City won’t vacate easement, but says not about access

By Neil Schulman
Long Branch — Advocates for more beach access got the vote they wanted at Tuesday’s City Council meeting, but not for the reason they wanted.
The majority of council members voted against vacating an easement at 907 Ocean Avenue — but they said that their reasons don’t relate to beach access, and they don’t believe the easement has anything to do with public access. Instead, they said vacating it is unnecessary and could wind up generating costly legal fees.
Council members say that people using it to go to the beach are walking through private property, not public access.

In the 1930s, the owner of the property, between Plaza Court and Adams Street on Ocean Avenue, granted an easement to the city. An easement is permission to use lands for a specific purpose; utility companies generally have easements on private properties to maintain the pipes, for example.

In this case, the easement was to bring equipment to the beach for the construction of a jetty.

Almost 80 years, and several owners later, someone is interested in building a single family home on the property. But they are worried the easement, still on the books, could hinder the use of the property.

As a result, they asked the city to remove the easement. Long Branch is not involved in constructing jetties anymore, and there’s no evidence that it has been used for that purpose in decades, if ever.

City Attorney Lawrence Shapiro said the property owners’ attorneys are worried that with the easement still on the books, that could complicate building on the land. Since this particular easement doesn’t specify where on the property the construction equipment is permitted to go to the beach, it could technically be the whole lot.
“From an owner’s perspective… at some point someone may have a right to go through my house,” Shapiro said.

But many people who use the beach for fishing or surfing say that they get to it through 907 Ocean Avenue, and are worried they’d lose access if the city vacated the easement. They say it’s been used that way for at least 40 years.

Long Branch officials say the easement doesn’t mention anything about public access, only bringing in equipment for building the jetty. If people are using the property to get to the beach, it has nothing to do with agreements in place between the owner and Long Branch.

Mayor Adam Schneider says there are public access points on Plaza Court and Adams Street, only a couple of hundred feet away. He said these points, and others through the city, have been added over the last couple of decades under his administration.

But Tim Dillingham, Executive Director of the American Littoral Society, said that this site should be considered for public access.

“Public access is not static,” he said, noting that with beach replenishment and other factors, the area is becoming more desirable for beach goers. “I’d like so see an analysis that shows what the capacity of those (nearby) access sites is.”

John Weber, Mid-Atlantic regional manager of the Surfrider Foundation, said Long Branch has improved its access over the last years — but Elberon still needs work.

Speakers during the hearing complained there is no parking on Plaza Street due to the narrow width, and limited parking on Adams Street. They also complained about the condition of some of the access points. Schneider said Long Branch is waiting for FEMA to approve the repair projects, as the areas were damaged in Superstorm Sandy.

“If you’re really serious about Adams Street (as public access), take a front end loader and clear it all out,” Weber said, saying that the private landscaping makes it seem as if it’s not an access point.

Three of the five council members voted against vacating the easement — but both sides said that public access wasn’t part of why they voted the way they did.

Councilman John Pallone said that the 1930s easement includes the phrase “until completion,” and since the jetty project is long complete, the easement is effectively gone. He said Long Branch had been completely unaware of this easement until approached by the owner’s lawyers, which suggests that no one has had any interest in using it for a long time.

Pallone also he was worried about setting a precedent, where “we run the risk” of high legal fees where it must research many of these incidents. He said there’s a lot of vague language in this easement that is causing confusion, and he’s worried it could happen again if others seek vacations.

At least one other property in Long Branch appears to have a similar easement.

“There’s the likelihood this situation exists in who knows how many cases,” Pallone said.

Councilwomen Dr. Mary Jane Celli and Joy Bastelli agreed with Pallone, voting no.

“I’m not sure this isn’t a real estate problem; this isn’t a city problem,” Celli said.
Council President Kate Billings and Councilman Michael Sirianni voted to vacate the easement, saying it had nothing to do with what people were worried about.“The easement is one thing. The access is something different,” Billings said. “It has nothing to do with public access.”

City officials say it is possible that CAFRA, the state agency that regulates building on the coastline, could require the property to provide public access as part of the building requirements. That’s decided on a case by case basis.

When The Link went to the property in question on Wednesday morning, there was a fence along Ocean Avenue to keep people out, with a lock on the gate.