Neighbors Speak Out Against Proposed Jetty Motel

CAPE MAY – The Jetty Motel application before the city’s Planning Board has had more lives than Morris the Cat with a history dating back to 2006.
Cape Jetty LLC is proposing to demolish the current motel at Second and Beach avenues and construct a four-story facility with a single-family home next door on a flag lot.
A May 25 Planning Board hearing for the Jetty Motel was tabled because a change in the plans that could require a variance was not submitted 10 days in advance to the board to allow public comment.
The hearing resumed Wed., June 16 for three and half hours and was continued until June 22 due to the lateness of the hour following comments from neighboring residents.
Cape Jetty LLC is seeking a minor subdivision and variance. The most recent plans for the project were reviewed at a meeting with project planner Vincent Orlando, Planning Board Engineer Craig Hurless and Cape May Fire Chief Jerry Inderwies Jr.
The revised site plan enlarged an easement from 20 feet wide to 25 feet to allow access for emergency vehicles to a proposed, new single family home next to the new motel. The home would be located on a lot with no street access. The project requires a variance for the use of such an easement.
Attorney Louis Dwyer, representing Cape Jetty LLC, said the proposed single family home would meet all bulk requirements. He said the hotel lot also meets or exceeds all bulk zoning requirements.
Attorney Mary J. Maudsley, representing neighboring property owner Theodore Hooven cross examined Orlando. She said Cape Jetty LLC was asking the planning board to create a lot for the single family home with a hardship.
“Now we’ve created a lot that doesn’t have access to a street and therefore we want a variance in order to correct the problem that the board is creating by doing the subdivision,” said Maudsley.
Orlando said the lots for the hotel and home already were in existence. Maudsley asked how close the house would be built to a sand dune. Orlando said a portion of the dune was on the lot.
Maudsley asked Orlando if the lot was in an erosion hazard area and if the motel had asbestos in its facing. Orlando said he couldn’t tell her.
She said a phase one environmental statement submitted with an earlier application referred to the probability of asbestos containing materials. She said the report suggested a study be undertaken which Orlando said had not been done.
Dwyer said the applicant would comply with all laws and regulations concerning removal of hazardous materials.
In his engineer’s report, Hurless said the applicants requested a waiver for providing an environmental impact statement and a waiver from a traffic impact study. He said the applicant agreed to provide 72 parking spaces for the 33 units which contain 68 sleeping rooms and four parking spaces for employees.
Hurless said a loading area for the motel could interfere with the easement for the single family home. Orlando said the hotel would only receive less than a dozen delivery trucks each week.
During public comment, neighboring property owner Dr. Michael O’Connor described the proposed lot for the single family home as 6,000 feet or less and about 50 feet wide. He said the lot contained 1,500 to 2,000 square feet of asphalt with the remainder of the lot being sand dune and dune vegetation.
He said the lot was too small, too narrow, land locked, in an erosion hazard area and on a dune. O’Connor said the only thing missing was the lot was not underwater.
Debbie Hooven, who lives next door to the motel, said she was terminally ill and it was only fair an environmental report be created concerning possible asbestos in the old motel building.
“When all the fibers from the asbestos and anything else that is in that building start to fly, I will be out of my house,” she said. “I won’t be able to live there.”
Neighbor Dr. Scott Maslow said the proposed hotel would dwarf everything around it. He complained about the number of exits and entrances planned for the hotel, all on Second Avenue.
“If this board allows this type of development to move forward, you’ll be giving all future hotel developments express approval to follow their lead because economics is driving this type of design,” said Maslow.
He said the developer bought the Jetty Motel knowing full well of its constraints.
Second Avenue resident John Morgan said the design of the hotel did not allow enough room for trash storage which is proposed to be kept inside a room in cans rather than a Dumpster. He said 25-year-old pine trees were hanging into the area of the proposed easement to the single family home.
Morgan also questioned having only one elevator for a four story hotel and no service elevator.
Second Avenue resident Chris Johnson said Cape May was named as one of the nation’s prettiest cities on Yahoo on the Internet. He asked if anyone could imagine a hotel of this size in one of America’s prettiest cities.
He said the proposed new hotel was not twice as large as the current motel if the volume and capacity of the building is considered, it is 10 times larger than the current motel.
The meeting resumes Tue., June 22 at 7 p.m.