City seeks grant to fund clean up of vaccant site

By KENNY WALTER
Staff Writer

LONG BRANCH — City officials are hoping to tap into a state remediation program that would help convert a vacated gas station on Norwood Avenue into a pocket park.

A resolution to submit an application to the New Jersey Economic Development Authority’s (EDA) Hazardous Discharge Site Remediation fund that will complete the cleanup of the Norwood Avenue site was approved by the City Council during an Oct. 13 meeting.

“We have the property. There was contamination that we had to clean up so we are trying to get the state to help us with the cleanup,” Business Administrator Howard Woolley Jr. said. “We have completed the remediation, we have a no further action from the DEP [New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection] stating no further action is necessary.

“So, we’re all done there. It’s just we are trying to get somebody to put in some pavers blocks and to cap it and we’re trying to get it funded by the state.”

According to Woolley, the city needs about $80,000 to complete the cleanup before the park can be constructed.

“It’s not a huge amount of money but that money is available so we might as well try to get it,” he said. “It looks better than it has but we still have to clean it up.”

He also said the property is currently on the city’s Green Acres inventory, meaning that any future use must be passive.

Woolley said the program has been dormant in recent years but in the past has funded remediation for the site.

“That is a state program which we were in at one point in time on that property and the program lapsed – there [were] no funds available,” he said. “They have since refunded the program and we had to make a new application.”

The site at 1 Norwood Ave. is currently owned by the city. Woolley estimated that it was a gas station about 50 years ago before becoming a submarine sandwich shop and has been unused for “30 or 40 years.”

Woolley said remediation issues are common with closed gas stations.

“A lot of times there’s issues with leaky tanks,” he said.

During the meeting, the council also authorized a $958,105 contract to Precise Construction to complete a streetscape project on Brighton Avenue.

“It’s to replace all the pavers blocks and fix the bricks and put new trees in and make it look nice down there,” Woolley said. “It’s been a long time coming.

“What’s happened is some of the trees have lifted up some of the sidewalks and some of the pavers blocks so it needs to be improved.”

The project is being partially funded with a $750,000 grant by U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and administered by the EDA and will fund improvements on Brighton Avenue between Ocean Avenue and the NJ Transit railroad tracks.