In Colts Neck, the Acreage on the Listing Isn't the Acreage You Get

"Like most residents of Colts Neck, I'm dependent on well water to survive."

A Colts Neck resident said that at a public meeting about a development proposal, and it sounds dramatic until you check the plumbing. It isn't rhetoric. It's a description of how the town works. Colts Neck has no public water system and no public sewer main anywhere within its borders. Every dwelling, from a 1970s ranch to a new estate home under construction, draws its water from a private well and sends its wastewater to a private septic field. That single fact changes what a buyer is actually purchasing when they fall for a listing that advertises two, three or ten acres.

Here's the part most buyers don't find out until they're already under contract: the acreage on the listing sheet and the acreage you can build on are not the same number. In a town built entirely on private wells and septic systems, the difference between those two figures is decided by soil, setbacks and a health department review that happens before you ever see the property.

What "No Public Water or Sewer" Actually Means for a Buyer

Because Colts Neck has no public sewer, the Township's Board of Health reviews the soil logs and permeability data for every new subdivision and site plan before a lot can even be created for sale. The same office witnesses soil profiles, reviews engineering plans, issues permits and inspects the installation of every individual septic system in the township. That review determines something buyers rarely think to ask about: how much of the lot can actually support a house, a septic field and a well.

Wetlands, buffer areas, floodplains, conservation and open space easements, drainage easements and right of way easements don't count toward that calculation. A listing can show ten acres on the tax map and still have a buildable envelope closer to two or three once those exclusions are applied. For buyers drawn to Colts Neck specifically for its horse farms, long driveways and room for a pool or a barn, that gap between advertised acreage and usable acreage is the number that actually matters, and it rarely shows up in a listing description.

The Permit You Don't See Until You Want to Add a Pool

The septic and well questions don't end at closing. Before the township approves a pool, a deck, a generator, a cabana, a shed, a fence or a retaining wall, the homeowner or contractor has to verify the exact location of the septic system and the well on a current survey. If those components sit where you were planning your outdoor kitchen or your daughter's above-ground pool, the plan changes, not the septic field.

This matters more in Colts Neck than in a town on public utilities because the systems are original to each lot and often decades old. General guidance calls for inspecting a septic system every one to three years and pumping it every three to five, and a system installed for a four-bedroom ranch in 1985 wasn't engineered with a future primary suite addition in mind. Buyers who plan to expand should ask for the septic permit history and the bedroom count the system was designed for before they get attached to a renovation plan.

The Closing Requirement That Has Nothing to Do With the House

If the home you're buying runs on a private well, New Jersey's Private Well Testing Act requires the seller to test the water and both parties to review the results before title can transfer. The law doesn't prohibit selling a home whose water fails a standard. It just makes sure nobody signs without knowing. The requirement has been part of every New Jersey home sale involving a private well since 2002, and the New Jersey Realtors Standard Form of Real Estate contract already builds in a clause for it.

The required panel covers total coliform bacteria, nitrates, pH, iron, manganese, lead, arsenic, gross alpha particle activity, PFAS compounds, volatile organic compounds and synthetic organic compounds. Monmouth County adds one more line to that list that most buyers moving from a public-water town have never heard of.

Testing typically runs in the range of $1,200 to $1,500, and if something comes back outside standards, treatment can range from a simple filtration fix in the low thousands to a more involved remediation system running into five figures. The law leaves the negotiation over who pays for treatment between buyer and seller, and lab turnaround alone can take one to two weeks depending on the lab, so scheduling the test early enough to avoid pushing back a closing date is worth raising with your attorney before you're staring down a deadline.

The Same Math, Built at 360-Unit Scale

If you want proof that Colts Neck's infrastructure question isn't a small-lot problem, look at what's happening on Route 537 near Colts Neck High School and Five Points Park. Kushner Companies has been trying to build a residential project on nearly 40 acres there since 2006, when the original plan called for 48 townhomes. Over nearly two decades that plan grew into a 360-unit apartment community, now branded Livana Colts Neck and previously known as Colts Neck Manor, with 72 units set aside as affordable housing.

The project sat in permitting for years for one reason: there's no sewer main on Route 537 to connect to, so the developer had to design, permit and build its own underground wastewater treatment system capable of handling far more flow than a typical project. The state's standard discharge limit for a project like this is 20,000 gallons a day. Livana's approved system is built to handle roughly 71,500 gallons a day, an increase state regulators had to approve through an amendment to Monmouth County's Water Quality Management Plan.

Getting there wasn't quiet. Residents and a local group called Concerned Citizens raised objections at multiple Monmouth County Planning Board and Board of County Commissioners meetings, arguing the underground system might not treat wastewater to state standards before it reached Yellow Brook, a tributary that feeds the Swimming River Reservoir supplying drinking water to Colts Neck and neighboring towns including Holmdel, Middletown and Shrewsbury. The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection ultimately issued the required discharge permit in March 2024, and Kushner broke ground that July. Even the company's own chief development officer, Michael Sommer, acknowledged at the groundbreaking that "it's fair to say that this rezoning and approval process has been a bit controversial." The project is expected to open in 2027 as Colts Neck's first apartment complex.

Scale the numbers down to a single-family lot and the mechanism is identical. No sewer main means every wastewater solution, whether it serves 360 units or one house, has to be engineered, reviewed and approved from the ground up. The difference is that a builder with Kushner's resources can absorb years of permitting. A buyer closing on a single home usually can't, which is exactly why the septic and well questions belong at the front of a Colts Neck transaction and not somewhere in the inspection contingency's fine print.

What This Means If You're Buying or Selling Here

A few things worth doing before you're locked into a timeline:

• Ask for a current survey showing the septic field and well location, not just a plot plan from the original permit
• Request the septic system's bedroom capacity and permit history from the seller before assuming a renovation or addition is straightforward
• Confirm the well test has been scheduled early enough that lab turnaround won't collide with your closing date
• If you're selling, get ahead of the well test rather than waiting for a buyer's attorney to raise it, since a failed result discovered late can stall a deal that was otherwise ready to close

A Few Questions Worth Asking Before You Write an Offer

Does every home in Colts Neck really run on well and septic? Yes. The township has no public water system and no public sewer, so private wells and individual septic systems serve every residential and commercial property.

How long does well testing actually take before closing? Lab turnaround generally runs one to two weeks depending on the lab and which contaminants are being screened, so it's worth scheduling as soon as a contract is signed rather than waiting until closer to closing.

Is there any financial benefit to testing beyond the sale requirement? New Jersey offers a state income tax deduction of up to $500 for homeowners who voluntarily test their private well every five years outside of a real estate transaction, a benefit that's been on the books since 2010.

Buying or selling in a town with no public water or sewer means the real due diligence happens underground, long before anyone talks about paint colors or closing dates. If you're weighing a Colts Neck property and want a clear read on what the septic and well situation actually means for your plans, Gina Meleo can walk the survey with you before you write the offer, not after.