By DONALD WITTKOWSKI
A giant excavator sent its claw crashing into the roof of one of the cottage-style homes that had been part of the Pecks Beach Village housing complex since the 1960s.
It took only a few minutes Wednesday for the excavator to all but obliterate a house that had stood for about 60 years. The claw scooped out a mouthful of wood, twisted metal and broken glasses in an awful crunching sound as the house was reduced to rubble.
Although somewhat sad, the demolition of the tiny old home and others just like it at Pecks Beach Village on Fourth Street is the first step in clearing out the site for development of a project that will provide affordable housing for Ocean City families.
The Ocean City Housing Authority is planning to build 60 units of affordable family-style housing along Fourth Street as part of an estimated $22 million to $23 million development. The project is expected to get underway in 2023 and take about 15 to 18 months to complete.
“It will be housing that is up-to-date and will fit in with the neighborhood,” said Jacqueline Jones, the authority’s executive director. “We are providing the best affordable housing that we can provide.”
The now-empty homes that are being demolished this week on Fourth Street had included 20 units of affordable housing for senior citizens who lived at Pecks Beach Village. The seniors were all relocated into a nearly $7 million affordable housing complex built last year by the Ocean City Housing Authority at Sixth Street and West Avenue.
Jones expressed relief that the housing authority was able to move the seniors out of what had been a flood-prone neighborhood on the south side of Fourth Street.
“They served their purpose. That’s all good. But every time there was a storm, I got worried,” she said of the old homes being threatened by flooding. “We’re glad that the residents are all rehomed in a beautiful, state-of-the-art building.”
Now, the former site of the senior homes will be used for the development of 60 units of affordable family housing. The new project will be protected from the type of flooding that swamped the old Pecks Beach Village.
“This will bring us into a new age with the most modern and most advanced homes we could give our residents. The demolition is a key step in bringing us into a new era,” City Council President Bob Barr, who also serves as chairman of the Ocean City Housing Authority, said in a March interview.
At this time, Pecks Beach Village also has 40 units of family-style housing on the north side of Fourth Street. Those older units will be demolished once the new housing is built.
Although considered one project, the new development will be built in two phases. There will be 40 units built first, followed by 20 more units later on.
The housing authority is still in the planning stage for the new project, including preliminary designs and ongoing discussions to line up the construction funding with the New Jersey Housing and Mortgage Finance Agency and a private bank.
The project will help Ocean City meet its state-mandated obligation to provide its “fair share” of affordable housing under a court settlement in 2018.
In the meantime, demolition will continue on the old one-story homes at Pecks Beach Village. American Demolition Co., of Egg Harbor Township, N.J., was awarded a $118,000 contract for the work, but an extra $48,150 was added for asbestos remediation to bring the total cost to $166,150.
Some of the demolished homes are already completely gone, leaving only their concrete slab. Others have been reduced to mere rubble. There are still others that are awaiting demolition. One worker said the remaining homes will be demolished in the next two days.
