OG North End waiting for development since 2007. Home Groaners Ass. (HGA) are clueless. Blogfinger file photo ©
By Paul Goldfinger, Editor @Blogfinger and Jack Bredin,, researcher @Blogfinger.
A Blogfinger reader suggested we view the minutes of the Nov. 28, 2015 Home Owners Association (HOA) meeting. It can be found on their website (OGHOA.org,) and below is our evaluation of their North End misinformation including some quotes from their minutes. We suggest that all of you familiarize yourselves with the truth:
- The Township’s application for a RISS exemption is ignored by the OGHOA, according to their minutes. There is no mention of that situation which we have been reporting about recently. The Neptune Township application to the Sites Improvement Advisory Board in Trenton has important implications for the North End Plan. The Home Groaners are missing in action. That application must be blocked by our citizens.
- “The entire negotiation process has come to a pause.” Sorry, but there is no negotiation process going on. The CMA is having private discussions with WAVE, while the Township waits for WAVE to sign a Redevelopers Agreement. The Town Attorney has been waiting for 7 years for WAVE to show their financial capability and to sign the Agreement.
- OGHOA says there is “a newly revised and reduced plan that has lowered the amount of RSIS standard required parking to be accommodated in a one level underground parking garage which will be for the condos in block one.”
This is nonsense. Committeeman Randy Bishop presented a concept plan earlier this year which, he said, would replace the 2008 NERP. But that “new” plan was never approved because no revised plan can be approved before the signing of a Redevelopers Agreement for the 2008 NERP.
On page 22 of the 2008 NERP it says, “Any proposed changes in permitted uses in the land use plan (NERP)—residential density, building height, or the core design concepts in this plan shall require notice and new public hearings in a manner similar to the adoption of the original plan.”
The “new” WAVE plan presented by Bishop proposed reducing the density west of the boardwalk by 50% and also increasing the density east of the boardwalk by 100% by adding two upper stories of condos to the large Pavilion on the beach.
When Bishop was subsequently questioned about the “new plan” by a member of the public, Bishop said, “That plan was a mistake.” Ann Horan must have missed that meeting.
- “WAVE has asserted that they will not give complete financials to the Township until the CMA signs a revised CMA-WAVE Agreement.”
This is also nonsense: Private negotiations between OGCMA and WAVE have nothing to do with and cannot hold up the redevelopment process that is controlled by the Township Committee.
- OGHOA says that “reduced RISS mandated parking would be accommodated in a one level underground parking garage.”
That is wrong because no actual garage plan has ever been submitted for the 2008 plan. In the “new plan” there is a dotted line on a drawing to show the extent of a parking garage, but again, there is no actual plan available and no engineering estimate of the project’s costs for such a garage. There is reason to believe that the bulk of the new condo’s will sit on top of the garage, but there is no plan to show such an arrangement.
- Another issue that is not mentioned by the HOA: According to the NERP and the “new plan” no parking will be required for the boardwalk Pavilion despite the condos and the banquet hall mentioned in the “new plan.”
So, the OGHOA, which supports all of this, would agree that for a wedding reception to be held in the Pavilion during the summer, the guests can park on Ocean Avenue or use the meters in Asbury Park or Bradley Beach. Of course such situations will produce increased need for on street parking at our North End.
This scenario actually could come true if the State awards Neptune Township the parking and streets exemptions which they are currently seeking.
Blogfinger readers need to learn about these issues so that they can be knowledgeable when it comes time to demonstrate and speak up in large numbers, not only about the North End Plan but also about the application to the State RISS Board. The Home Groaners Ass. continues to be incompetent in their assessment of this situation.
BARRY MANILOW with music like we will be hearing from the new North End Hotel and the Banquet Hall in the Pavilion on the beach (aka “Asbury Park South.”)