Judge Allows Up To 136 Townhomes To Be Built Off West Nut Swamp Road In Middletown

MIDDLETOWN, NJ — A Monmouth County Superior Court judge ordered Middletown Township to settle with a developer to allow up to 136 townhouses to be built at 114 West Nut Swamp Road.

That is why the Middletown Planning Board reviewed an ordinance for consistency with the Master Plan, that was introduced by the Township Committee at their first meeting in 2026. On Jan. 7, the Middletown Planning Board reviewed an ordinance to change the zoning of the property from single-family residential (which it is currently) to multi-family residential.

There will be a public hearing for this ordinance at the next Middletown Township Committee meeting at 7 p.m. next Tuesday, Jan. 20, where the town will likely approve the court-ordered zoning change.

Here's the backstory on this:

Middletown Township tried to keep this property from being developed. 114 West Nut Swamp Road and 490 Red Hill Road, another vacant property in that area, are both owned by a private developer named Adoni Property Group.

Adoni Property Group initially wanted to build 408 apartments at 114 West Nut Swamp Road, and 67 apartments at the Red Hill Road property, which is directly behind Memorial Sloan Kettering cancer center.

Middletown tried to fight that; the town wanted to keep both lots as vacant open space and woodland. Middletown Township tried to seize both properties under eminent domain. If Middletown had been successful, both properties would have remained open space, said Mayor Tony Perry.

However, Adoni fought back and a legal battle between the town and the developer has been occurring for the past three years; Patch reported on it in 2023. Holmdel Twp. joined the legal battle too, to stop the Red Hill Road development (the property is right on the Middletown/Holmdel border).

Middletown was prepared to take the case all the way to the New Jersey Supreme Court, but last summer, in July 2025, Monmouth County Superior Court ordered both sides to settle.

Middletown was forced to reach a compromise with Adoni. The terms of the settlement are that the Red Hill Road property will not be developed and must remain open space woodland, and Adoni will be allowed to build a much smaller number of units on the West Nut Swamp Road lot, according to Middletown Twp. attorney Brian Nelson. And they must be town homes, not apartments.

The Superior Court judge ordered the settlement because she said Middletown is not building enough affordable housing. Twenty seven of those town homes must be affordable housing. The affordable town homes will be intermixed with the market-priced units.

Middletown has been fighting New Jersey's affordable housing mandates for a long time, arguing that developers, such as Adoni, use affordable housing quotas to allow them to build. Patch has written about that, too: Middletown Withdraws From NJ's Affordable Housing Mandate (2019)

Nelson argued the case. He said this Thursday of the outcome:

"Everyone thinks we can just stop development. We tried to do that and spent a lot of money trying."

A group of Middletown residents started this website to stop the zoning change next Tuesday: https://savewestnutswamp.com/

Prior on this topic: Middletown Sued By Developer Seeking To Build 478 Apts. On Red Hill Rd (2023)