OC Seeks Easing the Path for Lifting Non-conforming Structures

OCEAN CITY – City Council introduced two zoning amendments May 14, including one to ease lifting non-conforming properties to meet current flood elevation standards.
After Superstorm Sandy, New Jersey amended the law, allowing buildings to be lifted to meet the new federal standards without appearing before the local Zoning Board.
“That was a change in the law,” city Attorney Dorothy McCrosson told council, at the May 14 meeting.
Previously, owners would need to file an application, even if the building was not changed in any other way than being elevated. The state allows for non-conforming uses, as well, for instance, for a duplex in a single-family zone or a home in a block zoned for commercial use. Until now, the city has not exempted non-conforming properties.
“All this really does, Dottie, is bring us into compliance with where the state is?” Councilman Bob Barr asked, at the meeting.
“Correct,” confirmed McCrosson.
In the months and years after Sandy hit, in October 2012, houses throughout Ocean City and other barrier islands were elevated. Well over 100 homes were lifted since the storm, and more have been demolished and replaced with buildings that meet the new elevation.
City Councilman Anthony Wilson supported the ordinance but wants to see it proceed further.
“I’m so happy that we can lift preexisting, non-conforming structures, but what we’re still not addressing is that we can’t get the parking underneath,” he said.
Parking remains a major issue in the city, he said, so raising homes high enough, allowing a garage underneath, would be a benefit.
Some homes have been built or lifted with room for parking underneath, but most are built to meet the city’s zoning regulations, which call for habitable floors of residential construction to start three feet above base flood elevation.
“We’re missing it by two feet,” he said. “Nobody in Ocean City needs a 5-foot crawlspace. We need a 7-foot garage.”
Residents will have a chance to comment on the ordinance, at a public hearing before the final vote, planned for June 4.
At the same meeting, Council introduced its latest version of an amendment to the rules governing permeable surfaces, an issue that has been under discussion since 2019.
The amendment allows for the use of block pavers for driveways to be counted toward a property’s permeable surface. The city zoning ordinance limits the amount of paved surface area for new construction, with the idea that more rainwater would be able to soak into the ground rather than running into the city’s drainage system.
Another change would allow swimming pools to be counted as permeable surface, McCrosson explained, with the idea that rain falling into a pool will not run into the city’s storm drains.
“You also want to encourage swimming pools,” she said.
Other changes clean up some conflicts in the existing ordinance and sets the required number of parking spaces for a planned construction project, based on the proposed square footage.
As introduced, the ordinance allows several styles of driveway, including, what it describes as, grass block pavers, which allow grass to grow within each block. Cars parking on the pavers will not dig ruts into the grass, but water can drain between the areas of paving material.
Barr and Councilman Keith Hartzell said their questions on the ordinance were answered before the meeting. Hartzell praised the amendment, which is also set for a June 4 final vote.
“It gives the homeowner a lot of options. I know myself there are one or two of those options I wouldn’t pick, but that doesn’t mean someone else wouldn’t pick it,” Hartzell said.
Residents may comment on the ordinance before the final vote, but some residents spoke during public comment at the meeting. Among them was resident Suzanne Hornick, one of the organizers of an advocacy group, Ocean City, NJ Flooding.
“The swimming pool thing does not make sense,” she said. “The idea is to allow water to seep into the ground. There is no way that a swimming pool can permit that. It’s designed not to allow water infiltration.”
For much of the year, she said, pools are covered and in the summer they are already filled with water.
To contact Bill Barlow, email bbarlow@cmcherald.com.