Save Barnegat Bay Asks DEP To Block Brick's Restaurant Plan For Traders Cove

As Brick Township officials await bids for a restaurant at Traders Cove Marina, the environmental group Save Barnegat Bay is asking state officials to block it, saying it violates the spirit of the agreement the park was built under.

In a letter to Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Bob Martin, the group is asking Martin to “please ensure that the Green Acres Program denies Brick Township’s request.”

“Save Barnegat Bay has always been sympathetic to the fact that Brick Township is running what is essentially a regional park,” the group writes. “Traders Cove should remain the beautiful and peaceful waterfront park that it was intended to be. It should not be transformed or diminshed by the creation of a commercial profit center.”

Brick Mayor John Ducey, who proposed the idea that was put in motion in March with a request for bids, said Traders Cove has been a signficant drain on the township.

“During my campaign for mayor, I called Traders Cove a ”money pit,” because I was outraged that the total taxpayer costs for the purchase and development of the park were almost $22 million,” Ducey said, a figure that encompasses both the purchase and the development of the site. “My primary goal is to reduce that financial burden on taxpayers.”

The 11.5-acre site was purchased in 2005 for $8 million in a deal that included the township, the Ocean County, state grant funding and $1 million from Save Barnegat Bay. It was developed as a marina and park that opened in May 2013.

Scott Pezarras, the township’s chief financial officer, has said the township is paying $1.155 million per year in debt service on $9.5 million in bonds issued to cover the $8 million purchase of Traders Cove and two other smaller parcels.

The township subdivided it and sold a portion to Ocean County for the county park that sits at the foot of the Mantoloking Bridge, for $1.5 million, Pezarras said. The Green Acres grant used to help pay for the property was for $3,407,123, he said.

“The proposal for a restaurant at Traders Cove, which will be built and operated by a private business that will make substantial lease payments to the township, at no risk to taxpayers, will significantly reduce the tax burden,” Ducey said.

“While I appreciate the intentions of Save Barnegat Bay, they don’t pay taxes in our town,” he said.

In the letter, signed by Willie deCamp, president of Save Barnegat Bay, and Britta Wenzel, the group’s executive director, the group notes its $1 million donation to help purchase the property, which in the early 2000s was the target of a developer who wanted to build condominiums on the site.

“Save Barnegat Bay has more supporters from Brick Township than any other town,” they wrote.

The group cited several specific concerns, including:

• Restaurant patrons who get drunk could fall in the water and drown, or put the lives of first responders at risk trying to save them, while also potentially exposing not only the restaurant but the town and the Green Acres Program itself to liability;
• An impact on parking, which they say is at a premium now on summer days when the boat ramp is being used, which the group projects will get worse when the economy improves and more boaters use the marina;
• That the restaurant and its parking needs will make the park unable to be used for evening public concerts, which the group says “will put in jeopardy an entire category of use anticipated by the public and intended when the park was originally created.”
• That the restaurant will have to be built at a higher elevation to give patrons a view of the water, and thus will dominate the park.
• And that the township is creating unfair competition for other restaurants in town and at the Shore through a “publicly created competitor.”

In addition, the group says Brick Township already earns “substantial revenue” from winter boat storage at the park and from the boat ramp and slips, though it noted boat slips are minimally used currently. And Save Barnegat Bay says that revenue will increase when the economy revives.

Brick officials on Thursday morning said the 2014 revenue from Traders Cove was $221,881.83. So far in 2015 it has taken in $138,573. The township also is looking for an outside contractor to operate the marina instead of using township employees for that purpose, and the council authorized a request for bids for that at the same time as it authorized the request for bids for the restaurant.

Business Administrator Joanne Bergin said the township expects to release the request for bids in the next week or so.

Bergin also said the township has conferred with Green Acres Program officials along the way to ensure it complies with the program’s regulations, which permit ”buildings that directly support the use of the parkland for recreation.”

“Those include restrooms and concession stands – restaurants providing food are in line with those uses. There are certainly other examples of restaurants on Green Acres parkland throughout the state,” she said, adding she and Tara Paxton had met with Green Acres officials several months ago to update them on the town’s plans for the site.

Bergin said Green Acres officials will review the eventual lease agreement for a restaurant and will need to approve it “before it is executed to ensure that the language and the operation complies with the program regulations.”

“We absolutely intend to do that once we have a proposed lease,” she said. “We did send them the restaurant RFP in advance so they could review that to ensure it included information on the site as being ’encumbered parkland,’ which they did. We held off issuing the RFP until the Program reviewed it and provided comment.”

Ducey has said the restaurant would not eliminate access to Barnegat Bay, and that the restaurant would be built on the portion of the site that he said was intended to have a building.

“A restaurant would be a great enhancement to the park and will allow many more people to utilizy our great park and enjoy the beauty of Barnegat Bay,” he said.

Save Barnegat Bay contends a restaurant would ruin the tranquility of the site.

“We are ask that the Department honor the true spirit of a public waterfront park, as well as the safety of the fishing, crabbing and boating public, and deny the request of Brick Township to build a restaurant at Traders Cove,” the letter concludes.

(Traders Cove. Credit: Brick Township)