{"id":18308,"date":"2026-01-21T09:51:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-21T14:51:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/?p=18308"},"modified":"2026-01-21T10:25:37","modified_gmt":"2026-01-21T15:25:37","slug":"lavallette-planning-board-to-re-hear-home-expansion-proposal-after-court-vacates-denial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/2026\/01\/lavallette-planning-board-to-re-hear-home-expansion-proposal-after-court-vacates-denial\/","title":{"rendered":"Lavallette Planning Board to Re-Hear Home Expansion Proposal After Judge Tosses Denial"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The<\/a>

The home at 2307 Baltimore Avenue, Lavallette, N.J. (Google Earth)<\/p><\/div>\n

The Lavallette planning board will is scheduled to hear a proposal by a borough property owner to expand their residence after two denials, the latest of which was vacated by an Ocean County judge after finding a planning board member lived too close to the home.<\/p>\n

The case concerns 2307 Baltimore Avenue, a five-bedroom home that sustained substantial damage during Superstorm Sandy, leading the borough\u2019s floodplain manager to order it be raised due to the designation at the time. While the owner, who lives in Kenilworth, Union County, could have raised the home without requesting any variances from the board, they instead sought to make a number of improvements to the property, including upping the number bedrooms to seven, adding another story, and encroaching slightly closer into a setback area from neighboring properties.<\/p>\n

The board first rejected an application by the owner in 2024, then brought an updated application before the board later that same year, which was also rejected. Following the second denial, the owner \u2013 Rizzo Family Lavallette Trust \u2013 sued the planning board and member Joanne Filippone, who also serves on the borough council, making a slew of claims contending the board was unfair in its pair of denials. Superior Court Judge Francis Hodgson dismissed all of the claims except one: an allegation that Filippone lived within 200-feet of the property, which would have disqualified her participation in the hearing.<\/p>\n

While it is commonly known that planning board members whose homes are located within 200-feet of an applicant must recuse themselves from a hearing, the Lavallette case is unique in that Filippone does not own the property, is not related to its owner, nor does she hold any financial interest in it. The homeowner was notified of its inclusion within the 200-foot zone, however that correspondence was sent to the address in the tax list rather than the tenant of the property. The applicants\u2019 attorney, Robert C. Shea, of Toms River, did note in his complaint that the owner of the rented property was related to a borough employee who did recuse herself from reviewing the matter. Filippone, however, was advised that she was not required to recuse herself.<\/p>\n

A transcript from the hearing, included in Lavallette\u2019s answer to the lawsuit, detailed Filippone\u2019s objections to what is known as an expansion of a pre-existing, non-conforming condition of the property.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s overdeveloped on that piece of land to begin with,\u201d she said. \u201cThat\u2019s where you have to start. It is what it is. We don\u2019t ask you to change that. I\u2019m not saying \u2018chop off the kitchen or one of the bedrooms.\u2019 But then you\u2019re expanding it in terms of its use with all these extra bedrooms, which creates an issue. You\u2019re talking about intensity of the usage, which seven bedrooms on this property (indiscernible) too small and the house is too big (indiscernible) bigger so that more people can come and more usage, period \u2013 that\u2019s an issue for the community.\u201d<\/p>\n

The borough\u2019s defense counsel said Filippone did not have a conflict of interest in the case because she would neither gain nor lose any benefits from the result of the application in either direction. Counsel cited a precedential decision from 1958 which held: \u201cOur courts have rarely recognized a conflict of interest arising from a public employee\u2019s alleged direct personal interest or personal involvement in a matter when there is no prospect of financial advantage to the public official or his or her family or friends.\u201d<\/p>\n

Regardless, Hodgson did find that a conflict existed. The property owner, for their part, has appealed the dismissal of the myriad separate counts of the suit to Superior Court\u2019s Appellate Division, which has yet to be scheduled for review. In the mean time, the property owner has applied to the planning board for its case to be heard a third time, set for later this month.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

The home at 2307 Baltimore Avenue, Lavallette, N.J. (Google Earth)<\/p><\/div>\n

In the application, the property owner effectively makes the same request it made previously. The property currently contains a two-story frame home with a wooden deck along Trenton Avenue, a shed in the northeastern corner (which is proposed to be removed), a concrete driveway, paver patio, and concrete walking path, with the balance of the tract covered in stone. The application seeks to raise the exterior of the existing home and construct a second-floor addition composed of 884 square feet of additional floor area, which would up the number of bedrooms from five to seven.<\/p>\n

Numerous variances are required, including the ratification of an existing front yard setback of 8.75-feet where 15-feet is required, a side setback of 4.9-feet where 5-feet is required, and existing nonconformities regarding structural coverage on the lot.<\/p>\n

The meeting is scheduled to be heard Jan. 28, 2026 at 5 p.m. at borough hall.<\/p>\n

<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Lavallette planning board will is scheduled to hear a proposal by a borough property owner to expand their residence after two denials, the latest of which was vacated by an Ocean County judge after finding a planning board member lived too close to the home. The case concerns 2307 Baltimore Avenue, a five-bedroom home […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18309,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3,2],"tags":[1959,222,29,134],"class_list":["post-18308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lavallette-government","category-lavallette","tag-featured","tag-joanne-filippone","tag-lavallette-nj-news","tag-planning-board"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Screenshot-2026-01-21-at-9.48.58-AM.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgsn9q-4Li","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18308","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18308"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18308\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18320,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18308\/revisions\/18320"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18309"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}