This building at 17 Spray Avenue had been cited as unsafe as far back as the 1980s. On September 2, 2008, it burned. Coaster photo
By Charles Layton
We’ve had some lively conversation on this website in recent days about the need (or lack of need) to take action when properties in Ocean Grove are abandoned or neglected by their owners and fall into disrepair.
Some people think it’s our duty as citizens to call attention to such problem properties. Others disagree; that kind of vigilance, they say, amounts to harassment of those who can’t always afford to keep their homes in pristine condition.
However, the fact is that an empty building in disrepair is more than just an eyesore or a drag on local property values. In Ocean Grove, especially, it can be an urgent danger.
Let’s look at some history. In 2008, a spectacular fire destroyed an old storage building at 17 Spray Avenue. That fire severely scorched and peeled the siding on a home directly across the street and also did minor damage to another nearby home. The Coaster quoted Mayor Randy Bishop, who lives nearby, as saying that the fire “could have been a tremendous disaster.” Other neighbors agreed. It was lucky, they said, that the wind blew the flames and embers back toward Wesley Lake instead of the other way, toward the town.
That fire shouldn’t have happened. The public record shows that Neptune Township tolerated what it knew to be dangerous conditions at 17 Spray for many years before the building finally went up in flames.
A Township inspection in 1988 found “a large pile of lumber and other combustible debris” on the grounds. The owner, the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association, was cited, and the dangerous condition was abated. However, the abatement was temporary. The building continued to deteriorate. In 1999 a Township inspection found, among other problems, cracked masonry walls, roof tiles falling onto the sidewalk and trash and debris all over the yard.
In the ensuing years numerous summonses were issued. Fines were threatened but not imposed. In fact, the Township backed off. At one point the Township had threatened to take the owner to court, but in 2005 all summonses were dismissed, and all fines were forgiven.
In February of 2008, the Township inspected the building again, found it to be “unsound” and “unsafe” and ordered the CMA to either demolish it or correct the unsafe conditions. Parts of the roof were collapsing and parts of the building were open to the weather, according to a Township citation, “causing interior deterioration of structural elements.”
But negotiations resulted in further delays until finally, on the night of September 2, 2008, fire destroyed the whole thing.
To some Ocean Grovers, the lesson was that tolerating a persisting dangerous condition is not a virtue.
Here is another piece of history. When The Sampler Inn at 28 Main Avenue, closed and neglected, fell into serious disrepair, neighbors on Heck Avenue took action. They organized and fought to have the problems corrected. Township inspections showed that the building was in terrible condition and could easily catch fire. Bill Doolittle, Neptune’s director of code and construction, said his greatest fear was a “fire storming” effect, in which “fire jumps from one building to the next to the next” across Ocean Grove.
And so, in 2009, despite strenuous resistance by the owners, the Township had the building demolished.
If the Spray Avenue fire taught us the danger of complacency, the Sampler experience proved that if citizens and neighbors organize and fight –and if they persist — it’s possible to resolve such problems. (A corollary lesson is that the government acts more forcefully if it is prodded and pushed by citizens.)
The above examples, along with others, have led many Ocean Grovers — and some Township officials — to the firm belief that citizens must act as watchmen. When a problem arises, they must make it known. And when an owner tries to minimize the problem, it’s unwise just to take him at his word. (The lawyer for The Sample Inn, at a public hearing, characterized the problems there as “aesthetic” in nature.)
The issue is not harassment of well-meaning owners who can’t afford to paint their homes as often as we might like. And a group of citizens petitioning for redress of a problem is not akin to a “lynch mob,” as some have suggested. Portraying it as such evades the point, which is that a derelict building is better dealt with before the problem becomes truly dire.
There is a sweet spot between petty harassment of our neighbors and the kind of indulgence that led to the Spray Avenue fire. As we argue individual cases, let’s do so in that reasonable context.
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