AVALON – A borough couple who violated dune protection ordinances by removing existing vegetation and installing a lawn at their high dunes property in 2023 have been fined $2,000 under a plea agreement they reached with the borough.
The plea agreement by the couple, Vahan and Danielle Gureghian of 5609 Dune Drive, with borough Prosecutor Kyle Weinberg also has them making a $13,000 donation to the borough’s Environmental Trust Fund.
Details of the agreement were disclosed at an Avalon Stone Harbor Municipal Court hearing in front of Judge Andrew Cafiero on Jan. 27.
Vahan Gureghian pleaded guilty to one ordinance violation count; the couple had all other violation counts dismissed. The plea agreement called the cutting of the existing vegetation and the laying of sod over 8,000 square feet of dune area an inadvertent violation.
The state Department of Environmental Protection issued the Gureghians a Coastal Area Facility Review Act violation notice in January 2024 for the landscaping work; that action was not part of the Jan. 27 court proceedings. The borough’s notices of violation were first issued about a week after the DEP’s.
The court was told by the defense and by the prosecutor that the DEP has accepted the restoration of the dune area, paid for by the homeowners, and will not be issuing any fines or other penalties.
No specifics on the cost of the restoration were made public, but defense attorney George Morris said the defendants had spent tens of thousands of dollars remedying the violations.
At a council meeting last February, Assistant Business Administrator James Waldron said the borough would be seeking a penalty of up to $2,000 per day until full remediation was achieved.
Over the last year some Avalon residents have pressed the landscaping issue during council meetings, asking when borough officials knew that the violations had taken place and what was done with that knowledge.
Vahan Gureghian said he thought the sod-covered lawn was permitted in part because the borough issued his certificate of occupancy after he had the lawn installed. “The sod was there when we got the CO,” he said more than once at the Municipal Court hearing.
In Borough Council discussions, officials said the borough did not alert the DEP to the CAFRA violation; the DEP discovered the violations independently. It was after the DEP issued its CAFRA violation notice that Avalon took action on its ordinance violations.
One resident, Elaine Scattergood, petitioned the court to intervene in the case, saying she feared the outcome would not be appropriate to the seriousness of the violation. Her petition was denied by Cafiero, who said she lacked standing to intervene.
Leaving questions was the direct admission in court testimony that the borough, faced with a large lawn area in the dunes that was part of no plan approved by the Planning Board, still issued a certificate of occupancy and took no action on the violations until after the DEP did.
Judge Cafiero said in the absence of the plea agreement he would have asked many more questions about the case.
Contact the reporter, Vince Conti, at vconti@cmcherald.com.
