Brick Hearing On Camp Osborn Plan Carried To March

BRICK, NJ — When the Brick Township Council approved the Camp Osborn zoning overlay in March 2018, council members said it was past time to get something in place.

It had been 5-1/2 years since Superstorm Sandy slammed into the Jersey Shore and fires consumed the nearly century-old community of bungalows on the barrier island. As council members voted yes, approving the ordinance, they commented the approval was long overdue.

"That sense of community is beautiful," said Lisa Crate, now the township council's president. "I hope the building isn't going to take as long as getting to this point did."

Two years later, residents of Camp Osborn are still waiting to put shovels in the sand on the oceanfront piece of the community. They hoped to have an answer Wednesday night in their quest to rebuild their homes, but will have to wait a bit longer, after the Planning Board hearing on their site plan was carried to March.

The hearing on the proposal to build 67 homes — three single units and 64 units in two-story duplexes — will be continued at a special meeting set for 7:30 p.m. on March 19 at Civic Plaza, 270 Chambers Bridge Road in Brick.

The proposal before the planning board has been nearly seven years in the making, and resulted from multiple meetings with township officials and professionals, Wayne Diana, president of the Osborn Sea-Bay Condominium Association, said Wednesday night.

The group of homeowners has spent more than $500,000 in the effort to get back in the sand, Diana said, including more than $250,000 to get a permit through the Coastal Area Facilities Review Act process.

The group also has made multiple compromises along the way, including coming to the understanding that their community could never be rebuilt the way it existed before Oct. 29, 2012.

"We’ve come to accept that in the recent years," Diana told the planning board Wednesday night. And he emphasized that the group is just that, a group of homeowners and not a multimillion-dollar developer.

Many of those homeowners, some carrying signs that said "Please Let Me Get Back Home" were in attendance Wednesday night before the planning board. Some had homes in Camp Osborn for a handful of years; others' homes had been in their families for four and five generations.

Their efforts are being opposed by Anton Semprevivo, who owns property on Lyndhurst Drive. Semprevivo was represented by an attorney at Wednesday's planning board hearing, and also is appealing the CAFRA permit approval.

The process to get to Wednesday's planning board hearing also included lengthy discussions with the township and its professionals that led to a special zoning overlay for the site. That zoning overlay ordinance had input from Kevin Batzel, the township's fire safety official, and was approved by the Township Council in March 2018.

Those discussions were a point Charles Lindstrom, the planner for the the project, came back to on several occasions in addressing questions and issues that Diana said were raised only in the last week by the township's engineer, Ted Wilkinson, and by Batzel.

The duplex units are 1,000 to 1,100 square feet, and the three single homes are 1,500 to 1,600 square feet. Lindstrom said the overall building footprint is significantly smaller than that of the 67 homes that existed on the site before Sandy hit.

There was a lot of discussion between Lindstrom and Ted Wilkinson, the township's engineer, over specifics about the amount of space needed for large vehicles such as fire trucks to navigate among the homes, and about requirements for sidewalks and curbing, with the group saying it would contribute money for sidewalks rather than construct them on two internal streets.

Wilkinson also tried to insist on blocking access to the 10-foot space between the duplex buildings — over concerns they would used for parking — which contradicted a request from Batzel to make sure the space was clear for emergencies.

One of the bigger sticking points Wednesday evening was the issue of where electric lines will be run, as township ordinance requires electrical lines to be run underground. Lindstrom said they had not been able to get the utility companies, including Jersey Central Power & Light, to give them cost estimates for the work.

"It seems the applicant doesn’t want to commit to underground utilities," Wilkinson said. "We would recommend underground utilities as a condition of approval."

Mark Bellin, the attorney for the Osborn Sea-Bay Condominium Association, said the issue isn't an unwillingness but a simple matter of cost, noting that typically running utilities, including electrical wires, underground costs three times as much as running them above ground.

"The community does not have the capacity to pay for that," Bellin said, reminding the planning board that it is a group of homeowners, not a large developer, who will be paying for the homes.

Wilkinson also balked at classifying the duplexes as single-family units.

Lindstrom said the duplexes were created solely to reduce the number of structures on the property.

"Our site plan is exactly what was attached to the zoning ordinance," he said. "It’s not a builder’s condominium and was never intended to be."

If the planning board approves the project, the battle over the CAFRA permit with Semprevivo — who has fought every attempt to rebuild at Camp Osborn — remains. Diana said that appeal is before a three-judge appellate panel, and there is no timetable for when they might receive a ruling.

Diana told the planning board the group has done everything that has been asked of them, including giving an easement for the Army Corps of Engineers' steel revetment wall, and then paying for a study to prove the wall will protect the community during a future hurricane, as part of the CAFRA permit. He said they also willingly accommodated the township's request to use the site for sifting sand and other work during the early part of the recovery efforts.

"We're just ordinary people trying to rebuild beach houses," Diana told the planning board. "We just want to get back home."

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