Dredging Agreements, Land Deals Top City Council's Agenda

DWitt

City Hall, 861 Asbury Ave.

By Donald Wittkowski City Council appears to be ready to play “Let’s Make a Deal” at its meeting Thursday. The agenda includes agreements to both buy and sell property as well as accept more than $1 million in funding from the New Jersey Department of Transportation to help pay for a major dredging project along the back bay. Council is expected to approve a funding agreement with the NJDOT’s Office of Maritime Resources for the dredging of the sediment-choked Carnival Bayou lagoon. Under the plan, the state will kick in $1.2 million toward the $1.6 million total cost of the project, according to a copy of the agreement attached to Council’s agenda. The DOT will help pay for the project because the dredging work will also clear muddy sediment from state channels along Ocean City’s back bays. Carnival Bayou, between 16^th and 17^th streets, is one of three major dredging projects planned by the city beginning this fall. South Harbor, between Tennessee Avenue and Spruce Road, and Sunny Harbor, between Arkansas Avenue and Walnut Road, are the other two. The city began the first round of dredging last year as part of a $20 million program proposed by Mayor Jay Gillian for 2016, 2017 and 2018. In 2017, the town plans to spend $7.5 million for dredging projects, said Frank Donato, the city’s chief financial officer. Some of the silt-clogged lagoons are so shallow that boat owners are trapped at their slips or must wait until high tide to gain access to the water. The city’s marinas are also threatened by the thick sediment. However, Council is scheduled to hold a public hearing and take a final vote Thursday on an ordinance that would allow private property owners to piggyback on the city’s dredging projects to remove mud and silt clogging their own boat slips. Under the program, private property owners would be able to use the dredging companies hired by the city, saving them the trouble of finding their own contractors for their slips. They would have to pay a $200 municipal permit fee for each private boat slip that is dredged. Property owners would also be charged an “inspection escrow” fee of $3 for each cubic yard of dredge spoils removed from their slips. The permit and escrow fees will allow the city to inspect the work to make sure all of the private dredging is performed properly, City Solicitor Dorothy McCrosson explained. By taking advantage of the city’s dredging program, boat slip owners would be able to save money on their own projects, McCrosson said. The program is voluntarily, so slip owners would not be obligated to participate. Also at Thursday’s meeting, Council is expected to approve two property deals – one to buy and the other to sell. Ocean City is selling a piece of land to Cape May County that would be preserved as open space as part of the proposed deal. It is the former site of a now-demolished BP gas station that the city acquired last year. The city paid $475,000 for the land and will now sell it to the county for the same price. Previously, the city had planned to combine the old BP site with land next door that once housed an old Getty gas station. Although the former gas stations have been torn down, plans have not yet materialized to transform both sites into landscaped parks stretching from the corner of Ninth Street and Bay Avenue to the foot of the Route 52 Causeway bridge. The idea is to make the Ninth Street corridor more visually inviting to visitors as they enter town on the city’s main gateway. In another property deal Thursday, Council is set to approve a $700,000 funding package to buy a commercial building known as 50 Tennessee Avenue. The two-story building overlooks the bayfront and is adjacent to the city’s public boat ramp on Tennessee Avenue. Details about the city’s plans for the Tennessee Avenue property, once it buys it, are expected to be discussed at the Council meeting.