On May 7, 2025, the Asbury Park Press published an investigation into illegal apartments in Lakewood, New Jersey, where an April 26 fire destroyed one dwelling and forced residents out of four others. The property was owned through an LLC headed by Diversified Capital President Joseph Rosenbaum, who had signed an ownership affidavit for its redevelopment. Officials cited unsafe wiring, construction without permits, illegal use, and overcrowding. All five apartments were deemed unsafe. This was a rental operation connected directly to the leadership of the company now pursuing a Washington County data center development.
In a June follow-up, tenants described leaking roofs, broken doors, limited heating, and overflowing septic tanks while paying more than $1,000 a month in cash without leases. Honorio and Celia Moreno lived there with their seven- and three-year-old sons. Celia told the reporter: “I felt bad for the kids, they did not have anywhere to be that did not smell bad.” Children were living with overflowing sewage while someone came around to collect the rent. When the reporter called the number tenants supplied for that collector, the man who answered refused to identify himself and directed questions to Diversified Capital. Collecting rent under those conditions is precisely the kind of conduct that earns a landlord the name “slumlord.”
The May investigation reported that numerous requests for comment from President Joseph Rosenbaum and CFO Moshe Rubin went unanswered. Neither responded to the reporter’s questions about the illegal apartments. The rent collector directed questions to the company, and its leadership left those questions unanswered. Residents deserve to know that history when the same company asks another community to trust its development promises.
On the very day the May investigation appeared, Washington County Director of Business and Economic Development Jonathan Horowitz was promoting Diversified Capital’s Martin Farm project in his May 7 presentation: $50 million, one million square feet, and 300 estimated jobs. The property had already been marketed as “Ideal for Data Center”. In New Jersey, reporters were asking about unsafe apartments and displaced families. In Washington County, the company was getting the economic development sales treatment. Apparently, a $50 million investment figure makes for a much nicer presentation than children living beside an overflowing septic tank.
Tenants said they had received unexplained text messages ordering them to leave before the fire. By June, tenant Natividad Flores and the Moreno family had found temporary rentals but were still seeking permanent housing and said they had no opportunity to seek restitution from their former landlords. Meanwhile, Diversified Capital told the Asbury Park Press in July that the fire had not delayed its plans to replace the structures with nine new homes. Its spokesperson said the company believed the apartments were legal when it bought the property, a claim township officials disputed. The families were still trying to find somewhere decent to live. The developer was moving on to its next project.
Here in Washington County, former state senator and former lobbyist Chris Shank’s role deserves a closer look. As our earlier reporting details, Shank now advises clients on workforce development, technology, and economic development. On August 25, 2025, Shank and Rubin both contributed to Commissioner Jeff Cline’s campaign. By December 9, both were appearing before county officials as members of a confidential development “Project Team.” The county’s minutes name them and explain that public discussion would violate an NDA. Two donations on the same date might ordinarily mean little. Those donors subsequently turning up together to pitch a confidential development project to the recipient and his fellow commissioners makes the relationship worth investigating. Residents deserve to know who hired Shank, who is paying him now, what he was hired to do, and which officials he has contacted about Diversified Capital’s Burkholder Lane plans.
Then, on June 12, 2026, Cline’s campaign returned Rubin’s $500 and Shank’s $250 on the same day, nearly ten months after accepting them. Both refunds carried the same explanation: “Candidate decided to decline contribution.” Cline had retained their money through the December meeting and for approximately six months afterward. As we previously reported, those refunds came just six days before we published the county’s proposed data center moratorium. The simultaneous refunds deserve considerably more explanation than a campaign filing saying Cline changed his mind, especially as the county was preparing its moratorium performance and acting as though data centers were something it needed time to learn about.
It is hard to believe that Horowitz, Shank, and the commissioners were promoting a $50 million project, meeting privately with its representatives, and signing NDAs without investigating Diversified Capital. Cline and the other Washington County leaders are putting the community at risk by helping advance a developer whose record includes collecting rent from families living in five unsafe, illegal apartments. If this company could not operate above board when children were living with overflowing sewage, residents have every reason to distrust its promises about a $50 million development.
Somehow, we are supposed to believe Diversified Capital will suddenly operate ethically and legally when the stakes include our water supply, environmental conditions, public infrastructure, and household utility bills. A bigger project means bigger consequences for the people who have to live with it. Cline and the other county leaders are asking residents to trust a developer whose record gives us every reason to demand scrutiny. Promises of investment and jobs do not excuse that record, and they will not protect us if the company cuts corners on environmental safeguards or leaves the public paying for its infrastructure demands.
Washington County stupidity.