Court battle may decide fate of O.C. downtown
By MICHAEL MILLER Staff Writer, (609) 463-6712
Published: Saturday, December 16, 2006

OCEAN CITY — Several downtown businessmen are suing the city for thwarting plans to rebuild the way they intended.
The city plans to change the zoning downtown to slow the creep of residential construction into the commercial business zone. The proposed changes affected several pending applications before the city's Zoning and Planning boards.

During Mayor Sal Perillo's first Planning Board meeting in July, the board tabled all five applications on the agenda.

“He has a different vision for the downtown,” said Dorothy McCrosson, the lawyer for several applicants. “He wanted time to put into place the new rules. That's what he did. … He essentially stopped them dead in their tracks.”

McCrosson represents Donald Johnson and Samuel Johnson, owners of property on the 900 block of Asbury Avenue. They both applied to the Planning Board to build three-story mixed-use buildings.

McCrosson said the Planning Board failed to act in 120 days, which should mean automatic approval for her clients.
“My clients don't want to sue the city,” McCrosson said. “They just want to develop the buildings they've been planning for years. The city pulled the rug out.”

Likewise, Ralph and Rachelle DiClemente are suing the Zoning Board for failing to act on their application for 1159 Asbury Ave. within the 120-day deadline.

A special committee composed of City Council and Planning Board members is examining the Central Business zone, which stretches from Sixth to 11th streets on Asbury Avenue.

Council reinstated a parking requirement in this zone this year. But Perillo and council have different ideas about how to encourage a thriving downtown.

“Both the mayor and council are trying to revive the downtown,” Council President Jack Thomas said. “We disagree about the approach. Council believes we should have more residency downtown. We know from studies the more people who live downtown, the more people shop downtown. That's across the whole country. We believe baby boomers will want to live downtown.”

The mayor prefers less residential space squeezed into small downtown lots.

“They were shrinking the commercial space and increasing residential units,” Perillo said. “City Council, the Planning Board and I are united in feeling that these applications are not what we want to see happen.”

Perillo, who has experience as a land-use lawyer, said the city had the right to interrupt development, albeit temporarily, to craft the changes.

“Courts in my experience have been very reluctant to award default approvals,” he said. “If you let people proceed, the buildings they construct will be there for decades. These mistakes will be there for a long time.”


To e-mail Michael Miller at The Press:MMiller@pressofac.com