Disgraceful! The North End as it looks in January 2023. Paul Goldfinger photograph. Click to enlarge.
Late Neptune Mayor Michael Brantley DDS shows developers around the North End. Based on Blogfinger photograph. Cartoon by Sue Gioulis for BF.
Paul Goldfinger, MD. Editor Blogfinger.net. 2023 post. This is another Blogfinger post where we attempted to present a North End history to give perspective for citizens who are new to town or who have forgotten some of the background, and that includes myself.
Before we begin (9/18/23) we call your attention to the Coaster of 9/14/23) in which the former President of the OG Home Groaners, Barbara Burns, a lawyer, tries in vain to explain the legal dilemmas at play for a court hearing coming up which pits the North End developer (OGNED) against Neptune Township regarding the HPC’s refusal to grant a Certificate of Appropriateness to OGNED.
The developer wants the court to grant them an end-run to avoid the requirement of the HPC approval. This project should have been cancelled years ago, but now OGNED needs only to get past this review, and let the song and dance begin.
Ms. Burns is wasting her time, and she is not a good spokesman for this topic because her Groaners failed to stop this travesty in its tracks when they had the chance. And she allowed OGNED to appear before the HOA while censoring certain questions from the membership. That was an undemocratic shameful event that she permitted.
The North End Redevelopment Plan was conceived in 2005. Since then it has reeked from suspected corruption, even to this day.
Below is a list of topics related to the North End which we have covered over the last ten years or so on Blogfinger. It is a summary and, by no means, a comprehensive discussion of any of these issues. But it does give a sense of how complicated the North End situation is and how frustrated we have been on Blogfinger as we tried to raise awareness of “trouble right here in River City.”*
October 12, 2012. Charles Layton and Paul Goldfinger sounded some alarms about the North End plan:
“We recently reported that the Camp Meeting Association hopes to conclude a redevelopment agreement with Neptune Township soon and then, in 2013, to break ground on its North End hotel and condominium project. Before that happens, we hope the Township officials and the citizens of Ocean Grove will give this project a sober, fresh look.
“The North End project will likely disrupt just about all of Ocean Grove. It will mar our landscape with piles of construction materials, heavy equipment, mounds of excavated dirt, trash, traffic congestion and noise – everything that a construction site of that magnitude implies. These disturbances could persist for a very long time. And after all that grief, what will we have to show? Scores of new condominiums which Ocean Grove doesn’t need and which most Ocean Grovers almost certainly won’t like. And that’s before we even consider the impact on parking.
“We urge the people of Ocean Grove who care about preserving the charm, character and livability of this community to start paying attention to this process now”
b. The re-developers (now OGNED; formerly WAVE) have remained mostly unidentified even though this public Township project should have been transparent in telling us who all the investors are.
c. Committeeman Michael Brantley was photographed showing potential developers around at the North End. He should have distanced himself from such activities. The developers were originally the CMA and WAVE together. We suspect that the decision was not a product of fair bidding.
d. Jack and I heard from a developer (2015). who tried to get a chance at winning this project , but he claimed that he was not given a fair opportunity. He was very angry. He did not want to be identified, but he was a well known developer of large projects in this region. He felt sure that “fraud” was playing a part.
We have the email from this developer dated 2015. I am leaving out his identification because he asked us to do so. He titles his email “Ocean Grove Plan.”
Here is the message:
“I got completely screwed by that dishonest unscrupulous town and all its officials. I was coaxed into spending a fortune of buy money, time, and effort when all along the entire process was a fixed horse race whose outcome was predetermined.
” I put forth the MOST magnificent proposal but I was not “connected” to the gov’t officials and my clearly superior proposal lost a beauty contest to a much uglier duckling…”
e. Wesley Lake is polluted largely due to dirty ground water which enters the Lake and winds up in the Ocean. The North End redevelopers said that they would deal with that situation, but we have not heard about their solution if one actually exists. Neptune should disclose that to the public. The Township also tried to change the name of Wesley Lake. Why?
f. The OG Master Plan has largely been ignored in this North End project: The CMA and the Township saw to it that the Re-Development Zone would turn its back on the Master Plan and do away with the existing single family home zoning. Also, the Master Plan said that the design should fit in with the surrounding neighborhoods. But this design has no such resemblance. The ersatz Victorian buildings are wrong, too contrived, and are too massive.
g. Supposedly there were public hearings to approve the plan, but we have not seen that documentation. Our recent assessments indicate that the pubic is opposed to this project. And public trust in the CMA has, we believe, declined.
h. There should have been a time limit after which the Plan should have been cancelled. A re-development plan is primarily for the public good, and the owners should have been forced to start over or throw in the towel after perhaps a few years. It is now 16 years of empty promises–not in best interests of we-the-people.
i. What have the developers done to satisfy the need for all the cars that will show up: owners, guests, tourists, etc? Their underground garage will be insufficient.
j. The garage will be in close proximity to the ocean and the lake. The Township needs to explain the environmental considerations to the public.
Some links of concern….
m. 2022 A Timeline of distrust
n. A revealing HOA meeting of 2024
ROBERT PRESTON from The Music Man*: