Lakewood UEZ hearings postponed indefinitely

Lakewood UEZ hearings
postponed indefinitely
By Joyce Blay
Staff Writer

LAKEWOOD — It was years in coming and weeks in preparation, but a scant four days before the township could present its application to expand the township’s Urban Enterprise Zone (UEZ), the state UEZ authority abruptly canceled the hearing scheduled for yesterday.

"My understanding is that they’ll do a fiscal analysis first," said Russell K. Corby, director of Lakewood’s Department of Economic Development, as well as coordinator of the township’s UEZ program.

That was also the reason given by Gregory W. Adkins, director of New Jersey Commerce and Economic Development.

"We just want to get as much information as we can and put that information before the full authority so it can make an informed decision," he said. "The application won’t be on the agenda this month and we don’t know when it will be [in the foreseeable future]."

Corby said he did not know why the hearing had been put off at the last moment, but others had their suspicions.

"It’s politics," said James Waters, a member of the board of the Lakewood Development Corp. "I think it’s reasonable to believe that the officials of Brick had something to do with the postponement of the hearing."

Since Lakewood first received UEZ designation from the state in 1994, 11 years after the program was inaugurated, Brick has been outspoken against the application to extend the zone anywhere near the Route 70 corridor, which includes a lucrative segment of Brick’s shopping district.

This time around, Lakewood not only wants to expand its UEZ to encompass the Town and Country Shopping Center, but also the CVS Plaza on New Hampshire Avenue and Route 88 — a strip mall that is not fully leased.

Brick officials assert that the UEZ zone should be applied only to those sections of Lakewood that are genuinely blighted.

According to Corby, that defeats the purpose of the program. He said the UEZ was created to address high unemployment in the entire municipality, not just in the impoverished parts of it located far from competing businesses in neighboring townships.

"Ten years ago, no one had the facts and statistics they have today," he said. "The argument that the UEZ provides an unfair advantage is a knee-jerk, emotional one."