Residents Battle ‘The Cove On Toms River At Berkeley’

BERKELEY, NJ — “This tree has got to be at least 300-years-old. This is one of the things they’re going to tear down when they put in the parking lot.”

Patrick Filan, a longtime Bayville resident, walked around the tree-covered property that was once home to the Swiss Cottage. The only noticeable sign that something was once there was a set of stairs in the middle of the patch.

Patrick, who requested that Patch refer to him by his first name, knows all about the area. He lives in what was once the cottage’s carriage house in Good Luck Point. So he knows a thing or two about the area - he literally wrote the book on it. Read More: New Book Shares Bayville's Hidden Waterfront History

The area has historic significance, as outlined in the book "Footprint: Our Waterfront History In Bayville, New Jersey." It's located just north of the Good Luck Point land preserved in the Ocean County Natural Lands Trust Fund and right by the border of Ocean Gate, sitting on the Toms River across from Island Heights.

Now, Patrick has a different motive. A developer is planning to build 15 single-family homes on undersized lots, a marina, a parking lot and more in the area, and he says the neighbors do not want that.

“The township rolled over and should have never subdivided these lots like they did,” Patrick said. “You know, they did everything for this man to help push him through this.”

That man he’s referring to is Staten Island developer Ray Masucci, who has owned the land holding the former Santo Marina for more than a decade.

Patrick did not speak fondly of Masucci and the Staten Island developers, saying that they were only interested in getting more money in their already “overflowing pockets.”

The variances Masucci was granted are environmentally harmful and unreasonable, Patrick said.

But he doesn’t want to just complain. Patrick says if he had the money, he knows exactly what he would do with the area.

“I would love to see this place turned into a children’s cancer retreat,” Patrick said. And he’s got all the details figured out.

Block 1033 would be a gravel parking lot under Masucci’s plan. It is where Patch stood with Patrick as he showed the 300-year-old trees and old staircase. But if Patrick had his way, it would be the home of the retreat.

He wants to partner with an organization to provide accommodations for families and their sick children to share the waterfront and provide comfort. Those 300-year-old trees are older than our country, Patrick said. But an oak tree would make an awesome treehouse for the children, he said. Under his plan, all trees more than 200-years-old would stay.

A new house is planned for lot 39, but Patrick suggests a new carriage house built to be used to bring in volunteer animal groups for the kids to enjoy.

He knows it’s unlikely, but he has details on the property and has plans to make it self-sustaining.

His main goal, though, is to just stop the building.

“What they want to do is turn it into a mini-Staten Island where there’s not enough parking,” Patrick said. “They’re narrowing the streets. So if a fire truck even had to come down here, it couldn’t.”

He said that the state is reviewing the building that the developers want to put out on the point, where Santos Marina once stood.

The area, Patrick said, washes out in storms. “You don’t argue with your wife and you don’t argue with Mother Nature,” he joked.

This would be the location of a snack bar and bait shop, plus a dockmaster’s quarters with residence.

He has a plan for that, too. Boat slips could still be rented, he said. They could build specialty shops and a boardwalk and leave the landscape natural.

“Everybody likes to be on a boardwalk,” Patrick said.

It’s not even a new battle. It’s one that the residents have been fighting since 2012. And it’s one that Patrick wants to keep fighting before it’s too late - he said that developers are trying to rush to build before new waterfront building restrictions are put in place. The history needs to be preserved somehow, Patrick said.

“Once this is gone, you’d never know anything was even here, period,” he said. “And a lot of this stuff is very interesting and very important.”