A Longport woman left her beloved Shore town two beach block lots, but will Longport accept them?

LONGPORT, N.J. — Dorothy McGee, 88, was a Longport stalwart: beach block resident, secretary of the borough’s board of education, a Miss America hostess and member of the Garden Club, second mom to the local kids who ran around the Shore town with her children.

After McGee died on Nov. 18, Longport found out she had bequeathed one more gift to them: two vacant beach block lots on 22nd Avenue next to her home. Her basic stipulation: a park in her name, with a gazebo.

“It caught me totally by surprise,” said Mayor Nick Russo. The current assessment for each lot is at least $1.7 million, though most likely worth more in the current Shore real estate market. The borough collects $17,500 in taxes on each undeveloped lot. A developed lot would likely yield twice that.

“It’s pretty wild,” Russo said. “It’s a very nice gesture.”

No doubt, there would be no shortage of people, or developers, who would see the lots and think of their dream Shore house, and who would pay handsomely for those lots. New homes that tower over existing old homes are going up all over Longport and its adjacent Shore towns.

The beneficiaries of McGee’s will — she is survived by two children, six grandchildren, and one great-grandchild, and had a caretaker she considered a second daughter — have no objection to the lots going to the borough, according to borough officials who have spoken to the attorney for the estate.

“This is so rare,” said borough solicitor Michael Affanato. “Some of our other properties were land donated to the borough many years ago. That was a time when there was a lot of open land available in Longport.

“The borough’s not interested in getting into an estate fight,” he added. “The beneficiaries of the will are on board with it.”

As are a group of neighbors, whose attorney, Jack Plackter, contacted both the mayor and the solicitor on Thursday to say they would be willing to help defray some of the costs of creating and maintaining the park.

Still, the borough commission has to decide whether to accept the stipulations contained in McGee’s will. The cost of converting the properties, including landscaping, benches, the gazebo McGee wanted, a sign in her memory, could run as high as $100,000, plus the loss of ratables.q

They next meet on Jan. 3 for a reorganization, and again on Jan. 17.

If they decline, the property would revert to the beneficiaries of the estate.

McGee’s requirements are relatively few for the property bordered on one side by a golden-colored brick sidewalk, on a street with a grassy median with a bird feeder.

She wants a decently-sized gazebo, some landscaping, and a fence no higher than three feet. And she wants the property deed-restricted in perpetuity to be a park.

Unlike the nearby “Ventnor Memory Park,” a privately-financed pocket park — with a gazebo — on Ventnor Avenue owned by a nonprofit and kept locked much of the time, borough officials say McGee’s park would be open. The three foot walls she requires would make that mostly a moot point anyway.

Would this “hugely generous” gift to the borough create a valuable public gathering space, and a bit of open space, in a densely built Shore town without a boardwalk or other public gathering spot (other than the beach itself and the little parking area at the southern tip of the island)?

Or would it needlessly deprive the borough of tax ratables and frustrate the dreams of a beach block Shore home for a couple of future, affluent Longport lovers?

Russo, who is in favor of accepting, noted that Longport’s current ratable base is $2 billion, and that number is significantly behind the current heated real estate market. The loss of ratables would be a drop in the bucket, he said.

Affanato, the solicitor, said the borough would stipulate that the public property be subject to all existing borough ordinances like alcohol, smoking, and noise ordinances. Dogs could, or could not, be allowed. Weddings are currently performed on other public Longport properties, including a similar gazebo on 35th Avenue, and so would also be allowed.

Russo does not think there will be much objection. Years ago, many residents wanted the borough to purchase the property of an old gas station in town and keep it an open space, but the cost was prohibitive, he said.

He said he remains quite moved by McGee’s gesture. “She had dedicated quite a bit of her adult life to Longport,” he said. “For some people, the money isn’t the be-all, end-all.”