Ocean Grove. July 4, 2011. Photo byEileen Goldfinger. © This photo is for illustration only. This house is a legal rooming house.
Ocean Grove. Source unknown. Sometimes there are too many people living in one house.
From: Due Better:
It seems like Ocean Grove sees no evil or just pretends it doesn’t exist. Before the fire on Main Avenue, a letter was sent to Blogfinger about the illegal rooming houses proliferating in OG and the risk of fire hazard. In my immediate area there are ore than a couple of one family houses operating as rooming houses. This abuse raises the possibility of fire danger, as took place on Main Avenue, and most recently the massive rooming house fire in Bradley Beach.
Rooming houses create a lack of parking and a much lowered standard of living for the surrounding home owners. As to date, the Township of Neptune has made no conserted effort to sort out these illegal rooming houses and their owners who are obviously breaking the law and creating a hazard for the town’s residents. The “desirability ratio” of living in Ocean Grove is dropping, fostered by the greed of a small number of people within this community.
Neptune Township needs to do better.
EDITOR’S NOTE: We have heard this theme before, but I’m not sure if this is the same writer. The fire on Main Avenue was declared to be not suspicious, but we haven’t seen a final verdict. There is absolutely no evidence that we have seen to suggest that 50 Main Avenue was operated as an illegal rooming house. We welcome any facts on this topic.
As for the March 30 rooming house fire in Bradley Beach, 12 residents were displaced, but the press reports indicated no foul play or illegal housing. The last time this subject was raised on Blogfinger, our readers indicated no interest, but we welcome comments addressing illegal rooming houses in the Grove.
Paul Goldfinger, Editor @Blogfinger *
Thanks to Tom C. of Ocean Grove for coming up with a title for our new Blogfinger series.
OLD CROW MEDICINE SHOW From the album A Tribute to John Denver
Multi-family homes, hotels, and rooming house are all terrible. I agree with Wisher that we must work hard to eliminate all of these types of undesirable housing. I also don’t like folks to rent out their single family homes either. Itinerants really should be no part of this town.
Is it too much to ask that this be a pristine community of well maintained single family Victorian homes? Before you flame me, answer this: would you want a rental house, or a multi-family house, or a rooming house, to be established next door to your house?
Thank you for agreeing with me.
Above all, we have to make sure to avoid the pitfall of summer and winter New Jersey ghost towns, like dead Deal, and dead Spring Lake. Rich zombies buying so they can visit a few weekends, then leave for other homes in Milan, or even Cuba. We could become a resort hotelier, rather than a real town.
Build “single family homes.”