By Donald Wittkowski
City Council unanimously approved a zoning ordinance Thursday night that bans hotels, motels and multi-family residences from having mechanical parking lifts in Ocean City’s hospitality zone.
Mayor Jay Gillian, who supported the measure, said mechanical lifts are a potential safety hazard. He also said he feared that parts of Ocean City would “look like New York,” with cars stacked high up on parking lifts throughout the downtown area.
“They can be dangerous,” the mayor told City Council. “These are not toys.”
Although the ordinance severely restricts the parking lifts, it does not ban them outright. The owners of single-family homes and duplexes within the hospitality zone may have lifts as long as they are kept inside a garage.
Under the measure, hotels, motels and the multi-family triplexes and quadruplexes can no longer have lifts to satisfy their parking requirements within a section of the downtown area known as the hospitality zone.
The lifts were conceived as a way to help alleviate downtown parking shortages when the hospitality zone — so named because it is where hotels and motels are clustered — was created in November 2013. The zone roughly runs between Sixth and 14th streets, from the Boardwalk to Ocean Avenue.
The hospitality zone is the only place where parking lifts are allowed on the island, according to City Solicitor Dorothy McCrosson.
Mayor Jay Gillian, center, who supported the partial ban on parking lifts, said they can be dangerous.
City spokesman Doug Bergen said the lifts are relatively rare. He said he has heard of a small number of single-family homeowners having them to protect their cars from rising flood waters.
McCrosson said she knew of only one place in town, a triplex, having a parking lift. The owner of the triplex has refused to allow tenants to use the lift because of safety and liability concerns, she noted
.
Despite the small number of lifts, city officials believe the potential for accidents outweighed any possible benefits.
Bergen said the biggest concern is that vacationers staying at triplexes and quadruplexes would be unfamiliar with how the mechanical lifts are operated.
“Do you want one-week vacationers to try to lift their cars and have children underneath them?” Bergen said. “Safety is definitely an issue.”
Previously, hotels, motels, triplexes and quadruplexes had the option of using lifts to satisfy their parking requirements within the hospitality zone. Gillian, though, bluntly said, “They did not work.”
In other business Thursday night, City Business Administrator Jim Mallon announced that Sixth Street has been selected as the location for a new pumping station that will help alleviate tidal flooding in the north end of town during coastal storms.
Flood waters collected by the pumping station will be funneled to an outfall pipe located on the bayside of Sixth Street, Mallon said.
The city plans to announce more details about the pumping station in a press release Friday. Check back with OCNJDAILY.com for a separate story about the project.
