BRICK – A number of residents from the Seawood Harbor neighborhood, located off Drum Point Road, attended a recent Township Council meeting to ask for help with the repeated flooding of their roads.
Seawood Harbor Property Owners Association President Gary Penzell said they wanted to let the governing body know about the “severe conditions and severe flooding we’re having in Seawood Harbor.”
Two back-to-back storms in January resulted in 14” of water on Knoll Crest Road, the major road going into the community of 150 homes that has wetlands on both sides.
“No vehicles could get through for five or six hours,” Penzell said. “School buses couldn’t get there, parents couldn’t take their kids to school. I know the township doesn’t have a lot of options with it and I know we need to get funding to raise the road.”
The residents are appreciative that raising Knoll Crest Road was increased from 12th place to 7th place in the priority list, Penzell said.
In addition to the planned road elevation, Penzell asked if the township could repair a large hole that developed in December in a 200-foot bulkhead on Bayshore Drive. The township had the bulkhead erected three years ago.
When the bay rises, water goes through the hole, flooding Knoll Crest Road and adding to the problem. Caps that were on top of the bulkhead are all gone, he said.
Penzell asked if the township could replace that one section of bulkhead.
A private beach on Rochester Drive that was previously stabilized by a Belgian block border is adding to the flooding problems since the blocks have disappeared, causing pieces of the roadway to fall into the bay, Penzell said.
“Anything that can be done by the township to make the owner of the beach take care of this property, or take over ownership of that beach, because this is causing major flooding,” he said. “The vinyl bulkhead has totally fallen apart.”
In other news, the governing body introduced an ordinance that establishes requirements and fees applicable to lead paint inspections for rental properties, which is needed in response to the state’s new Lead-Based Paint Law.
“[It] implements lead-based inspections in Brick which would be completed by township code enforcement officials during the rental Certificate of Occupancy process,” said Councilman Derrick Ambrosino.
The regulations apply to single-family rental properties only, he said. Once a unit is certified lead-free the township still has to go back after two years in the event of chipping or peeling, he said.
Property owners have the right to get a more detailed lead-free certificate at their own cost, and short-term rentals have to be inspected by July 2024 and then at each change of tenancy or every two years.
“The state does an inspection every five years for multi-family dwellings,” he said. “The township applied for and received a grant to purchase testing materials and to send our staff for training.”
The lead-based testing would be part of the rental checklist going forward, with the rate set for inspections $25 plus $20 for each unit inspected for deposit into the Lead Hazard Control Assistance Fund, established pursuant to state law.
Reinspection would cost $50 plus the additional $20 per unit for the fund, which would not apply if the owner demonstrates that the DCA has already assessed the surcharge.
