AVALON – The public comment period of the Avalon Borough Council meeting June 22 focused on a conversation that is ongoing at the borough’s Planning Board.
The issue is a potential boutique hotel overlay on the borough’s commercial district, a move about which there was prolonged opposition in 2016.
‘What has changed’ was the theme for the comments by three Avalon property owners who came to the podium June 22.
Martha Wright called the discussions of the potential overlay “a solution in search of a problem.”
Another resident asked, “What problem are we trying to solve?”
Yet a third spoke of the new “push for a hotel overlay” and queried, “Where did this come from?”
At a meeting of the Planning Board March 8, board members discussed a report from “Board Engineer Maffei” on an overlay area in the B-1 district. Earlier in the meeting, Maffei had presented his ideas for the location of a specific overlay area and the factors for setting up such an area. The minutes reflect that board members “presented ideas.”
At the same meeting, there was public comment from members of the audience who claimed that the board conducted its discussion in such a manner that much of it was inaudible, even to those in the room.
An ongoing complaint from residents at the Planning Board meetings is the refusal of the board to consider using available technology to offer remote video access to its meetings, with the byproduct of a video record of the discussions.
At this point, the public that is not present is left with minutes that indicate only that board members “presented ideas” with no summary of those ideas.
At a Planning Board meeting April 12, the minutes show resident Sara Yacaub asking for more information on the concept of a boutique hotel overlay.
At the next board meeting, the council’s representative to the board, Sam Weirman, refuted claims that the board was being less than transparent on the issue. Weirman is the incoming president of the council, a position he should assume in July.
What is clear from comments at both board and council meetings is that a contingent of residents, no matter how small or large it is, disagrees.
