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Monroe Township zoning board declines to rehear use‑variance for 223 Old Forge Road
Summary
After testimony from the applicant and neighbors, the Zoning Board of Adjustment voted 3–2 against rehearing a previously denied use‑variance for 223 Old Forge Road, concluding the application was not changed enough to overcome res judicata.
Chairman Lafada and the Monroe Township Zoning Board of Adjustment voted on a res judicata motion and declined to rehear a use‑variance application for 223 Old Forge Road, an application that seeks to continue a landscaping business on a residential parcel.
The board’s January meeting heard testimony from applicant and property owner Joseph Gravina, his counsel Walter Toto, engineer Lorelei Totten of Crest Engineering Associates and planner Mark Remsa. Gravina testified he sold tree‑removal equipment in 2025, signed a lease for yard/storage space in Helmetta in 2023 and expanded it in March 2025, and plans to keep much of his equipment at the Helmetta location. He said the current proposal would have two trucks regularly on site (Ford F‑550s with landscape trailers), summer staffing at most five people (typically operations manager plus two crew leaders) and no employees regularly on site in winter. Gravina testified porta‑johns and on‑site herbicide storage would be eliminated and that employees would use the residence restroom when necessary.
Engineer Lorelei Totten said the site plan was revised to close off access to Garibaldi Avenue with a row of green giant arborvitae and to reduce impervious cover from 59.6% to 53.2%. Planner Mark Remsa told the board the revisions reduce the intensity of the commercial use compared with the prior application and, in his professional opinion, constitute substantive changes warranting a hearing on the merits.
Opposing the rehearing, neighbors and their counsel — including attorney David Lonsky on behalf of the Buffalino family — presented the board with the prior resolution, the earlier site plan and the new site plan for comparison. Neighbors argued the earlier resolution focused on two principal uses on one parcel, insufficient buffering, septic and bathroom accommodations and found the property marginally larger than the zone minimum; they said those factual bases remain. Multiple residents testified that truck and employee counts in prior testimony and in board records differ from the applicant’s current statements and that removing an on‑site porta‑john while expecting workers to use a private residence restroom is inadequate for a separate commercial use.
After listening to applicant testimony, professional witnesses, counsel and public comment, the board voted on the motion to find that res judicata does not apply (i.e., to rehear the application). The roll call produced two votes in favor (Mister Lupo and Miss Caratore) and three votes against (Mister Masters, Mister Tanzi and Chairman Lafada). The motion therefore failed and the board declined to rehear the use‑variance application; the prior denial thus remains in the record.
The board’s immediate effect is procedural: because res judicata was found to apply, the applicant cannot proceed with a new hearing on this application unless he seeks relief through other legal avenues or files a materially different application that, in the board’s view, satisfies the five‑part test for avoiding claim preclusion. The applicant and counsel were thanked for their time and dismissed. The board also memorialized administrative entries for related filings before adjourning.
Officials, applicants and neighbors provided documentary material and cited the prior resolution; the board did not reach the merits of a use‑variance (which would require five affirmative votes).
