Blogfinger

By Charles Layton

Twenty-nine neighbors have signed a petition urging that Neptune Township take action, “without further excuses or delays,” against the absentee owners of the house at 24 McClintock Street.

“We fear that, in its untended condition, a fire might break out that could spread  to other homes, as has happened elsewhere in Ocean Grove in recent years,” the petition says.

It was delivered to the township clerk’s office on Wednesday.

Neighbors have been concerned about the property for several years. Township officials inspected it in 2009 and found a host of maintenance violations. When the owner, Jason Richelson of Brooklyn, NY, failed to address those violations, the Township issued a summons. However, no court action resulted. Last year, in July, the Historic Preservation Commission asked the Township to pursue action once more, which, after some delay, it did. Only recently has the Municipal Court set a date — June 23 — for Richelson to answer the charge of failure to comply.

According to the neighbors’ petition, “the house has rotting wood, many parts are bare of paint, parts of the roof appear to be in a failing condition, and windows are not secure. Water enters the building with every rain… Animals and birds have been observed entering and leaving the house. We can only imagine conditions in the interior.”

24 McClintock -- Could this be OG's "next disaster," petitioner asks

The 29 signers reside on McClintock Street, Pitman Avenue, Beach Avenue and Ocean Pathway. Lynn Merry, who lives on Pitman just behind the derelict property, wrote the petition and went door to door collecting signatures. Merry, a 4th-generation Ocean Grover and a former tent dweller, said her family received a serious scare two years ago when the house across the street from theirs caught fire and was destroyed, damaging the homes on either side of it.

“The subsequent fires on Ocean Pathway and Surf Avenue only reinforced our need to speak up,” she said, “to try to prevent the next disaster. 24 McClintock, through obvious neglect, is quite possibly that next disaster.”

According to Monmouth County online sales data, Richelson purchased 24 McClintock on July 11, 2005, for $400,000. It was assessed in 2011 at $355,200. It was built in 1895, according to those records. Richelson said in a comment published on Blogfinger last August that the house “doesn’t appear on the maps at the Historical Society we consulted and the ledgers and files there and the former owner told us it was not original to the site” — meaning it was built elsewhere and, at some point, moved to its present site.

In that same posting, the owner said his efforts to renovate the house had been tied up in court and bureaucratic processes. “The building is also for sale,” Richelson wrote, “in the event there is someone more experienced with navigating this process that we are who wants to take on this project. If anyone is interested, they should contact us…”

To all appearances, no repairs have been made since that time.

The petition delivered to the Township on Wednesday requests that the Township “respond to this petition by explaining how it intends to proceed, and to keep us informed at every step in the process until this threat to our safety and well-being is remedied.”

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By Charles Layton

Neptune Township is taking the owners of two more Ocean Grove homes to court for allowing their properties to fall into disrepair.

We’ve written about these two properties before — 35 Embury Avenue and 96 Lawrence Avenue. Both have been unoccupied and untended for some time.

35 Embury Avenue, rear view. Photos by Charles Layton

On March 17 the Department of Code Enforcement issued a notice of violation to the owner of the 35 Embury property, Beatrice Albano of Brooklyn, New York, citing rotted wood, missing gutter pipes, lack of paint and other problems. When the owner failed to correct the problems, Code Enforcement, on May 2, issued a summons for Albano to appear in Municipal Court next Thursday, May 19.

96 Lawrence Avenue

The second house is at 96 Lawrence Avenue. It had been cited for maintenance violations in August of 2009, including a roof in need of repair, broken or missing windows, missing siding and problems with gutters, wood trim and trash and debris. No further formal action was taken by the Township, however, until May 6 of this year, when Code ordered the owner, Sandra Solly of Farmingdale, NJ, to appear in court. Solly’s hearing is scheduled for May 26.

Another derelict property, at 78 South Main Street, may soon reach court as well. Code has ordered the owner, Eve Annenberg of New York City, to make repairs by May 27 or face court action.

As these three houses come into play, they join the list of other Ocean Grove properties whose owners are under legal pressure from the Township. These include 23 Seaview Avenue, 80 Main Avenue, 24 McClintock Street and 14 Spray Avenue.

The house at 91 Cookman Avenue had been on that list as well, but the Township enjoyed a rare victory last weekend when local developer Jack Green agreed to purchase that property and rehab it.

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The North End, looking toward Asbury Park. Photo by Paul Goldfinger.

By Charles Layton

MONDAY, Feb. 14 — Neptune Township has finally begun what promises to be a long and complicated negotiation with developers of the North End hotel/condominium complex.

Committeeman Randy Bishop said tonight that Township officials got together for the first time last Thursday with representatives of the Camp Meeting Association and its building contractor. It was the first of many meetings, which will extend over many months, to negotiate specific details of the most massive construction project in Ocean Grove’s recent history.

“Of all the redevelopment negotiations I’ve seen, this is the most complex,” Bishop said.

The Township approved the general outlines of the North End plan in March of 2008, but further progress had been stalled by a law suit. In October, 2010, an appeals court dismissed that suit, clearing the way for the project to proceed.

The next step, then, is for the Township and the developers to hammer out what’s known as a Redeveloper Agreement – a legal contract, actually. That agreement will spell out exactly what the developers can and cannot do, including the exact number of condominium units, permitted uses of the property, traffic flow requirements and much, much more.

The developers are the Camp Meeting Association, which owns the 5.6-acre site west of the boardwalk and north of Spray Avenue, and a company run by Ocean Grove developer William Gannon.

The plan approved in 2008 calls for a maximum of 85 residential units — mostly condos but with a few single-family homes — and a hotel with a maximum of 80 rooms. However, that plan leaves many questions unanswered. For instance, although the plan calls for a large underground parking garage, it is unclear how much underground parking the water table will allow. The site lies between Wesley Lake and the Atlantic Ocean.

The site is also problematic because the wall along the lake shore is in such disrepair that it could collapse under the strain of a major building project. Who pays to fix that wall – the Township or the developers – will be part of the negotiations.

Furthermore, because the North End is on the ocean, the developers must meet regulations of the Coastal Area Facility Review Act (CAFRA); these regulations deal with storm water runoff, pollution, waste disposal, beach deterioration and more.

And, the project is in a Historic District, which brings its own complications.

Residents near the site are dreading the disruptions that are bound to come from such a massive project. How to minimize those inconveniences will surely come up in the negotiations as well.

It is hard to see how all of these issues can be worked out before the latter part of this year.

Although the negotiations will be behind closed doors, the final contract must be enacted as an ordinance. Therefore, as with any ordinance, there eventually will be public notice and an opportunity for citizen input. Given the extraordinary amount of public interest, the Township will likely hold some kind of special public hearing before the contract comes to a vote by the Township Committee.

Bishop and Mary Beth Jahn are the two Township Committee members serving on the negotiating committee. Other township officials, including Business Administrator Philip Huhn and Chief Financial Officer Michael Bascom, will also undoubtedly take part.

The site of the North End has a storied (one could even say calamitous) history. It was, in earlier days, a complex of structures that included a fishing pier, a pavilion and a large hotel. A hurricane destroyed the pier in 1938. The hotel was demolished in 1978. Following that, the site was mostly empty except for a large storage building along Spray Avenue. That building was destroyed in a spectacular night-time fire on September 2, 2008.

The 1978 demolition of the North End Hotel. Photo courtesy Historical Society of OG.

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