zone should accommodate a variety of uses â residential, retail and commercial â and that the new affordable units should be scattered throughout the city. So do we. But the City Council must make a realistic assessment of how much of a market there is for retail in the areas where the two housing plans are being proposed. It also must determine whether reducing the number of housing units, or changing the mix of rental vs. owner-occupied units and market rate vs. affordable units, can be achieved without jeopardizing the plans now on the table. Asbury Park needs affordable housing. It will need even more of it when the new construction â and the rising rents and housing prices certain to accompany it â displace many longtime residents. It would be foolish to pass up any reasonable opportunity to provide it on Springwood Avenue. But new affordable housing should not be confined to the west side of town. And the Springwood Avenue corridor must be re-established as a mixed-use neighborhood. There also is a desperate need for outdoor recreation in that area. The redevelopment zone must provide for it â if not in the two easternmost blocks of the corridor where the two housing developments are proposed, then in the areas closer to the Neptune boundary. In considering the two proposals for Springwood Avenue, the council and city residents must view them in the broader context of the overall redevelopment plan and Asbury Park's affordable housing and recreation needs. The council shouldn't take any action without pledging that it is committed to creating new affordable housing throughout the city, to providing ample mixed use opportunities, including recreation, somewhere in the Springwood redevelopment area, and to ensuring that the redevelopment zone meshes well with an adjacent zone in Neptune.
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