Central Avenue ends abruptly at Sea View Avenue (the street where the Park View Inn sits, awaiting demolition—already approved by the HPC) Central Ave. meets a property line (see the grass?) and does not meet Lake Avenue which meanders along the white bulkhead, east and west.
If Lake Avenue were a street, Central Avenue would have met Lake and allowed cars to take a right turn. This point where Central meets the property line is shown on the tax map as a property line. But the surveyor’s “key map” has removed the tax map’s property line to give the impression that the truth doesn’t exist.
This is an area of Lake Avenue which was recently rebuilt. Clearly it was built to continue its normal function as a walkway, and it is a lovely walkway indeed. I don’t know that anybody in the world, except for most of the “experts” at the Neptune Township Planning Board, would call this a “street” or a “road.”
The Park View Inn site is just a short distance east of here. If someone wanted to turn this into an actual street, which no one is currently proposing, they would have to dig up this whole area and they would have to infringe on a number of homes with front yards currently built up to the edge of the sidewalk. I bet many Grovers would lay down in front of the bulldozers if that were attempted by a stone-deaf Neptune Township Committee.
* Ratso Rizzo while crossing a busy Times Square street with John Voight.
By Paul Goldfinger, Editor @Blogfinger and Jack Bredin, researcher @Blogfinger.
Municipal Land Use Law (New Jersey). Official record. Click to read it easier. Source: Jack Bredin.
By Paul Goldfinger (Editor @Blogfinger) and Jack Bredin (Researcher @Blogfinger)
At a recent Planning Board meeting, permission was granted to subdivide the Park View Inn site into 4 illegal nonconforming undersized lots. Two would front on Sea View Avenue and two would front onto Lake Avenue.
Although that decision was defended recently on Blogfinger by the owner’s attorney, Jennifer Krimko, there is another matter that has caught our eye.
Over thirty years ago, the first published booklet spelling out Municipal Land Use Law contained a provision (40:55D-35) regarding building lots. This item stated that a building permit can be granted for a lot only if that lot abuts on a street.
Certainly Seaview Avenue is a street, but Lake Avenue, a walkway, is not. Lake Avenue is actually a lot—–Block 101, lot 2. Therefore the subdivision approval is illegal.
So what is a street? It is roadway with curbs and concave draining contours. It is a “cart way” where garbage trucks and cars can drive and where deliveries can be made. It usually contains underground utilities such as sewer mains, water lines and gas lines.
Lake Avenue is a historic place in OG, and it meets none of these criteria,—it was always known as a walking thoroughfare, so why was it declared a street at the Planning Board?
What is the gold standard for identifying streets in town? It is the Township Tax Map which does not show Lake Avenue to be a street. It shows Lake Avenue to be a lot. The Tax Map shows a property line (see below at the arrow) which marks the end of Central Avenue which is not in continuity with Lake Avenue, indicating that Lake Ave is not a street.
Portion of Neptune Township tax map. the official Township map. Scanned from an original. Note what happens to Central Ave. It stops at a property line, short of Lake Ave. It does not round the corner the way a normal joining of streets would behave. Click to see the detail. Courtesy of Jack Bredin.
What did the “experts” say about Lake Avenue at the meeting or in writing? :
Let’s first consider the testimony of the planner for the property owner. He said that “Lake Avenue is not a street.”
What did Sharon Killgallon, director of the OG Sewer Authority, say? She said, in a letter, that “there are no mains on Lake Avenue.” She also said that the plan would require easements to connect Lake Avenue to Seaview Avenue for gas, water and sewage. The official Sewer Authority grid map shows all streets in Ocean Grove, but Lake Avenue is not among them. In other words, when it comes to sewage, Lake Avenue is not a street.
What did Peter Avakian, the Planning Board engineer say? His company’s letter to the Board says that the entire Park View lot has “dual frontage on Seaview and Lake. ” So he seems to consider Lake Avenue a street as he does for Seaview. He also said that each of the 4 lots would require a “road opening permit.” In other words, he believes that all 4 Park View lots are abutting actual streets, and that would include Lake Avenue. The word “road” is another way to say “street.”
He also concluded that the “application is complete” to get the property subdivided. Would he really approve an application that contains 2 lots that do not abut on a street? Is he misleading the Board?
How about Jennifer Beahm, the Planning Board planner. She said that she supports the application for the subdivision and that each of the two Lake Avenue lots have 28 feet of “road frontage” along Lake Avenue. In other words, she thinks it’s a street.
Then we have the input from the Neptune Township engineer Leanne Hoffmann who reported to the Board that “road opening permits for any disturbance within the right of way” would be required. So she thinks it’s a street.
Then there is the land surveyor, Michael J Williams, who prepared a subdivision map that includes a “key map” that shows the streets around the subdivision. That document shows that a lot line at the end of Central Avenue was removed from the tax map to give the impression that Lake Avenue is a street in continuity with Central. Could this be a violation of the State Map Filing Law?
Key map from surveyor. The line ending Central Avenue has been removed. Source: Jack Bredin
On December 27, Kevin Chambers said, in a Blogfinger comment, “My issue is with the fact that the same attorney for both the Warrington application at the Board of Adjustment and the Park View application at the Planning Board can, with the approval of the two boards, present evidence that clearly contradicts each other. If one is telling the truth, than the other must be lying.
You cannot present testimony at one board that Lake Avenue is a street, and at the next present testimony that it is not.”
