Article from the Cape May County Herald Online by Joe Hart
Sea Isle City Library Project Advances
By Joe Hart
Published December 24, 2008
SEA ISLE CITY — This resort’s future library site needs to be cleaned up before the process can move forward.
The Cape May County Board of Chosen Freeholders Tuesday, Dec. 23 were scheduled to authorize a $109,900 payment to Garrison Architects for remediation investigation at the proposed 48th Street site, currently a municipal parking lot.
Of the total payment, Garrison’s engineering subcontractor Hatch Mott MacDonald will receive $88,600 to finalize Coastal Area Facility Review Act (CAFRA) application to the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and $21,300 for oversight of the remediation including notification to residents who have wells in the area and monitoring of those wells, according to county Administrator Stephen O’Connor.
During their survey of the site, engineers found traces of lead, arsenic and zinc — compound that could contaminate well water.
At a Dec. 17 meeting, Library Director Deborah Poillon told members of the Cape May County Library Commission that the project would involve the removal and disposal of contaminated soil from the proposed site.
O’Connor told the Herald the county expects the actual clean up to cost an additional $30,000 to $50,000.
According to Garrison’s Web site, the new 12,000 square foot, state-of-the-art library will feature a ground floor children’s library, a 225-seat community meeting room as well as coffee bar.
The facility will replace the city’s existing branch located downtown on JFK Boulevard, along the main entrance to the city. Originally, the county offered to demolish and rebuild a new facility at this site, but the city held months of public hearings to determine the best site for its new library.
A third potential site had been adjacent to the city’s elementary school at 4501 Park Road, but in the end city officials decided on the 48th Street location.
The waterfront project requires a CAFRA permit because it will be within 150 feet of the high tide and it will have more than 50 parking spaces, O’Connor said.
He said the county didn’t expect to have the same trouble it recently had with its Stone Harbor library CAFRA application, which was recently denied. As reported here, the DEP cited parking and setback issues as reasons for the denial for the beachfront plan.
Also on the freeholders’ agenda was a professional services agreement with attorney Neil Yoskin for $300 per hour to handle the Stone Harbor appeal.
“Neil is an expert on costal rules and permitting,” O’Connor said. “He’s the attorney who handled the Avalon beach access lawsuit against the DEP.”
The county agreed last year to build new libraries for these two barrier island communities when there had been talk in those towns of splitting from the county library system to build independent municipal facilities like those in Avalon and Ocean City.
Contact Hart at (609) 886-8600 Ext 35 or at: jhart@cmcherald.com
