By Charles Layton
On Thursday, in Municipal Court, the owners of the Park View Inn, Marshall and Elliott Koplitz, won another week’s delay in reaching an agreement to comply with Neptune Township’s building maintenance code.
The Park View, at 23 Sea View Avenue in Ocean Grove, is an unoccupied former hotel that has deteriorated for years while its absentee owners ignored tax bills, ignored mounting fines and interest on fines, and ignored the pleas of various town agencies and dozens of distressed neighbors.
Neighbors say they fear this building "may become a fire problem." In the 1990s it was a 36-room hotel.
On Thursday, Neptune Township’s attorney, Gene Anthony, assured Judge Robin Wernik that in exactly one week he will return to court with a signed consent agreement committing the Koplitzes to a strict timetable for rehabbing the building.
Marshall Koplitz and his attorney, Michelle Lamar, appeared alongside Anthony in court, but Koplitz said nothing and Lamar said little other than agreeing to join Anthony in court next Thursday at 3:30 p.m.
Later, when I asked Lamar for her thoughts about the consent agreement, she declined to comment.
These owners’ conflicts with Neptune officials over the Park View date back at least to 2007, when the township first took them to court over code violations. The following December, in a letter, Anthony wrote that the building remained in disrepair and seemed in “danger of failure or collapse.”
The following years brought a stream of further code violations and further refusals to cooperate with township officials. In June of last year, 33 neighbors signed a petition urging the township to crack down. “Paint is peeling, windows are broken or boarded up with unattractive plywood, the fire escape is rusted and unsafe, gutters are broken and hanging, porch columns are broken,” the petitioners wrote, and “we are concerned because the building may become a fire problem.” The following month, the Historic Preservation Commission also asked the township to address the problem of 23 Sea View.
Despite all of that pressure, the Koplitzes continued not to cooperate.
On March 24, Judge Wernik issued an order that the Koplitzes negotiate an agreement with the township for repairing their property. On that occasion, both Lamar and Anthony told Wernik that they were very close to such an agreement. In the following months, negotiations sputtered along, broke down, resumed, and were punctuated at intervals by profane outbursts from Marshall Koplitz. At one point, in May, according to Committeewoman Mary Beth Jahn, Koplitz “went kablooey” during negotiations and told Anthony that the township could perform an erotic act upon itself. It appeared, at that point, that talks were at an impasse.
However, this Thursday Anthony assured Judge Wernik that the parties were on the verge of signing “a consent order that resolves all issues.” Wernik asked why the two sides couldn’t come to an agreement “today,” and Anthony told her the issues were “very involved.” He also indicated to me that others in the township government, such as Bill Doolittle, the director of code and enforcement, would need to sign off on the final language.
The agreement will probably require the Koplitzes to restore the Park View as a hotel with banquet facilities for its residents. The process would proceed under a timetable consisting of phases, with deadlines for each phase and a penalty of at least $35,000 for defaulting on any portion of the agreement.
The initial phase might include the drawing of architectural plans and the obtaining of permits. Other phases would deal with such matters as obtaining necessary financing and meeting deadlines for construction.
Of all the owners of derelict properties with whom the township has had to contend, the Koplitzes have surely been the most difficult. Their history of defiance of authority is very long and, one could even say, spectacular. Over the past decade, some of their properties in Long Branch became notorious for fire code violations and as centers of disorderly and unlawful conduct. Outstanding fines in Long Branch eventually totaled more than $1 million, which the Koplitzes refused to pay. In 2006 the city settled for $400,000.
The Koplitzes live in Englewood Cliffs, NJ. They own various properties in Asbury Park and other municipalities. Their holdings include, in Ocean Grove, the Ocean View Inn at 22 Ocean Pathway and the Ocean Plaza Hotel at 18 Ocean Pathway. They also owned the Sampler Inn on Main Avenue, which fell into such extreme disrepair that in 2009 the township ordered it demolished. The Koplitzes also fought tenaciously at every step in that laborious legal process, costing the taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars.
Friday update, 11:55 a.m.: This morning, according to Committeewoman Jahn, police rousted a homeless person from under the porch of the Park View. Jahn also said that Gene Anthony drove past the property this morning and saw two people sitting on the steps; a cab arrived and picked them up. “He believes people may be living under the porch,” Jahn said. So Anthony is contacting the Koplitzes’ attorney demanding that they block access to the area beneath the porch.
Anybody out there willing to give odds on Koplitz’s actually agreeing to a deal in one more week? I know which side of the bet I would take.
I agree with Ken. But, what happens next week if Mr. Anthony returns with no agreement in hand? And even if there is an agreement, who’s to say that the
Joking aside, the fire hazard continues to remain.
the Koplitz group will comply? They seem fearless as far as monetary fines go.
Is jail an option? Maybe the judge should just “cut off their heads”
Wow! They own the Ocean Plaza. I guess we should all think twice in recommending that hotel to our friends!
Going further with a concerned citizen’s remark, maybe picketing in front of the Ocean Plaza especially now with it full of guest’s might embarrass them into doing the right thing and finally addressing and fixing up The Park View.
Maybe a sign/signs put in front of the Park View with the owners’ names and address might help, in the public grass strip of course!
DJ — Good luck with the owners’ address. Elliott and Marshall Koplitz own their properties under different corporate names, and with many different addresses. They have often listed an Englewood Cliffs address. But the company name they use for the Park View Inn is 23 Seaview Holdings, LLC, for which Neptune Township documents show an address of 256 Norwood Avenue in Deal. However, Seaview Holdings has a Facebook page that gives its address as 8 Industrial Way E in Eatontown and 732-935-1556 as the phone number. They own the Ocean Plaza under the name Norwood Roosevelt Realty Corp, 6 Marjorie Terrace, Englewood Cliffs. And so it goes.
Obviously, signs or any form of boycott on existing properties is a job for an advocacy organization.
Do we have one in Ocean Grove?
The men sitting on the Park Inn steps were most likely from The Warrington boarding house next door. Some of them hang out there. Speaking of the Warrington – that’s another fire hazard. The front lawn and alleyway are littered with cigarette butts from the residents who carelessly throw them everywhere.
Ken, you are right. I would bet the farm on Koplitz attorney getting a postponment. They’ll probably ask the judge to postpone for a year so they can block access to the area beneath the porch.
To I. M Radar;
Neptune Township Committee meets on Monday, July 25, at the municipal building. Meeting starts at 6 p.m. Will you be there?
Where does Neptune Township stand on recouping the costs incurred when it had the Sampler demolished? A lien? A judgment? What?
ken
Ken, the Township (and about three mortgage companies) have a lien on the land lease for the land on which the Sampler stood. Should a sale of that land lease ever occur, those liens would have to be satisfied before Koplitz saw any money. At one point, Koplitz wanted to subdivide the through lot on which the Sampler stood, but I do not know what happened to that.
One more thing: all municipal judges are subject to oversight from the county Superior Court assignment judge, who happens to be . . . former Neptune mayor Judge Larry Lawson. He hasn’t had a lot of tolerance for repeated delays in several types of cases, including municipal land use cases, under which category the Parkview case falls. No one from the Township – the Township Committee, Code Enforcement, the fire officials, Gene Anthony, our professionals – are willing to put up with any more delay tactics or shenanigans with this property. The plea agreement is written in such a way that there is no wiggle room for failure to procure financing or materials, the schedule for renovations in that agreement requires daily weekday work to be performed, and the fines are some of the highest ever levied for a property of this size in the state. The access under the porch is not going to derail this agreement. When this agreement is signed and presented to the court, the clock on the first phase of renovation will start ticking and many,many pairs of eyes from the Township will be on this property. The Koplitz reign of terror in Ocean Grove is over, and the Township, with the assistance of neighbors of this property and residents of Ocean Grove, will keep a constant vigil to prevent an insurrection.
Mary Beth,
Hooray for Neptune pinning this violator down with such specifics. I am encouraged but I side with Thomas, the doubting Apostle, “until I see it with my own eyes”
ken..