WALL - The checkered flag will wave for the final time at the Wall Stadium speedway next year, track owners announced Wednesday.

The 2020 racing season will be the last for the nearly 70-year-old racetrack, owner Wall Speedway Properties LLC announced on Wednesday. Developer Pulte Homes plans to build nearly 350 homes on the site, which has hosted auto racing in some form since 1950.

"The majority of the sprawling tract, deemed grossly underutilized for decades, consists of giant parking lots that lie mostly dormant, other than the handful of days each year when the track is open for competition," the owners said.

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Pulte Homes plans to build 348 homes on the site, mostly in the form of two-bedroom and three-bedroom townhouses, the owners said.

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The project would have to go before the town zoning board, but the real key in the proposed development is the inclusion of 70 affordable housing units.

In an email, Wall Township Administrator Jeff Bertrand accused the developers of “attempting to circumvent and derail” a settlement the town reached last week with the state over its affordable housing obligations, the result of nearly five years of negotiations.

Last week, the town negotiated a settlement with the state that would require the placement of 1,250 affordable housing units in future development projects according to a proposed affordable housing plan.

The Wall Stadium announcement came the same day the township scheduled a public hearing on its affordable housing settlement. Bertrand believes the timing was deliberate, attempting to challenge the settlement and pressure township officials to approve the possible redevelopment of Wall Stadium.

“While the negotiations were long and detailed, the township has concluded that the outcome that was negotiated with (the Fair Share Housing Center, a nonprofit that strives to ensure towns adhere to affordable housing requirements) is deemed to be in the overall long term best interests of current and future residents of Wall Township when all alternatives are considered,” Bertrand said.

Wall Stadium has been in operation since 1950, with the first of what became an annual "Turkey Derby" held around Thanksgiving 1974. In 2005, two developers were briefly under contract to buy the site, demolish the racetrack and build homes and office buildings.

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But the last time the racetrack "closed for good" — as a sign on Route 34 declared during the 2008 closure — it lasted just under a year, still opening in time for the 2009 season.

Since then, the future of the racetrack has been in limbo. Nearly every year, rumors of its demise circulate but the track hasn't made an official announcement of a closure since the brief 2008 closure.

Even more common than the closure rumors are complaints from neighbors about the constant noise emanating from the racetrack. On clear nights, car engines from Wall Stadium can be heard from miles away.

The "roar at the Shore" isn't just a clever nickname.

"Try living up the road and feel the vibrations and noise as you try to sit down at your kitchen table on a Saturday to have a meal. Don't even think about listening to music or watching a movie," one neighbor wrote in a letter to the Asbury Park Press in 2009, shortly after racing resumed.

Asbury Park Press reporter Susanne Cervenka contributed to this story.

Mike Davis has spent the last decade covering marijuana legalization, transportation and New Jersey local news. He plays in no-name punk bands and is in a lifelong love-hate relationship with the New York Mets. Contact him at 732-643-4223, mdavis@gannettnj.com or @byMikeDavis on Twitter.