Planning Board Approves Scaled Back LaMer Motel Expansion

CAPE MAY — The city’s Planning Board approved a scaled back addition to the LaMer Motel at Beach and Pittsburgh Avenue.
At a March 9 meeting, three members of the board recused themselves from the hearing: Mayor Edward J. Mahaney Jr., Robert Elwell and Board Chairman Bill Bezaire, leaving five members to vote on the application.
Attorney Richard M. Hluchan, of Voorhees, representing LaMer principle Gus Andy, said the project had been scaled back since an appearance before the board last August. At that time, the board refused to grant variances that would have allowed preliminary site plan approval for the addition of 29 new rooms to the motel which included at that time demolishing a restaurant on the property and replacing it with a four-story structure.
Hluchan said the revised application was to demolish a two story building on the property that housed the hotel’s laundry and maintenance department on the rear of the parcel near New Jersey Avenue. The structure will be replaced with a four-story building, with eight motel rooms including 11 parking spaces below the building on the ground floor in addition to the laundry room.
The addition will increase the total motel rooms at LaMer from 133 to 141. Hluchan said there would be no change to the remainder of the motel and plans to expand the restaurant had been scrapped.
The board approved variances for:
• Side yard setback: for the new building changing an existing condition on the current structure from four feet to nine feet which is one foot short of the city’s setback requirement of a 10-foot setback.
• Parking variance for two spaces located in the setback 14 feet from New Jersey Avenue where the city requires a 20 foot setback.
• Variance for three parking spaces along Pittsburgh Avenue following Andy re-striping of all the spaces.
• Variance for existing trash enclosure with a zero setback from New Jersey Avenue and 8 feet from the neighboring property with landscaping to create a better buffer.
The board passed a motion agreeing Andy did need a variance for the number of parking spaces for the property, in particular for the restaurant. The board refused to issue a variance for four parking spaces located six feet from a neighboring property when 10 feet is required.
Vince Orlando, planner/engineer for Andy, said when LaMer re-striped the parking spaces, it saw an increase from 153 to 167 spaces. The motel addition adds 10 more spaces.
Orlando said the city required one parking space for each sleeping room equaling 141 spaces plus one space for each of 13 full time hotel employees and four spaces for the restaurant creating a parking requirement of 158 spaces. The project will provide 177 spaces.
Andy testified the 9-foot setback with a rental house next door could not be increased even by one foot without creating a hallway in the motel too narrow for handicapped persons to navigate.
Orlando said the new building could not be moved any further to the north due to a conservation easement to protect homes across the street.
The new building was proposed as 38.5 feet in height. The city allows 35-feet in height and approved an extra 3.5 feet to allow a mansard roof for the earlier additions to the hotel. The board approved a similar variance for the new building.
Attorney Sanford Schmidt, of Medford, who was representing homeowners in the neighborhood opposed to some aspects of the expansion, questioned if the motel required 229 spaces including 37 spaces for the restaurant and seven spaces for its employees.
Board Engineer Craig Hurless said the lack of parking spaces for the restaurant was treated by the city as an existing non-conforming condition.
Schmidt said he believed the addition and parking could be built in the current building and parking envelopes without the need for variances.
During the public portion, Mike Brogan who owns the neighboring Widow’s Watch rental house, which abuts the LaMer property, complained that exhaust from dryers in the laundry room blew towards his property. He asked for more of buffer from LaMer’s trash enclosure.
Hluchan replied that Brogan’s property was not a “typical single-family home,” but had 10 bedrooms that provided accommodations for 30 with stacked parking for seven cars.
“You’re parking cars within four feet of Mr. Andy’s property line,” he said.
Hluchan said Andy proposed parking cars six feet from Brogan’s property line.