Avalon Proposes Construction Ordinance

AVALON – “There is going to be a war,” yelled Avalon summer resident Julie Donatelli at a June meeting of the Avalon Borough Council.
Donatelli was one among many residents who used council meetings to berate the borough for allowing the construction of homes to erode their enjoyment of what neighboring Stone Harbor officials call “the sacred summer.”
Week after week the complaints grew in number and volume. Council members seemed astonished at the tales of noise, safety hazards, and repetitive code violations that reached the point where it provoked such strong sentiment from second-home owners who seldom pay much attention to the workings of borough governance.
Some members of council began to express outrage at the stories they heard. They pledged action before the start of the 2019 summer season. 
Code enforcement hours were expanded to coincide with allowable construction hours to provide some level of immediate relief from contractors who violate borough construction rules.
Property owners offered numerous suggestions for remedies including a ban on all summer construction, a suggestion that gained no traction with council.
The borough’s annual growth in ratables stands as proof of the continuous remaking of all available building lots. Consistently seeing over 60 demolitions annually, the borough has been in a building boom for years, witnessing the removal of older summer cottages and their replacement with larger more complex structures.
Some of this abated briefly following the economic recession, but the boom returned.
On Dec. 12, the council introduced the ordinance changes that emerged from a summer in which officials met frequently to reassess existing construction codes in light of the specific areas of complaints.
Proposed Ordinance Changes
Business Administrator Scott Wahl gave a PowerPoint presentation that hit on the major areas of proposed changes to the code.
The first issue tackled was one of the most contentious areas of complaint, construction hours.
Currently Avalon allows summer season construction activity from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday to Friday, 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturdays and no Sunday construction.
In the offseason, the borough permits construction from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. every day of the week.
Ordinance changes would cut summer hours to 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday to Friday, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturdays when only indoor work would be allowed, and maintain the complete ban on Sundays. 
No change was proposed for the offseason hours Monday to Friday, but a proposal was included to reduce the hours to 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday.
Here the council took up the issue and agreed to a curb on off-season construction that went further than the draft ordinance.
Nancy Hudanich won her fellow council members’ support for a further reduction in the offseason times, changing allowable Saturday hours to 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday to 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Next, the presentation turned to a definition of what constitutes the summer season when most of the rule changes would be enforced.
The proposals define the in-season period as running from the Sunday before the third Monday in June through the Monday after the second Saturday in September. 
While the definition sounds like a lunar calculation for the annual placement of Easter on the calendar, it does give definition to the season that officials believe coincides with when most second-home owners begin flocking to the community for the summer.
Holidays came next. While the current codes do not ban construction on any holidays, the proposed changes would do so for Easter, Memorial Day, the Fourth of July, Labor Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas.
If the holiday fell on or adjacent to a weekend there would also be restrictions for that weekend.
The proposed changes offered a new definition for landscaping. 
While landscape maintenance that does not create noise would be free of the limitations placed on construction activity, landscape work that involved the use of “noise-producing equipment” would be required to observe the construction hour limits.
The proposed ordinance changes also contain a new concept. They formally define a construction zone for all building projects.
Contractors would be required to have dumpsters, trailers and other equipment and supplies within the allowable construction zone. 
Regulations would also limit use of the street for storage of construction materials.
Wahl said that contractors would be left to make the best choices for the use of the defined construction zone for a project.
New requirements would also force contractors to post contact information in clearly-visible positions on the project site.
Lastly, the borough created a new power for the code enforcement office. 
That official would be able to issue a stop-work order for repeated violations of the code. 
Once such an order is issued, the contractor would be required to respond with a written remedial plan for borough consideration before construction could resume.
Residents who had wanted limits on the size of construction dumpsters will not find relief in the proposed changes.
Wahl said the benefits of small dumpsters were outweighed by the more frequent trips trucks would make to empty them.
The biggest issue on which the presentation was silent was an effort by some residents to try to control the windblown particles produced when Azek and similar products are cut with power tools on a construction site.
Next Steps
Wahl said that the borough expected to have an informal meeting with contractors early in January.
The meeting would explain the ordinance changes and help make contractors aware of what they must plan for in the 2019 season.
The ordinance will have necessary edits made based on the meeting discussion and then be made available on the borough website.
The second reading and public hearing is expected to occur at the Jan. 23 meeting of council.
To contact Vince Conti, email vconti@cmcherald.com.