HOWELL – An applicant before the zoning board hopes to build a private ranch and farm with skeet shooting for his own personal use on several parcels on Megill Road.
The Township Zoning Board of Adjustment heard testimony on a proposed farm called Wildbrook Ranch at its January meeting. The plan calls for tree orchards, crops, an indoor riding area, paddocks, a clubhouse for personal use with three residential apartments above it, and a skeet shooting field.
The owner, Alex Adjmi, told officials he planned on this property all being for his own personal use. There would not be customers coming to the property. There are five lanes for the skeet shooting, and it would not attract more than a handful of friends and family.
The property owner needs to apply for a use variance to build and operate there. It is currently in the ARE-6 agricultural rural estate zone.
The property is located on Megill Road, near Belmar Boulevard. Due to its driveway emptying onto the border with Wall Township, zoning board officials said the traffic portion of the application might need to go before that municipality as well.
According to the project engineer, Joseph Hanrahan, the entire property is 183.6 acres, of which 26 acres can be developed due to wetlands and riparian buffers.
The skeet shooting will take place 2,600 feet from Belmar Boulevard, Hanrahan said. They would be shooting in the direction of the woods.
Plans include a 12,500 square foot barn, with a 18,900 square foot riding area, a 1,200-square-foot clubhouse, and a 1,900-square-foot greenhouse.
There would be 6.2 acres dedicated to the tree orchards and vegetable crops. The architectural design for the home on the property was not done yet.
Jennifer Krimko, attorney for Adjmi, with the firm Ansell Grimm and Aaron, said the property has already received approval for the plan from the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection. There are two small waterways that impact the property.
Krimko added there is an access road on site to other properties. The driveway is currently 12 feet wide, but will be widened to 20 feet to accommodate emergency vehicles. The material making up the driveway was also questioned, since a neighbor was worried about dust being kicked up from vehicles. It will be paved.
A neighbor, Lori and Bryan Oakes, retained Freehold attorney Mark Williams to represent them.
Quite a few questions were asked of the owner, to determine what use he has planned for the property.
Adjmi said he will eventually build three homes on the property for his three sons. He travels between New York and New Jersey every other weekend or so. He said that growing fruit trees and breeding horses are an interest of his, but he has no experience in these fields. There are plans for 181 orchard trees to grow fruit such as pears, apples, cherries and peaches.
“It’s a love of mine, and I hope we’re going to be successful,” he said of the breeding enterprise.
“I’m a member of several different skeet and trap clubs,” he said, adding that his intention is not to create another club. It will only be for a few guests, made up of friends and family.
The clubhouse is really a “man cave,” as one board member described it, that would have a kitchen, bathroom, pool table, television and storage so someone shooting skeet does not have to go all the way back to the house.
Skeet shooting would be during warmer days, and only during the day. There won’t be lighting for shooting at night, he said. The guns used would be 12 gauge and 4-10 shotguns. He said he would be using only steel shot, and not lead. “I don’t want to pollute my own property.”
When asked if these guns make a lot of noise, he said “no.”
Richard Schulz also testified before the board. He is Adjmi’s employee, and would be maintaining and operating the trap machines every time they are being used. He teaches firearm safety. If Adjmi wanted to use the range, he would make an appointment with Schulz to come out to the property. Schulz elaborated that he would not be on call at a moment’s notice, but that it would be planned in advance.
Schulz said the skeet range follows the National Skeet Association guidelines for safety, measured in the distance it takes for shots to fall to the ground.
Shooting Decibels
Schulz was at the property with the applicant’s sound expert, Stephen Szulecki, on January 11. Schulz said he was firing a Browning 12 gauge shotgun pointed in the same direction that the shooting would take place while Szulecki measured decibel levels in and around the property.
The daytime decibel limits set by the DEP is 80 decibels, Schulz said. The measurement taken at the neighbor’s property line was 66.9 decibels. If, by some coincidence, two guns are fired at the exact same time, then the decibels would not double. They would increase by 3, he said.
At the nearby site of the future Eagle Oaks Town Homes, 3,700 feet from the shooter, the decibel levels are around 46.6, he said. He assured the board that Eagle Oaks residents would not hear the guns if they were inside.
When measuring the sound, he said he was in contact with Schulz. He would make sure there were no cars coming so the gunshots would be recorded at the quietest possible moment, to give it a worst case scenario. Also, they were shooting in the winter, when there are less leaves on the trees, which contributes a slight bit to damping sound.
Board member John Armata argued that even within acceptable limits, it is still a bother to neighbors. He banged on his desk repeatedly to illustrate the point.
“Would that be annoying? This is people’s lives that we’re talking about,” he said.
“If you’re having a conversation with somebody, you might not hear it,” Szulecki said.
Krimko, the attorney, said “We’re never negating that you can hear it. We’re just proving that it’s within state guidelines.”
The attorney also provided that there are other locations in the area where people shoot, whether they are private clubs or other situations. It is an existing condition of the area.
“It’s not like Sea Girt, where there’s no shooting range,” she said. “A shooting club locally is part of the character of the neighborhood.”
Lesser Issues
There were several other less important issues that were also discussed by the board.
A decorative cupola, 54 feet high in a zone where buildings can’t be more than 35 feet, was one of the issues. It would be located on the barn, 1,300 feet from the nearest neighbor, and likely unable to be seen, the applicant said.
Other discussions included whether the drainage basin would need to be fenced, whether the horses would get scared of the gunfire going off less than 1,000 feet away, and whether the manure building should be located too close to the residence.
There would only be residential lighting, and not area lighting like in commercial developments, the applicant said.
No Decision Reached
There were still a few more experts to be interviewed in the case. The application was carried to the February 13 meeting at 7:30 p.m.
Ford Road Equities was also scheduled to be heard that day, but it is unknown if both applications would be heard.
One board member, Thomas O’Donnell, asked to put a restriction on the property that would limit the hours of operation of the skeet shooting, and another to prevent any horse shows on the property.
Zoning board chair Wendell Nanson said he also wanted a condition put in writing that would require an expert on hand when skeet shooting is being done.
Zoning board members noted that while public gun clubs are regulated by the law, a private one might not be.
The hearing for this application had begun at the September 2016 meeting. Since only about 20 minutes of testimony had been heard at that meeting, the board decided to start the application over at the January 2017 meeting. Since then, Adjmi’s engineer had made some changes based on concerns from the township’s fire official and tree official.
