🏘️ Third-story deck drama in Margate | Down the Shore

There’s always drama in Margate, whether about unwanted sand dunes or beach block parking. But lately, the attention has focused on the epidemic of building that has hit Margate and so many other Shore towns, a decade after Sandy damaged a swath of the town. Call it build back bigger.

As the always entertaining Downbeach Buzz blog captured in a few great audio excerpts, the focus at the planning board level, which is where the things that will truly bother you are decided, was on third-floor decks.

Suffice to say, there are a lot of requests for third-floor decks in Margate! I found a dozen of them on agendas since January. Everyone, it seems, wants to build a house with six or seven bedrooms, pushing up against property lines, never mind that federal flood insurance will only pay up to $250,000 and, as Francis Wilkinson wrote in the New York Times recently, we will all end up paying for someone else’s beach house.

Everyone wants a backyard pool, which is starting to aggravate Atlantic City Electric, since nearly all of them are too close to utility poles. And zoned air-conditioning. Some of these decks around town are actually built to house third-floor air-conditioning units.

If the new construction seems higher, that’s because it is. Flood rules post-Sandy require living quarters to be constructed as much as 14 feet above sea level to mitigate future damage from floodwaters. So the 30 feet of actual house is already sitting, in some cases, above 14 feet of storage or garage space.

Driving around town, it’s easy to find new construction towering over houses in Margate’s midsection, a place where year-round families used to live in modest one- and two-story homes — does this sound familiar? — sending their kids to school and working as teachers, lifeguards, police officers.

The year-round community seemed to be flourishing, so much that just a few years back that, as planning board chair Richard Patterson told me Tuesday, Margate was considering limiting third floors altogether in this section to preserve its (relative) affordability. The town built another school, no longer needed.

“Before the pandemic, we were researching having a section of the city have no third floors, making it more family friendly, because the craziness of prices hadn’t reached that area,” Patterson said.

It has now.

Margate’s planning board is now recommending that third-floor front decks be allowed throughout town (currently they require a variance, except for ocean and bay front homes), but is balking at rear third-floor decks.

At a recent meeting, Patterson colorfully assured another board member that the people who want third-floor rear decks were interested in the sunset, not seeing [planning board member] naked.

Patterson argued in favor of allowing rear third-floor decks.

“You can already see your neighbor from the second floor, with the houses 14 feet from the first floor,” he said. “Your neighbor already doesn’t have much privacy.”

Patterson, who has lived all his 72 years in Margate, until recently in a house on Lancaster Avenue that was demolished after Sandy, does not want front yard fences, in an attempt to keep the town a bit like it’s always been.

Patterson wants to ban third stories entirely in lots less than 40-feet wide. He calls the tall, skinny homes built on these undersized lots “lighthouses,” that result in too many cars.

Look for my deeper dive into this here. Here’s a link to the audio of the important yet entertaining decision-making in Margate.

📮 Let me know your thoughts by replying to this email.

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⛱️ Looks beautiful for the weekend, even a little … cool?

— Amy S. Rosenberg (🐦 Tweet me at @amysrosenberg. 📷 Follow me on Insta at @amyrosenberg. 📧 Email me at downtheshore@inquirer.com)

🦈 Shark ban Every day, someone is bragging about snagging a (scary looking but typically not dangerous) shark near the Jersey Shore. My shark-rhyming colleague Jason Nark looked into these viral pics and found that Sea Isle wants to ban shark fishing.

🏠 Movin’ on up. Nora Macaluso profiles the S.J. Hauck company — last seen moving Wildwood’s pizza slice house — which is dedicated to saving all those old Shore homes from demolition and moving them inland.

🚰 Drought watch New Jerseyans are being asked to conserve water.

🎤 Holdyn Barder, the Bucks County-born country singer, has got people talking, and not just on 98th Street. In his new song about his beach town alma mater, Stone Harbor, he name-checks 98th Street, Hoy’s 5 & 10, Springer’s waffle cups, Sam’s in Wildwood, Hobie Cats, Sue and Rick’s Fishing Pier, Wawa shakes, not forgetting the change in Wawa, the bay at high tide, the Windrift and cover bands. Whew! Watch the Stone Harbor video here.

🇺🇸 Handmaids tale: Not all Jersey Shore politics is about the Pa. Senate race between John Fetterman and Mehmet Oz. Last week, progressive Democrats in New Jersey’s 2d Congressional District, which covers all of Atlantic and Cape May Counties, and part of Ocean, took to the 9th Street bridge into Ocean City dressed in red Handmaids Tale costumes to protest Congressman Jeff Van Drew’s views on reproductive health. See the photo from the bridge here.

🏈 Retired NFL running back Franklin Gore, 39, was charged with domestic assault after police were called to the Tropicana Hotel & Casino.

🎲 Meet the new boss at Hard Rock Atlantic City.

🍷Drink wine for free, from 4 to 6 p.m. every Saturday, at Wahine Wine in Ventnor.

🥊 Box with Jon Simon, just like ESPN’s Suzy Kolber does.

✒️ Wildwood is hosting its tattoo convention.

👗 Shop a boutique. In A.C., head to 2724 Atlantic Ave. for Nay’s Closet or, in Wildwood, take a recommendation from ABC’s The Bachelorette(s) contestant Tyler Norris: Guppi Style Sustainable Surf Co. at 3113 Pacific Ave.

📖 Read Loveladies Ennui by Keslie Patch Bohrod, an LBI mystery thriller.

🐕 Treat your dog at Ventnor’s new Salty Paws dog ice-cream bar.

🎵 Speaking of country music, in a quick change from Phish, the Tidal Wave Music Fest is coming to the Atlantic City beach.

No Shower Happy Hour (noun).

Self-explanatory? 😀 A happy hour you can go to right after the beach without getting all fancy.

We’re going straight from the beach to No Shower Happy Hour at the OD.

A Shore tradition, especially in Sea Isle’s Ocean Drive Bar (see Jason Kelce, above), or Avalon’s Whitebrier.

What are your favorite Shore happy hours? I’ll be doing a story on Atlantic City’s great ones, including my favorite, the Knife & Fork Inn (if you can get a seat).

📮 Tell me your favorite places for happy hour, shower or not.

Tim O’Donnell was first with Margate, a partial answer to the question of where Red Klotz of Washington Generals infamy played pickup basketball.

Alas, Tim, the question required the street as well. So I have to award first place to lawyer Harry Rimm, who included Jerome Avenue and added, “I played with him when growing up.” Very cool.

Here’s the great Frank Fitzpatrick’s ode to Klotz and his historic legacy of losing.

(And since a few people answered 96th Street in Stone Harbor, here’s my 2015 story about that Shore pickup game.)

This week’s question: Which Nickelodeon cartoon broke ground by bringing the word Shoobies to the masses?

A. Rug Rats

B. Sponge Bob Square Pants

C. Rocket Power

D. The Fairly OddParents

📮 If you think you know the answer, email me here. First one gets a shout-out.

The Crest Motel love story stirred lots of memories, (read it here if you missed it), including this from Joe Nicolo, who writes how his Wildwood memories still make him crack a smile.

I was fortunate enough that my parents owned a small apartment house in Wildwood since I was ten years old. That afforded me the joy of spending every weekend there during the summer months. As I grew into my later teens my parents allowed me to work there and actually spend the weekdays there alone (for the most part) while they rejoined me on the weekends. My friends and I had the time of our lives (nothing too crazy), mostly just roaming the boards or spending the days on the beach, depending on our work schedules. I am 52 now and still can remember specific events from those summers that make me grin from ear to ear. It’s cliche, but life was indeed simpler then. I can recall throngs of kids our age just hanging out having a ball. The dynamic has changed recently for sure. It just doesn’t have the same old time feel nowadays. However, I’ve been to many places in this world, and the ONE place I’d still rather be, always, is down the Shore. It still makes me feel like a kid just to be there. Always will.

📮 Send me your Shore memory for a chance to be featured here, turn it into a song and put it on YouTube, or tweet me @amysrosenberg.

✉️ Keep the emails coming, I read them all. See you next week.