NOTE: This updates a previous article on this subject.
By Charles Layton
Municipal Court hearings are coming up soon for the owners of 35 Embury Avenue, 78 South Main Street and 24 McClintock Street in Ocean Grove.
In March, Neptune Code Enforcement cited the owner of 35 Embury, Beatrice Albano of Brooklyn, NY, for a variety of serious maintenance violations. The unoccupied house has rotted wood throughout but especially around the windows. Huge areas lack paint, and boards have pulled loose, leaving large cracks and holes for rain to enter the building.
The Township issued a summons in May, and Albano is due in court on Thursday to enter a plea.
The house at 24 McClintock, also unoccupied, has been in violation of maintenance laws for years. Problems have included rotting wood, broken windows, broken shingles and damaged porch rails. In September of 2009 Code Enforcement issued a summons to the owner, Jason Richelson of Brooklyn, but the case became mired in bureaucratic red tape and seemed to have been forgotten until July of 2010, when the Historic Preservation Commission complained to Code Enforcement about the house.
The house at 78 South Main is, by all outward appearances, a shambles. In March of this year Code Enforcement ordered the owner, Eve Annenberg of New York City, to “make all necessary repairs” to bring the building up to code requirements. That has not been done.
Richelson and Annenberg are to appear for a hearing in Municipal Court on June 23.
Richelson, Annenberg and Albano are the latest in a string of owners called into court in recent months over long-standing maintenance problems with unoccupied buildings in Ocean Grove. Others are the owners of 80 Main Avenue, 23 Seaview Avenue (the Park View Inn), 14 Spray Avenue and 96 Lawrence Avenue.