Sen Jennifer Beck told the HOA that Mary’s Place, a new “respite group home” with many bedrooms, was exempt from RSIS rules. Would the SIAB agree? So what the Heck Avenue, everything in town is exempt according to the Township. Blogfinger photo. ©
By Paul Goldfinger, Editor @ Blogfinger
The New Jersey Residential Site Improvement Standards (RSIS) were set up in 1997 to establish statewide requirements for improvements made in connection with residential development, including streets, parking, water supply, sanitary sewers and storm water management.
The Site Improvement Advisory Board (SIAB), a 12-member panel, is charged by statute with performing an annual review of the RSIS to determine whether changes are warranted. They also hold public hearings regarding applications for exceptions to the rules called “special area standards.” The SIAB is a diverse and “contentious”* group of engineers, planners, designers and citizen activists who debate issues from different private and public perspectives.
The design of the RSIS includes some flexibility for individual towns to use for their particular circumstances. Some towns are considered to be so unique that they might qualify for designation as a “special area.” Historic Ocean Grove is such a place.
Very often such exceptions involve changing the rules for parking in terms of how many spaces (on or off-road) would have to be provided for new residential multifamily construction projects. Most of the time there has to be some parking offered without a net loss of existing on-street spaces. For example, a multifamily dwelling with one or two bedrooms per unit has to provide about 2 off-street parking spaces per unit. There are charts which show formulas for parking depending on the size, type and number of units.
Regarding Ocean Grove, the Township has been ignoring the RSIS rules and allowing developers to build multifamily structures such as condos without insisting on any parking, such as #30 Ocean Pathway. The Township has its own ordinance which forbids curb cuts, driveways, garages and any other off street parking., but the State has ruled that the Township’s ordinance is in violation of the RSIS.
The RSIS rules, if followed in OG would mandate that new residential buildings provide off street parking, and if that is not possible, then the answer would have to be single family homes, as preferred by the Master Plan, and without garages since those are not historically correct.
In 2006, the Township applied to the NJ Department of Community Affairs (DCA) asking them to provide the status of a “special area” for Ocean Grove. However, the application was not processed and was returned “without prejudice” because it was “incomplete.” The reason it was incomplete is that two steps were not done before submitting the application: 1. publish announcements in the press and 2. have public hearings with the planning board and obtain a resolution from that body. The DCA wants the evaluation of such requests to be a “public process.”*
Today, in an exclusive Blogfinger interview, an official of the DCA said that the 2006 Ocean Grove application “didn’t make sense.” The town wanted to eliminate all the RSIS parking standards in the Grove. But why did they want that? We will cover that issue in Part II.
In July, 2015, a lengthy (31 page–not counting the Appendix) application was filed by Neptune Township, again to request a special designation as described above. We learned about this from an Ocean Grove citizen source. Excluded from this recent application was the North End Project which does have RSIS parking provisions, although they are suspect.
This time, the Township again did not announce its intentions publicly nor did it have a Planning Board resolution. So once again the application was found to be “incomplete” and was sent back to the Township without further action. We don’t know if the Township will go public now and then resubmit to the State.
If the NJ Dept.of Community Affairs were to accept this application in the future, the SIAB would have its own public hearings to review the request, as described above.
In Part II we will discuss the real and imagined reasons for for the Town to again request this special designation for Ocean Grove, especially since the town is essentially “built-up,” so how many old hotels are still around to turn into condos? And single family homes that already have curb cuts or garages are essentially grandfathered in, so there doesn’t seem to be much that would be gained by the State’s approval.
So, why not leave the current RSIS rules in place? That would be best to protect the interests of our residents and our historic designations and would promote single family homes as favored by the Master Plan.
There also are some errors and interesting remarks in the application which we will share.
Stay tuned. It is very interesting. Watch for Part II. Please post all comments about RISS issues here, even as we put up new information.
Credits:
Jack Bredin, research
DCA staff*
Frustrated: In the past, that would happen up front.
Today, (if that happens,) it would be after the development is completed.
Suspicion—-who got paid off?
“There are no parking problems in OG” — what? The planner wrote this, and the town fathers/mothers approved it? You’re right, Dr. Goldfinger; it appears that the fix is in. Still, armed with this information (that they’ve tried desperately to hide), and as you suggested, we have to organize and speak up. Is there anything we can do now, such as launch a letter-writing campaign about this to the media and the town? Do we have to wait until this issue is on a Planning Board meeting agenda? Even if nothing ever comes of the “special area” application, this application surely documents that the town doesn’t care what residents think about parking and has no intention of making things better for the people of Ocean Grove. If we’re silent, there’s no hope that anything will change (except for the worse).
This may be a digression but consider that the population of OG is around 4000. During the summer, every Saturday evening (some Fridays) and Sunday morning, OGCMA events attract an equal number of outsiders. Yet, OGCMA makes NO PROVISIONS FOR THEIR PARKING, thereby greatly inconveniencing residents.
Ocean Grove is zoned single family on 30×60′ lots.
This Historic District is exempt from residential off-street parking requirements for single family houses, except when there is a variance application to redevelop a lot with multi-family units.
Now the developer must provide two (2) off-street parking spaces per unit. The problem is, there is no room on a 30×60 foot lot for the required off-street parking and so, the developer needs a variance from the parking requirements.
The Catch 22 is , if the Developer can build a single family house on the lot, he does not qualify for the variance. If the Board grants one, it is open to challenge in the Courts.
The Township Committee, working on behalf of developers is looking to eliminate the need for a variance in these cases.If the Committee is successful, the town as we know it, will slowly be destroyed.
A tip of the hat to Dr.Paul Goldfinger and Kevin Chambers for alerting the residents.
Suffering Surfer: You may be surprised to know that the application to the State regarding parking in the Grove makes the case that there are no parking problems in OG. Amazingly, the Township’s planner even has the audacity and the ? professional incompetence to argue that we can always park in Bradley Beach or Asbury Park.
Why is the Township so desperate to eliminate the RISS regs which would,if enforced, protect us from such developers? Why don’t you tell us what you think?—Paul, Editor @ Blogfinger
Builder/seller of 30 Ocean Pathway probably figured buyers can park on Ocean Pathway (grass, not houses right across the street) and/or on McClintock (in back), so made no plan for parking. Perhaps even worse is 27 Surf: a huge building on a narrow street (houses on both sides of street). This was built in the past few years and they, too, got away with no special parking arrangements.
The 2006 application to the NJ DCA for “special area” status was deemed incomplete and returned because of the lack of public notice and public hearings by the planning board; yet presumably knowing this history, Neptune Township did the same exact thing this past July? And we only know about it because an informed citizen shared these facts with you? What are they trying to accomplish, and why don’t they want the people of Ocean Grove to know what they’re doing? Do you know if any of the same people were involved in both the 2006 and 2015 applications?
Also, are there any adverse legal consequences to Neptune Township/Ocean Grove for having a Township ordinance that the State says is in violation of the 1997 RSIS (i.e., the ordinance that doesn’t require or forbids developers from providing parking)?
I haven’t been around long enough to know a lot of Ocean Grove history (although I do read your archives and have learned a lot from them), but it seems that the people who run the town don’t care about the quality-of-life interests of Ocean Grove’s residents, at least as it relates to the chronic and worsening parking problems. I admit, though, that I’m still a little confused about who actually “runs” Ocean Grove, so I’m not sure if this is true only of elected representatives..
Thanks to you and Jack Bredin for all your work to make public information public!