Editor’s note: In 2016 we posted an article about how Ocean Grove’s South End almost became a condo community in the 1980’s. But the developers were successfully beaten back thanks to a coordinated community backlash, and that’s why we now have the open area along Fletcher Lake, including the park-like setting near the boardwalk. That’s why we now have open air, light and space at the OG South End.
And that is what we should be getting at the North End in 2020. Read about it. Here is a link. —-PG. Blogfinger.net
Thomas Mato Blanchot feat. WAWA: “Isn’t She Lovely”
Editor’s Note: This Stevie Wonder song is about his newborn daughter, but in a larger sense he is writing about the beauty of God’s gifts.
Shouldn’t we try to preserve one of the few remaining open vistas at the Jersey Shore for all to enjoy, not just a select few? Go take a walk at the North End of OG and look around, especially at the open views of the ocean. Why not start by sending letters to the Township Committee. They have the power to cancel that zoning disaster in favor of a gift to the people.
In Morris County, they pay farmers to keep the land forever as farms. Why don’t our elected officials campaign in Trenton and Washington to do the same sort of thing here by turning the North End into a wonderful seaside park (perhaps with a vast underground parking garage to soften the financial loss for the Camp Meeting Association.)
A reasonable Plan B would be to return to single family zoning for that project.
Link to the 1986 rejection of a South End project (posted in 2016):
As most of you know, we recently posted some videos describing the successful struggle to block the construction of a high-rise condo building at Ocean Grove’s South End. Our source calls himself “Exgrover. ” It’s not exactly as provocative a pseudonym as “Deep Throat,” but it’s good enough for jazz.
Now our source has come up with two more related video tapes which we should have available soon.
This is Exgrover’s comment to us today about the tapes which will be sent to us regarding the South End high rise that never was:
“One of the tapes is a very well attended Board of Adjustment meeting taking place Friday night at the start of Labor Day weekend. The next meeting took place on Feb 5th – the tapes I posted. Neptune would always have the hearings in the dead of winter – —stretch them so the crowds would get discouraged and also thin them out. The Florida birds would miss the meetings. All done on purpose.
“Neptune was also famous when there was a really big turnout, the developer would ask for a postponement, or a document was missing… or some other excuse… We would all be sitting there and then they would announce the meeting was being rescheduled to some ungodly date in the coldest time of the year. Made the organizers look bad.
“The other tape is the Historic Sites Committee giving its report to the Township. I will clarify the content later, but I think they wanted to make changes to the zoning so it would be easier for the South End developer to ram his proposal through. These two videos are shorter than the last two.”
All the best,
Exgrover
Exgrover is sympathetic to our efforts to expose the heebie jeebies going on with regard to the current (2007) North End Redevelopment Plan. We asked Exgrover to find some material to explain the tape reference to a North End Plan in 1986. Do any of you have information about that? You can be anonymous on Blogfinger. Just email us at Blogfinger@verizon.net. Or drop us a snail mail to 113 Mt. Hermon Way where our investigative reporter Chico will sniff out the truth. —PG @Blogfinger.
LUCIA MICARELLI “Because of Toledo” from her album Interlude.
