Major Changes Due for OC Public Housing; Resident Calls for Discussion on Plans

OCEAN CITY – A plan for the city to bond $1.8 million to help fund improvements to public housing came under fire at the Oct. 23 City Council meeting. 
City Council approved a shared services agreement with the Ocean City Housing Authority, agreeing to help build new affordable housing units at a cost of millions of dollars.
In the short term, the city has agreed to put $1.83 million toward an expansion at Bayview Manor, a multistory public housing building at 635 West Ave.
In the longer term, the agreement outlines sweeping changes to the city’s public housing, including the eventual demolition of the flood-prone units on the north side of Peck’s Beach Village, a public housing complex between Third and Fourth streets.
City Councilman Robert Barr, who also serves as chairman of the Ocean City Housing Authority board, abstained from the vote at a recent Housing Authority meeting but voted in favor of the City Council resolution.
The agreement saw little discussion when it was approved Oct. 11, voted as part of the batch of resolutions considered routine enough to be approved in a single vote.
But at the Oct. 23 City Council meeting, resident Dave Breeden challenged the city. He argued that much more discussion and disclosure were needed.
He argued that the city needs more planning and complained that the housing plan was not discussed as part of the city’s multimillion-dollar capital plan. He wanted to know about plans for the city to bond for the housing authority project.
“When I asked how much that bonding would be, what the plan is, of course there was no answer,” Breeden said.
He said the money does not belong to the mayor or to City Council, but to the taxpayers. 
“If we’re spending $1.8 million plus more, we need to have a public discussion why that is occurring,” Breeden said. The former city employee is the vice president of the Fairness in Taxes organization.
“This is a part of a greater plan that we can’t all comment on right now. But when everything comes out, I think you’ll see it and be pleased with it,” Barr said later at the meeting. “This is hopefully the first step in what is a very long process to making the housing authority a much better place.” 
The agreement outlines extensive work, including 20 new units for Bayview Manor. Last year the authority received more than $4 million to build a new 20-unit facility at that site, to be known as the Speitel Building, reportedly for the late authority commissioner Ed Speitel.
The city plans to help fund an additional 14 more units to that project, bringing the total to 34.
Residents of the north side of Peck’s Beach Village will be relocated into that building, and the existing stand-alone units demolished.
Peck’s Beach Village is divided by Fourth Street, with seniors in the north side and families to the south.
The units on the north side will be demolished. The low-lying area is prone to flooding even in mild weather.
Eventually, plans call for a new shared-service agreement to build 40 new family units on the north side of Fourth Street, and 20 family units on the south side, likely with further financial help from the city.
City spokesman Doug Bergen said the agreement would help Ocean City meet its obligation under New Jersey’s court rulings on fair housing.
“We have a substantial obligation to provide affordable housing,” he said.
Over the summer, City Council approved an agreement with the Fair Share Housing Center agreeing to create new affordable housing units in the city. New Jersey courts have looked to the non-profit housing advocacy group to reach agreements with individual communities on affordable housing, filling a role once taken by the Council on Affordable Housing (COAH).
City Councilman Keith Hartzell suggested the agreement would help resolve the city’s affordable housing obligation, using the acronym for the state authority.
“That is a long-term solution to our COAH problem, correct?” he said.
Mayor Jay Gillian said far more details of the plan would be released over time and suggested he would ask the Housing Authority to attend a public meeting. He said the city has an obligation that goes beyond the affordable housing agreement.
“I’m going to take care of that community as long as I’m sitting here as mayor and I’ve told you that over and over again,” Gillian said. “It’s the people that need government the most. We’re going to do everything we can to take care of our seniors and to take care of anybody we can.”
Gillian added that he was not suggesting anyone else did not want to take care of people.
“We’re a wealthy community. There’s a duty in our community to help those less fortunate than us, and I can tell you this council will always support that,” Hartzell said. “It’s the right thing to do.”
Hartzell said he supports the move and praised Gillian for city action taken after Hurricane Sandy to get the city’s public housing units renovated and habitable quickly. He described it as cutting through the red tape.
Others have been critical of that action, including a former Housing Authority chairman, Ed Price, who argued that the work was done without a shared service agreement.
Price and two other members of the authority resigned at a meeting in 2014 when the board voted to pay the city back close to $1 million for that work.
But a bigger blow to the authority came years later, with the arrest of the Housing Authority’s executive director on charges of embezzlement. The money came from the federal department of Housing and Urban Development. In September of 2017, Alesia Watson was sentenced to three years of probation. According to the U.S. Attorney’s office, she bought gift cards with HUD money for her own use. She was also ordered to pay more than $8,000 in restitution.
Barr said the conviction almost put an end to the Ocean City Housing Authority, with a real possibility of HUD taking direct control in Ocean City.
In his comments at the start of the meeting, Breeden added that the Ocean City Housing Authority relied on professionals from the Vineland Housing Authority, quoting the attorney of the Vineland authority as stating without the Vineland professionals the Ocean City authority would have collapsed.
Barr later said that was accurate. But he said he’d worked hard with the mayor and the authority to make changes.
“We’ve turned the page,” he said.
To contact Bill Barlow, email bbarlow@cmcherald.com.