Redevelopment Plans for Cape May Revisited

CAPE MAY – On Jan. 9, the Cape May Planning Board overwhelmingly rejected a plan for designation of the block bordered by Ocean, Lafayette, Washington and Franklin streets, Block 159. 
An overflow crowd turned out to express strong and widespread opposition to the project. 
In an open letter to the community, Mayor Clarence “Chuck” Lear expressed regret that the city had not done a better job of educating the public on current redevelopment law and the terminology used. The continual reference to terms like “blight” and references to “dilapidated structures” led members of the public to images of decades-old urban renewal projects.
That doomed a development project in the city which otherwise may have garnered public support.
What Lear’s open letter did not speak to was the strong concern expressed by most of the speakers at the planning board meeting. Were there plans for this redevelopment which were not shared with the public?
Distrust of the process, perhaps even more than any misunderstanding of the terminology used, doomed the debate.
What Is Known
The city council charged the planning board with looking at a redevelopment zone proposal for Block 159 on Oct. 3.
The planning board’s public hearing was held Jan. 9. In the interim, a Determination of Needs Report was issued by the Planning Board Engineer Craig Hurless. The report confirmed that the designated area met the statutory requirements for a redevelopment zone under New Jersey state law.
Throughout the intervening period from the council’s charge to the board and the hearing, public discussion at council meetings continuously focused on what some called the “secret plan” to use the redevelopment authority for a project that would be heavily focused on the current Washington Commons.
Repeated requests for city officials to disclose the details of discussions between the city and local businessman Curtis Bashaw, a principal of the Washington Commons, LLC, were met with silence.
Lear argued that it would not be proper to discuss anything regarding the development zone designation until after the planning board produced its report and recommendation. 
Other council members appeared to fall in line with that sentiment.
Citizens kept chipping away at the existence of a plan through the use of Open Public Records Act.
Jules Rauch made much of the fact that an email dated Aug. 18 showed that Bashaw had presented a series of conceptual plans for the redevelopment of Block 159 which had been shared with all members of the council.
The Plans
The plans circulated by that August email from City Manager Neil Young to all members of council show two concepts that all later agreed required use of redevelopment area authority.
Since the city then went on to request such authority, it seemed certain to a group of opposition citizens that plans did indeed exist; that council denials were potentially disingenuous, and that the record leading up to the council action in October showed no intent or activity to approach or deal with any developer other than Bashaw.
What were those two conceptual plans that required redevelopment authority? They were known as Concept C and D in the August email, with Concepts A and B thought to be vanilla enough to not require a special designation.
Concept C
This concept would move the Acme building to Ocean Street, add additional retail along with housing above the building and it would add a four-story parking garage with approximately 500 spaces. 
The current open-air parking area in the Washington Commons holds about 260 cars.
The concept is said to require a “public-private” partnership which hit on yet another fear of many who opposed the redevelopment plan, an unspecified city financial investment.
For those who had opposed the move, the concept plan showed many of the things they feared but could not get city officials to discuss. 
Here was the predicted multi-story garage, here was the plan for additional retail across the street from the city’s main retail district, and here was the constant presence of Bashaw.
At one point, the email from Young, speaking of the 500-space garage, takes time with whether or not “Curtis has the need for that many spaces.”
Concept D
The email from Young speaks of Concept D as “more of a big picture idea where the city and the Washington Commons areas become rearranged. In this plan, the parking garage moves to an area that straddles current private and public property, leading to the relocation of the Colonial House.
The concept called for the sale of the current City Hall which would become a retail/residential complex.
A new City Hall would be built on the corner of Washington and Franklin streets, and plans to build a new public safety complex on the site of the current firehouse would be scrapped, running counter to the recommendation submitted by a citizen committee that worked throughout the period when the redevelopment effort was underway.
The Franklin Street School is labeled a community center and museum, but this was before Lear revealed ongoing discussions to possibly use it as a site for the city’s branch of the County Library system.
The Email Trail
A series of emails that were also obtained by citizens through OPRA show that discussions of a potential redevelopment zone for Block 159 predated Young’s August memo by at least two months, dating to June 23.
What is most apparent in the email chain is the back-and-forth links between what is discussed in the emails and what actions are taken to move forward with a redevelopment zone.
There is never any suggestion that other developers or other plans were included. There is even a thank you email from Bashaw on Oct. 7 just after the council passed the resolution sending the proposal to the planning board.
The emails do reveal a concern about how to approach upcoming discussions with Acme. Bashaw often points to his need to know the city’s interest in broader redevelopment so that he can know how to proceed in upcoming discussions with Acme officials over keeping an expanded store in Cape May.
At the planning board public hearing, Bashaw’s attorney, Anthony Monzo, suggested that the situation with the Acme negotiations was the trigger for all of the rest of the plan discussions.
The emails retrieved in the OPRA request fail to settle any issue. What they show is an ongoing discussion that moved from simple to “big picture” plans with little or no community involvement.
That lack of public involvement is what opened the council up to charges of “secret plans” and behind-the-scene negotiations.
To contact Vince Conti, email vconti@cmcherald.com.