Parked on Ocean Avenue: a Florida registered truck. Sign says “Hoboken.com. now leasing apartments and townhouses.” Blogfinger photo. 6/6/19 Click to enlarge. This company is in the business of renting “affordable housing.” Is there such a thing on Ocean Avenue in Ocean Grove? Is this about speculation in short term housing rentals?
Paul Goldfinger, Editor@ Blogfinger.net. Re-post with update.
Our recent discussions about lifestyles in Ocean Grove have so far failed to consider changing lifestyles. Those who imagine that Ocean Grove could stay as it was in Victorian times are deluded. Some wish we had Sunday closures again.
Even our “historic” houses are mostly not truly historic. Very few “historic districts” are like Williamsburg (Virginia)
After 1980, when Camp Meeting lifestyles were changed forever by the NJ Supreme Court, many Grovers complained that Neptune Township was failing to protect the character of the Grove through increasing parking problems, deteriorating historic buildings, and increased crime. Some wished that Blue Laws could be reestablished including bans on driving, swimming, and biking.
Despite their loss of governance, for the last nearly 40 years,the CMA has maintained a very active schedule of programs which sometimes clash with those who make the Grove their home.
In 2019, the CMA, which is lately trying to swim upstream and make this town even more religious, will have a tough time with that. So many of the community’s residents are secular and are largely indifferent to religious tourism. Yet the CMA wants more year-round programming. It’s possible that its “mission,” which fails to recognize the secular residential community, will eventually run into the preferences of those who pay to live here.
But, the fact is that nothing stays the same, and that will be true of how the housing in OG evolves along with how the demographics evolve. And the way that housing is used reflects changing lifestyles, mores, and beliefs.
We hear that some new home buyers are only interested in the Grove for rental reasons, and they buy homes, not to live in, but to rent out for short stays.
This is in addition to the many homes in town that rent out completely or partially to people who live here.
It is said that young adults and families now prefer to rent rather than buy a home, so they will cause demand for rentals to increase.
Short term rentals (1-3 days) are a new reality, and although homeowners and others who live in the Grove may not like it, it’s going to be interesting to see efforts which try to stop it.
Airbnb is just one of a number of Internet rental providers. Some who have experience with the Airbnb renters find that they may misbehave and negatively impact our neighborhoods. Certainly they have no interest in the town and its issues. But there is nothing illegal about those Internet rentals.
Editor’s November 2019 update: We interviewed a Grover who’s family owns a hotel on Ocean Avenue. He tells us that the Airbnb phenomenon is active in the Grove and negatively impacts the businesses like hotels which are year round, pay taxes, and create jobs.
THE SHIRELLES:
–Paul Goldfinger, editor @Blogfinger.net
The only comment I have is that all summer there were different renters of an AirB&B across the street from me, and they were All•••All young, loud partying groups. One party must have told their friends about the place and It was like Belmar or Seaside into the wee hours. (Yes a couple. times we called the police —- Not successful).
Obviously the owner did not interview or vet these summer people. It changed the whole atmosphere for porch sitting. That was our Air B&B exposure. Needless to say we missed our summer porching and that is sad.
Reblogged this on Blogfinger and commented:
I keep hearing complaints about Airbnb rentals in the Grove, including my neighborhood. But facts are hard to come by, and I don’t know if anybody (eg code enforcement) is following this.
This article has attracted ongoing interest, so we are reposting it to see if we can attract some updated comments. PG
Agreed. No horse beating ever. I see it on my block all summer long. Enough said
OK enough beating a dead horse. Suffice it to say that all over the world, homeowners are renting out short stay rooms to obtain quick bucks by turning their homes into Quick-Check hotels.
It does happen in the Grove and it will probably become more prevalent. The Township needs to get a grip, investigate the matter, and then tell us all what the rules are. Our poll last year found that most OG citizens don’t like the idea.–Paul @Blogfinger.
I was looking at AirbnB, not VRBO. Yes, there are some with 1 day rentals if you search on VRBO, but you have to look carefully to see what times of year that minimum applies to — hardly any of them have a 1-3 day minimum in the summer, and some list one day minimum in error.
For example, one of them said “1-day minimum” but the headline said “Sat-Sat”. Another one, Central Ave. House says “1-day minimum” but the text says “Central Ave House is beloved by groups and families renting 3 nights in spring and fall, and, one week vacations checking in and departing on Mondays.” Another one says “1 day minimum” but the text says ” between June 29 and September 7, a 7-day minimum, Saturday to Saturday is required.”
When I search for 1 night in July 2020 (since 2019 is booked) I find only 3 OG listings — all the rest are actually in Bradley. The three in OG are the ones I describe above which do not have one night minima in summer.
Actually according to looking at just a couple of pages on VRBO many rentals in Ocean Grove (there are a total 229) have 1, 2 or three day minimums
Well Dr. Carol, I think you are mistaken. After looking at the first of many pages of the VRBO website, the majority of rentals had a 1-2 night minimum (22 to be exact) and almost the same number had a three night minimum. I could go back and count all of the rentals – they have 229 – but it was making me too depressed. I am sure there are many more on AIRBNB, but their website was down. I have a number of short term rentals on my street and seldom see an inspector from the township.
Oh, I’d be thrilled to have a Jack Bredin print — I walked over to the Ocean Park Gallery today to see what they have of his, but it was closed! I’ve been searching for his Aurora painting.
Very few OG rental homes rent for a single night — it’s simply not worth the cost of cleaning and doing laundry and filling out the paperwork for the city and having an inspection. For my house, I pay $325 for cleaning, $110 for laundry, $135 for the city inspection — it’s just not worth it for one night. During the summer, virtually all the rental homes I know of in OG have a minimum of one week. I do have a 3 night minimum off-season, but would never rent for one night. And as for your image of a couch-surfing type rental — I don’t know of anyone here who rents out a single room or bed on a nightly basis — except the actual B&Bs in town; I just confirmed this by searching on AirBnB — the “private room” listings are all either B&Bs or actually apartments. Have you any specific examples of this kind of rental activity in the Grove? There are such places in Bradley, but I can’t find them here. Ocean Grove’s summer rental activity is primarily weekly and primarily whole house or whole apartment.
My grandmother, her two sisters and her cousin all bought & ran boarding
houses in the Grove and hosted mostly elderly singles or couples visiting Ocean Grove to participate in the CMA programs. They later converted them to two-family homes when it was too much work to have daily guests. The apartments created in each of their homes provided income for the rest of their long lives and allowed them to stay in the Grove; they also provided moderate cost, decent housing for those who rented their apartments.. This was the only way my grandmother, coming from a working class, immigrant family, could afford a home here. Those apartments were legal at the time they were created, and the houses all are listed on the tax records as two-family homes. Yes, they are non-conforming with the single-family land use later passed, but they are grandfathered in and perfectly legal.
Dr Carol: OG had many hotels and rooming houses years ago where you could rent a room. When my ancestors came to Coney Island and the Lower East Side, most were poor, and single men could rent a room in somebody’s house–they were called boarders.
My aunt and uncle rented a room in Bradley Beach. I think they stayed for a week. I visited them, and my aunt took me to the kitchen which she shared with everyone in the building. She had a tiny corner of the fridge for her use, and she gave me lunch.
But in modern day Ocean Grove, I think short term Airbnb style rentals where you can rent a room in someone’s house or even to rent a house for a day have been rare until recently; So it feels like a new topic for us, but I really have no data. Do you?
So that’s the sort of rentals we are referring to as controversial. We need an innkeeper to comment here.
But, now, if some one meets someone in OG and wants to “get a room” they can do so, by talking to their smartphone. A definite cultural advance, although not especially popular with the populace (see or 2018 poll on this topic.)
The topic of Airbnb’s flaired up in town about a year or so ago, but now it’s gone quiet, although people tell me that it’s still going on quite vigorously.
So you shouldn’t write it off as old-hat.
Oh, Dr Carol, you win a Blogfinger prize (a Jack Bredin print) for being the first person ever to use the word Byzantine in a sentence on BF. But we will deduct points for using a small case B.
–Paul @Blogfinger
Dr. Carol, you are correct about the local law, but perhaps you are not aware that according to State Land Use Law, most lots, uses, and structures in OG are still illegal, and State law supersedes local law.
But not to worry, the State can approve “Special Standards” for OG that the Township planners can follow to address the concerns that you and many others have.
For whatever reason, the Town keeps putting it off.
Perhaps you are not aware that the Neptune town ordinances have a grandfather clause: any nonconforming property use that predates a property use ordinance will be allowed to continue as is. So all the rentals and B&Bs and multifamily homes that predate the Neptune land use ordinance are not illegal.
There are plenty of noise and occupancy and inspection ordinances that allow neighbors to complain to the city about any rentals that are noisy, overcrowded, or not properly registered or inspected. All of us should bring our wrath down upon them! But there are many more owners like me who follow all the byzantine township rental rules and carefully vet our renters to make sure they will be respectful of our properties and neighbors.
It’s also important to point out that vacation rental homes are not a “new invention” here on the Jersey Shore; they did not suddenly pop up with the advent of AirBnB. If you read the very old Ocean Grove Times papers available through the OG Historical Society website, you’ll find over 100 properties listed for rent back in the first decade of the 20th century. Families have been renting homes here since the beginning, and homeowners have been able to afford their dream homes at the shore by renting them out when not in use.
Dr. Carol,
Neptune permitted the CMA to act as their own municipality. And so, Kevin Chambers may be correct because the CMA never had the municipal authority to approve a subdivision or a structure.
All land use approvals by the CMA from 1869 to 1980 could be considered illegal. They were definitely not confirming or non-conforming with State law.
After 1980, the only structures brought into conformity in OG by Neptune were detached single-family houses and existing hotels. Everything else is technically still illegal.
It would appear that Kevin is correct.
I’m not a lawyer, but it seems that Kevin is confusing contract law — a civil matter — with criminal law. If the Camp Meeting wishes to pursue people who violate the terms of their leasehold, it would be a civil matter — not “illegal” — which implies a criminal act.
And, I’d like to point out that our leaseholds also state that the property may not be occupied from Oct 13 to May 15 — so anyone with a year-round house is in violation of the leasehold, even if it is a single-family residence.
I interviewed a hotel/inn proprietor whose family has operated their Ocean Grove facility for generations. He told me that there are many Airbnb rentals in the Grove and that they are hurting the usual inn/hotel businesses.
He asserts that they are also hurting the businesses downtown.
As an example, he mentions a house on a beach block in the Grove which rents fort $1,000 per night.
He says that a large group, eg 10 people, shows up to occupy the building and to party. They do not necessarily add to the parking problems because they come from NYC. But they are undesirable because they are not familiar with the town, so they roam around, make noise, and have no idea of the cultural landscape in the Grove.
He also claims that the places which rent by the day do not get CO’s with each new renter, so it seems that this process defies the law.
Dr. Carol
The court ruled in Belmar v. 201 16th Ave., Belmar, “A nonconforming use is a valuable property right…, this right is incorporeal in nature but passing with title to the fee, in the nature of an appurtenance to the property or a profit to the property…in order for a deed or mortgage, ” or in the case for OG, a leasehold, “there must be either a specific reference to it or sufficient “catch all” language”.
The court declared that where a mortgage or in this case, for OG, a lease, fails to contain language referring to a nonconforming use, the mortgages or , in this case, the lease holder, “acquired no interest in it”.
The OGCMA basic lease that they have been using does not carry any reference to nonconforming uses within their leases, therefore, anyone in OG with a 99 year lease for a single lot is only entitled to one unit for that lot.
That is the courts ruling since 1997.
Again, Neptune should not be giving out CO’s to units that are not legal in OG.
Kevin Chambers
Dr. Carol
Contract law prohibits the OGCMA from treating one lease differently from another when using the same lease. The MLUL also demands that Neptune must zone and treat all lots of equal size the same. My 99 year lease is restricted to a single family, therefore by contract law and the MLU law, all the same leaseholds as mine in OG, must also be treated the same and be restricted by law to single family use.
Just because an apartment has existed for many years doesn’t make it legal.
Kevin chambers
Tom. I am referring to the fairly new phenomenon called Airbnb. I know that you understand the difference between that concept and the many-years’ practice of renting properties to vacationers as occurs all over the Jersey shore, usually for 1-4 weeks.
To be specific, I am focusing on the new idea where people use their phones to get a room or apartment somewhere in a community for a short term like, for example, one or two nights.
Last year we did a poll and found that 82% of voters thought that single night Airbnb renters were unacceptable in our residential community.
Some in the Grove (and elsewhere, even around the world) complain that such practices can cause mayhem in neighborhoods that are not used to strangers roaming around, in and out, without appreciating the place where they are staying. —-Paul
Kevin, many homes in the Grove are legal two-family homes and have been so for decades (in the case of my home, 99 years). Yes, they are non-conforming with the master plan, but they are not illegal.
By the same logic, you’d declare all the B&B’s in town as illegal. Should they burn down and be rebuilt, they’d revert to single family homes, but for now, please don’t characterize all two-family homes as “illegal”.
The MLUL deals with illegal units clearly by saying that homeowners “may not rely on the issuance of a certificate of continuing occupancy by the construction/zoning official together with a cover letter allegedly permitting the expansion of a nonconforming use, where the official had no reasonable basis to permit such a use.”
Neptune, by law, has no business granting CO’s to apartments that are not legal. Neptune has no business promoting illegal units that swamp our town with cars.
Paul,
Whatever do you mean that short term rentals are a new reality? Ocean Grove is a beach town on the Jersey Shore. I have been vacationing at the jersey shore from Cape May to Asbury Park for over 50 years and in my adult life – also renting properties to vacationers. Short term rentals practically define the jersey shore.
Are these legal rentals or illegal rentals? Each lot is controlled by a single leasehold from the OGCMA. That leasehold can only permit a single unit. The zoning can only permit a single unit since each lot is nonconforming to the MLUL.
Any lot with more than one unit should not be rented out unless it was granted a use variance. Many of these rentals are therefore illegal and should be stopped by the Township.
Kevin Chambers