You can’t always get what you want. Paul Goldfinger photograph ©
2019. Just because this agreement is signed by the Mayor and the Redeveloper OGNED doesn’t mean that the project will ever be completed. The Redevelopers Agreement for the North End Redevelopment Plan should be subtitled “Promises, Promises” because it is filled with nothing but those.
Jack Bredin, Blogfinger reporter/researcher, was present at the September 9, 2019 Committee Meeting when this long delayed document was approved by resolution.
By Jack Bredin, Blogfinger reporter/researcher, September 10, 2019. Ocean Grove, NJ.
At the September 9, 2019 meeting of the Township Committee, a 100+ page report, with attachments and exhibits (Resolution 19-316,) was passed with no dissenters.
It had been written by the Township’s Redevelopment Attorney. The report attempted to list all of the items that were NOT accomplished over the past 11 years, items that are necessary to start construction at the North End, and a recommendation for the Mayor to sign a “Redevelopment Agreement” with OGNED LLC.
It would have been easier to just say, “Nothing has been accomplished in 11 years.” This 100 page report is an attempt to “pull the wool over our eyes.”
The only thing that was new in the report was that Mayor Rizzo’s Redevelopment Committee recommended that the Township Committee drop its requirement that the Redeveloper file “financial guarantees” with the Clerk assuring that the project would be completed and on time.
At the 7:00 p.m. Regular Meeting after the 6:00 p.m. workshop, about 40 residents were present, but OGNED did not attend. The Camp Meeting Association did attend. They are the landowner of the 3 acre site and they took notes. 6 residents spoke against the resolution, and no one spoke for it.
The OG Home Owners Association is already on record from day one, 2008, supporting the North End Redevelopment project.
All residents with questions were told, “You can ask that question at a Planning Board meeting.”
Because Mayor Rizzo is the Class 1 member of the Planning Board, she should be able to answer all questions regarding the North End Redevelopment, but she appointed Dr. Michael Brantley as the Class 1 member of the Planning Board in her place, and he voted in 2008 that the redeveloper “shall” be required to post “financial guarantees.” And last night he voted, “The redeveloper ‘may’ post financial guarantees, to assure the successful completion of the project.”
This change of one word from “shall” to “may” is a financial benefit to the Redeveloper that other developers do not get, and could be detrimental to OG residents if OGNED LLC goes bankrupt or cannot build an underground parking garage as approved by the Township, and they all voted for it.
Editor’s Note. Paul Goldfinger @Blogfinger.net . 9/10/19. Re-post.
Why should OGNED have been at the meeting? That redeveloper has no interest in what the public thinks. You may recall when OGNED visited the HOA and refused to answer certain questions from the audience.
All these documents will be signed in private, out of the public’s view.
The Agreement raises all sorts of questions that currently are not answered. The Redeveloper thinks he can complete all the approvals and documents within 14 months, but it likely will take longer than that. And the actual construction project will probably take at least 5 years. During that time, there will be major hardships on those who live near the project, and the document promises that those concerns will be assuaged.
Most of us wonder about the underground garage which will be huge. It will have to be flood-proofed and it will need massive pilings to hold its weight as well as the weight on top of it. None of that information is yet available, and the garage is barely mentioned in the document.
And we also wonder where all the equipment and supplies will be kept during construction.
Here is a partial list of what is promised in this Redevelopers Agreement:
a. “Any and all required goverment approvals” will be obtained including DEP (Federal and State.)
b. A final site plan with all needed engineering approvals to go to the Planning Board.
c. A “traffic impact study.”
d. A “project schedule.”
e. “Financials” which “may” be supplied.
f. A “minimization impacts” statement.
g. A long-term lease agreement between the Camp Meeting Association and the Township/OGNED. We don’t know if all this has been thoroughly worked out. But in the end, all condo unit owners (51) will have their own individual ground rent arrangements with the CMA. Other components are also condo units such as the hotel and the retail entities.
h. And much more…..You can read the entire Agreement. The HOA sent it around a few days ago. Email them. The Neptune web site has not posted it.
So, after years of Blogfinger ‘s wrestling with this damn topic, we find that democracy has lost out to apathy….a failure of the people to participate in the process.
ITUANA: From the soundtrack of “Big Little Lies.”
Actually as an SOB (south of Broadwayer) I don’t have a lot of skin in the game. Just thought it would add to the dialogue what with the reference to “persons of influence, etc”.
No opinion formed based on the report
Art James sent Blogfinger a page from The Annual Report of the President of the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association of the the Methodist Episcopal Church (1876.)
In it the President said that he was advised that the North End by Wesley Lake needs to have a “first class hotel” in order to keep certain groups of tourists in town. He said that “it was unclear if such a hotel would provide advantages that would overbalance probable evils.”
So he was undecided.
Click on link below:
https://archive.org/details/annualreportofpr00ocea_0/page/20
Based on this, Art James thinks that “Ocean Grove needs a North End hotel.”
The latest plan for the North End does include a 40 bed boutique hotel.
But Art, there is no connecting the dots with the 1876 suggestion to the current plan for the North End.
Who knows if a boutique hotel of 40 rooms is now needed at the North End? After all, there is the fairly new Asbury Hotel and the newest Asbury hotel in their Ocean Front skyscraper.
Did OGNED do a study of visitor patterns to know if that the proposed OG hotel now is still a good idea?
Or maybe the 2019 OGNED hotel proposal is just a dodge to get more condominiums into the site instead of the hotel. “Mayor Rizzo, we decided to forget the hotel and put condos instead. Thank you for your service. Please rubber stamp it.”
—PG, Editor.
It is ironic to me that we have the HPC immersed in the minutiae of proposed architectural plans- in a recent case, reportedly, declining to approve a requested red, white and blue exterior color scheme because it was deemed “too patriotic” by one member and, at the same time, have the Township who simply ignores established zoning laws evidently in the relentless pursuit of more tax rate-ables leaving the public with little recourse save costly and prolonged litigation.
How could the Committee allow this project to proceed unless the financing necessary to finish the project is fully in place? We need to look no further than the Esperanza in Asbury Park to see what happens when a project stops in the middle of the construction. The frame was in place and visible for years. And who is going to be responsible for project oversight at the Township? The engineer? Her, really? And with what staff?
I would have attended the meeting, but the township conveniently held the meeting after the summer ended. I have been following this issue, as I’m sure other Summer residents have been as well.
I had to be back at work, and since I am only a summer resident, could not be back for the Monday night.