Proceeding on what may be a collision course with owners of the site occupied by Wall Stadium Speedway, Wall officials on Wednesday night approved a township-wide affordable housing plan that does not include a proposal by the site’s owners to replace the speedway with a residential complex.

Meanwhile, the operator of the 69-year-old speedway, who is a tenant of the property owner and opposes plans to replace the oval race track with townhouses and apartments, said on Thursday that she would continue to hold races as long as she was able.

"As the manager of Wall Stadium Speedway, it has been a pleasure to maintain the racing at this historic facility,” Diane Krause, president of CK Motorsports, said in a statement Thursday. “I am not sure what the future will bring, but my family and I will host stock car racing as long as we can.”

“Ten years ago, my husband, Cliff Krause, had a vision of supporting the racing community and reopened the race track,” added Krause, who said her daughter, Emily, works at the track and her son, Andrew, races there. “We have met so many fans and became absorbed in the stories of years gone by. Seasoned drivers share their experiences as if it all happened yesterday. Their dedication goes far."

On Wednesday, Wall Speedway Properties LLC, the owner of the 49-acre speedway off Route 34, issued a press release announcing that the track would host its last racing season in 2020, before being torn down and replaced by 278 townhouses and 70 two-bedroom apartments. The apartments, the release noted, would contribute to the township’s latest affordable housing requirement of 1,250 units to be created by 2025.

Wall Speedway Properties LLC is a subsidiary of the Hackensack-based infrastructure firm J. Fletcher Creamer & Son, which purchased the property in 2002 for $4.6 million and pays about $80,000 a year in property taxes on it.

Following the announcement on Wednesday, Wall’s township manager, Jeff Bertrand, denounced it as an attempt to undermine an affordable housing settlement that local officials had been negotiating for more than a year, which the Township Committee was scheduled to approve that very night. The plan did not include the 70 affordable apartments envisioned by the speedway property’s owner, which Bertrand said the township does not support.

The committee voted unanimously to approve the affordable housing agreement, which involves 20 projects scattered throughout the township — none of them on the speedway property. The agreement relates to a 2015 Supreme Court case requiring municipalities to create a certain number of affordable housing units.

Bertrand said in an interview Thursday that the speedway site’s owner had approached the township 18 months ago, proposing a zone change for the site that would permit residential development and asking that the site be included in the township’s affordable housing plan. However, Bertrand said officials did not support residential development of the site, which is adjacent to Monmouth Executive Airport and a sand quarry.

“We’re not interested in their project,” Bertrand said. “We’re not going to have people from outside the town tell us what we should or should not have.”

The owner’s announcement was striking in its lack of regret for the closing of a New Jersey motorsports institution that over the decades thrilled countless racing fans and helped foster the careers of brothers Martin Jr. and Ryan Truex, both NASCAR champions.

“The often-criticized Wall Speedway, appropriately nicknamed ‘the roar at the Shore,’ can be heard by residents from as far away as Belmar, as engines scream around the two oval racetracks,” read an announcement, referring to the main 1/3-mile paved course with grandstands and a much smaller oval for go-carts. “This is especially troublesome on summer weekends in the vicinity, during backyard family barbecues and pool parties.”

Little has been said since then by the property owner or its associate, Pulte Homes, the Atlanta-based developer that would construct the townhouses and the apartments if the plan were to receive the necessary approvals, including a change in the property’s zoning from industrial to residential.

Spokespeople for Fletcher Creamer and for its subsidiary, Wall Speedway Properties, LLC, did not respond to repeated requests for interviews or comments Wednesday and Thursday.

Cars "drift," or deliberately skid, around a curve at Wall Stadium Speedway during a 2015 practice session.Andre Malok | NJ Advance Media For NJ.com

A spokeswoman for Pulte Homes, Julie Pulliam, did respond, but only with an email saying, “the project is not at a point where we can comment publicly about it at this time.”

In some cases, developers seeking to build high-density projects that include an affordable component have cited affordable housing requirements imposed under a 2015 Supreme Court case in lawsuits seeking court approval for projects that local officials oppose. Asked whether he believed Wall would be sued, Bertrand said, “I don’t know.”

Litigation could at least prolong the life of the Wall speedway, which opened in 1950 and is one of the few tracks still operating in New Jersey.

Jim Lordy, a fan who lives in Manalapan and watches races at the Wall speedway and one in New Egypt, said this week’s announcement was emblematic not only of the shrinking roster of Garden State race tracks, but also of traditional attractions of any kind.

“Oh, it’s terrible,” said Lordy, 44, who owns an oil tank removal company. “The Jersey Shore has so much to offer, and all the little things are closing up.”

Lordy noted it was just last year that owners of Raceway Park in nearby Old Bridge announced that, after 53 years of burning rubber, there would no longer be drag racing held at the motorsports and concert venue. That was followed months later by demolition of another automotive institution in Wall, the Circus Drive-In, with its signature clown sign visible up and down Route 35.

“You have all these attractions that initially bring people to the Shore,” that are disappearing, he said. With redevelop of the speedway, he added, “there’ll be townhouses, which is great, but there’ll be nothing do.”

Wall Stadium Speedway, only 1/3 of a mile around, is known for its steep, 30-degree banked curves. It's also on the Formula Drift circuit, a form of racing in which drivers deliberately skid around curves, as seen here in 2015.Andre Malok | NJ Advance Media For NJ.com

Steve Strunsky may be reached at sstrunsky@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @SteveStrunsky. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips.

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