Freehold wants raceway to stay put

FREEHOLD — Borough officials are hoping that Freehold Raceway, Park Avenue, will stay just where it is for a long time, but they may develop a contingency plan "just in case" that doesn’t happen.

Borough Administrator Joseph Bellina told the News Transcript that Freehold Raceway is a "valued neighbor" in the town.

Referring to a section of the borough’s master plan review that discusses the possibility of rezoning the raceway property in case the track ever leaves the borough, Bellina said that section was added for the protection of the town’s retail business.

"The purpose for the comment in the master plan was to protect retail business in the borough in the event that the raceway would ever leave, which, of course, would be our worst nightmare," he said.

In a review of the borough’s master plan prepared by municipal planner Joseph Layton, he recommended that the Commercial Manufacturing (CM) zone which encompasses Freehold Raceway on Park Avenue should be rezoned to a new district that would allow specialty retail uses and offices.

Layton’s report stated that it is not likely that the raceway will continue in operation over the long-term future and said the CM zoning currently in place is inappropriate for long-term development objectives. He said that since there are few retail uses left in the town’s central business district, it is not anticipated that retail uses on the raceway property would compete with the downtown area.

Bellina said the proposal in the master plan to rezone the land on which the raceway sits would allow the borough to be in a "competitive position with other municipalities to recruit viable businesses along that corridor" if the century-old harness track ever closes. He said borough officials are hoping that never happens.

— Clare Marie Celano