A typical Ocean Grove historic neighborhood. Submitted by Paul Goldfinger, Editor, Blogfinger.net. The proposed North End plan will be from the same school of historic design that gave us the Greek Temple on Ocean Avenue. It won’t look like this.
By Paul Goldfinger, MD. Editor Blogfinger.net Re-post.
This is what the Master Plan (2011) says about new construction in the historic district: “…..encouraging new construction that is compatible in scale and design to the physical character of the surrounding neighborhood.”
And this is what Municipal Land Use Law says: “The MLUL responds to a generally held belief that those sections of a municipality that still bear the visual imprint of the past should be preserved. The concept is that existing buildings in historic areas should be retained, or at least as their exteriors, and that new buildings in such areas should be on the same scale and should have facades compatible with the older buildings.
Does this sound like what those altruistic developers (OGNED), CMA, and Neptune Township have in mind for the over 5 acres at the North End which they allege is being done according to historic principles?
Let’s face it, historic preservation and replication is not what’s going on over there. The idea that bringing back the North End Hotel site is historic is like looking at an archaeologic site in Israel where scientists have their eyes on history going back 3000 years and not on some Ottoman casino which burned down in 1910.
They may get what they want, but it is wrong and is being misrepresented to the Ocean Grove public.
And let’s mention the 2008 ruling that allowed the Township, on the behalf of WAVE and the CMA, to change the zoning from single family residential to mixed use due to the designation of that area as an “area in need of redevelopment.” This is NJ Law as to the criteria for that designation:
“Areas, in excess of five contiguous acres, whereon buildings or improvements have been destroyed, consumed by fire, demolished or altered by the action of storm, fire, cyclone, tornado, earthquake or other casualty in such a way that the aggregate assessed value of the area has been materially depreciated.”
The OG North End was misrepresented as an area of over 5 acres. In addition, the land’s value was not shown to be materially depreciated. Today it is worth a large sum of money—-no one has released the price tag when the CMA sells to OGNED.
Another excuse was that the land suffered from many Code violations, but those were easily corrected. There was a law suit which Kevin Chambers lost over this, but that doesn’t mean that he was wrong.
OTIS REDDING “Wonderful World.”
This is a case of a very connected developer getting what he wants and not requiring them to follow the HPC rules that the town has enforced for the last 40 years or so.
It is disgusting and I can imagine a rush of new developers also ignoring the HPC by threating legal action if they don’t get what the North End got,: excessive density, roof decks….
Historic preservation in Ocean Grove is very much in jeopardy.
What is the role of the Historic Preservation Commission in assuring that the North End re-developers comply with the HPC guidelines?
Editor’s note: Both the Planning Board and the HPC must approve the North End Redevelopment Plan. We are not sure what plan OGNED will present to those two bodies.