New life for Spy Harbor plan

Development along Raritan and Sandy Hook bays in Middletown seems to move at snail’s pace, and that’s probably a good thing.

It’s been several years since the county, in conjunction with the township, made millions of dollars of road and bridge improvements as part of the Port Monmouth Road and bridge project stretching from Comptons Creek to Pews Creek. It also has been several years since the county turned most of the Port Monmouth waterfront into Bayshore Waterfront Park.

Missing still is the county’s planned Belford commuter ferry service on the east bank of Comptons Creek, but the plans are still in the works.

The other element of that grandiose plan, the multi-use Spy House Harbor development between the Bayshore Waterfront Park and the Belford Seafood Co-op, has been on the back burner for so long that most residents have probably forgotten all about it.

The decade-old plan includes 160 housing units, a large marina and commercial development, all of which were approved, but with the stipulation that they be constructed simultaneously and by the same developer.

That requirement, according to the township planner, made it difficult to get the development off the ground. Now K. Hovnanian is looking to build just the housing development with considerably fewer units, 120, as opposed to 160. And the township is moving to accommodate the developer by amending the zoning ordinance to let the housing component move forward alone. The development may even get its own ferry stop.

All aboard for Spy House Harbor. Things do move at snail’s pace in the Bayshore, and that’s good.