Waterpark owners make last-ditch plea for land swap; councilman wanted input
OCEAN CITY – Ocean City Council unanimously approved a $6.1 million contract to build a police substation on the boardwalk at Eighth Street after a last-minute plea from the owners of the OC Waterpark & Adventure Golf to swap properties.
The decision also met with some after-the-fact concern from a councilman who believes the idea should have been vetted with the entire City Council.
The contract with Weatherby Construction & Renovating Corp. to build the substation where Eighth Street meets the boardwalk is for $6.134 million. Its approval came in the consent agenda at the Oct. 24 meeting. A consent agenda allows a raft of resolutions to be voted on as a group. It met no opposition.
During the public comment session near the start of the meeting, the two owners of the waterpark, Pat Agnellini and Todd Chamberlain, asked council to delay the vote and take part in a work session to consider the idea of swapping a parcel of land on their property on Eighth Street and move the substation.
“We believe what we have proposed is a better alternative” for the city, police and “benefits us as well,” Agnellini told council. He said they approached the administration in 2022 with the idea of the land swap that he claimed would have increased city parking by 20 percent.
At the time, he said, the only benefit was the additional parking.
The new proposal, he said, also would give a new police substation three-street access rather than the single avenue – Eighth Street – while still giving the city more parking.
“It’s good for us, but we think it’s also good for the city,” Agnellini said, asking city officials to delay and attend a workshop on the idea. He noted there was no CAFRA permit issued for the work yet so the delay wouldn’t affect construction.
“Give us a chance,” he said. “It would be a prudent use of your time.”
Agnellini argued the other site would allow police better ingress and egress for its vehicles in the event of emergencies, especially during the busy summer months when delivery trucks could prevent emergency vehicles from getting through a clogged Eighth Street.
His business partner, Chamberlain, said he was speaking as a resident who has had to call 9-1-1 twice for emergencies with his kids. He told council members to look out of the window at the current police station across Central Avenue and pointed out it had four means of egress for police cars parked there.
He asserted the substation would actually be the main police station during the renovation and construction of the current police station on Central. He also argued that police cars racing from the substation could potentially get stuck on Eighth Street during the summer.
Later in the meeting, after council approved the consent agenda and contract with Weatherby to build the new station, Councilman Jody Levchuk said he voted for the contract because he didn’t want to delay construction of the new substation, but questioned why council members were never consulted.
Levchuk said the land swap seemed like a “really interesting idea.”
“Why wasn’t this a point of discussion with anyone on this board? Why was it never discussed with us? It’s not a horrible idea,” he said, adding it would have been worth a phone call from the administration to each of the council members.
City solicitor Dorothy McCrosson said the owners of the waterpark pitched the idea to the administration, which determined the swap for land further from the boardwalk was not something in the taxpayers’ interest. “The conversation did not go further than that,” she said.
When Levchuk asked who got to determine that, McCrosson responded the administration has the authority to negotiate issues like that.
The councilman said the administration should have asked the “seven other people” on council who might have had some ideas. Because he didn’t know about it until the day before the meeting, he said he didn’t have a chance to talk to the police department about the idea.
Mayor Jay Gillian said it wasn’t an “apples for apples” kind of swap, that the administration was looking at multiple factors, including public safety on the boardwalk, and the idea of police cars racing from the substation belied the fact police cars usually respond to calls from the road when they’re patrolling.
“We looked at it and it didn’t make sense,” Gillian said of the swap. The police substation “fits perfect right there” on the boardwalk. “This was not taken lightly.”
“I just ask for better communication with us,” Levchuk said.
16th Street lot:
Ideas sought
Earlier in the meeting, Gillian said the remediation of the lots at the former Chevrolet dealership at 16th Street between Haven and Simpson avenues is complete and the city continues to solicit ideas for the open space that sits between the Ocean City Community Center and the playing field between 15th and 16th streets.
In his letter to the community, he noted the city has received suggestions for the parcel from more than 100 people.
“The acquisition of an entire city block adjacent to our Ocean City Community Center was another rare opportunity,” he wrote. “We were able to protect that space from being developed with yet more houses. Now that environmental remediation of the area is complete, we’re seeking ideas for how best to use it. … We’ve already seen a lot of great ideas, and we’ll continue to encourage everybody to weigh in.”
To add an idea online, go to the city’s website at ocnj.us/openspace
At the Oct. 24 meeting, council approved final payment to South State, Inc. for remediation of the site. The total contract came to just under $2 million, but that cost will be borne by the former owners of the site.
– By DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff
