A Day that Will Live in Infamy?
- Kin Gee
- Dec 23, 2025
- 3 min read
Updated: Dec 24, 2025
At its meeting on Dec. 22, 2025, the Holmdel Township Committee voted in favor of a tax break, known as a PILOT program, for the Vonage redeveloper.
The Vonage redevelopment, currently before the Planning Board, has met with strong opposition from Holmdel residents and environmental groups, including the Sierra Club, Water Spirit and Holmdel’s Citizens for Informed Land Use (“CILU”).
At issue is the fact that the redeveloper plans to be “grandfathered” under the existing NJ Department of Environmental Protection’s water permits that are almost 50 years old.
Residents voiced concerns that the new use for the property will consist of 299 units of senior living, senior assisted living and skilled nursing care.
The current Vonage wastewater management system is not a subsurface disposal system. Wastewater is discharged into a stream that feeds into the Swimming River Reservoir, the source for our potable water, for six months of the year. For the other six months, the wastewater is discharged into a lagoon that sits 100 feet away from that stream, when current environmental standards call for 300 feet.
In a statement sent to the Township Committee before the meeting and read into the public records, Rachel Dawn Davis from Water Spirit, an eco-spiritual nonprofit based in Rumson, expressed its concerns that “the plan relies on a wastewater treatment plan dating back to 1977 – a time before science understood the risks posed by pharmaceuticals, PFAS, endocrine disrupters, hormones and antibiotic residues. These treatment plants were never designed to remove these chemicals, yet they are now ubiquitous in wastewater, particularly from senior living and healthcare/nursing facilities.”
Water Spirit’s statement went on to say that “What we release upstream, we eventually drink downstream. We urge Holmdel Township representatives to honor your responsibility as a protector of public trust and to protect the health and safety and future of this community.”
In a petition sent to the Township Committee members before the meeting, Save Holmdel Water stated that the wastewater will contaminate the potable water for current Holmdel and 300,000+ Monmouth County residents and future generations. The petition urged the Township Committee not to grant a PILOT unless the developer updates their wastewater management design to a modern design, meeting current standards and not discharge any wastewater into any stream that feeds into the Swimming River Reservoir.
Holmdel’s Wastewater Management Plan (“WMP”) specifically states that the “Township Committee retains the wastewater planning authority for the DGW [discharge to groundwater] areas and other non-sewered areas of the Township.”
Despite this, all concerns appeared to fall on deaf ears.
The four Township Committee members present at the meeting, Mayor Brian Foster, Deputy Mayor Kim LaMountain, Rocco Impreveduto and DJ Luccarelli, all voted yes in favor of granting the PILOT to the Vonage developer, with nary a discussion about the concerns voiced about the contamination of the drinking water.
Because the Vonage developer is trying to be “grandfathered” under existing DEP permits, the review process will be less stringent and subject to less scrutiny.
During public comments, Peter Maneri, a longtime Holmdel resident, asked whether there is anything “we the people” can do to stop the Vonage development because it is clear that the majority of the people have concerns. Can we have a town vote and let the people decide?
There was no response from the Township Committee.
The Township Committee, a form of local government that is over 200 years old, does not provide for a referendum whereby residents can vote to repeal an ordinance. The 2022 Charter Study Commission had recommended a modern form of local government that would have granted residents the power of initiative and referendum.
In addition to the contamination of our drinking water, other concerns were raised about the sharing of PILOT with the school district, whether the developer needs a PILOT, the lawsuit against the developer, etc. However, the Township Committee appeared to be eager to vote on the PILOT at the meeting because, in the words of Mayor Foster, “we put in so much work” on it.
Water Spirit asked the question: “Is it right to introduce wastewater – no matter how ‘treated’ – into the very system that provides drinking water for hundreds of thousands of people, using outdated standards that do not reflect current science? Who benefits from this and who loses?”
Will December 22, 2025 live in infamy as the day our elected officials abandoned their common sense and abdicated their duty to protect the public’s basic right to safe drinking water when they had the opportunity to effectively stop the contamination of the drinking water for over 300,000 Monmouth County residents but didn’t?
Stay tuned. Only time will tell.
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