Wait a second.........Wasn't it Scarboro who the city purchased the marina from to begin with????

The city had no business buying this site, the Bayside Center, The Lifesaving Station or the old Superfresh site. Each one was a waste of taxpayers money regardless of which pot of money they took the money from.

We,OC Kayakers, were promised over two years ago by the OC Manager that the North most pier would have a walk down ramp to launch kayaks. It's still barricaded. Do the administrations promises mean nothing?

Like you I was at that meeting also. Yakers were promised and shown on the blueprints where the kayak ramp would be built. After a few years it's still not there. Even though there are probably more merchants selling kayaks than boats in OC, the city still ignores us. My guess this scheme will either continue to ignore kayakers or somehow it will cost us each time we want to launch.

Kayaker Shhhmyacker!!!! There are so many places to launch a Kayak! More importantly, where are the masses of people going to park????? Has a Traffic Study been done? How is Bay Ave. going to handle all this traffic? Where are these people going to park? Oh, I already said that but really, WHERE? With all the waverunner, boat rentals and deep sea fishing operations there, parking is a issue! Then, as a Simpson Ave. resident, we have idiots late for their boat reservations who cut thru and blow thru stop signs. 2 summers ago a woman had her dog run over and killed as she was crossing 3rd and Simpson - the dog was on a leash! Seriously Planning Board, get you head out of your a**!!!!! I know the meeting the others are talking about! I was there too! Where are the Minutes of that meeting. We have to do a Open Record Request or whatever it's called! Quick! How deceptive they were......tisk, tisk, tisk!

PW You are right. There are a lot of places to launch a kayak, but if the launch they promised us was built, we could walk the yaks to the bay and not have to take a parking spot in front of the property you are watching.

Think about this, 27 boat lifts blocking the bay view of people driving by and the home owners across the street.

Who is going to pay for the 27 boat lifts (inc. piling & Elect.) and other "improvements" that Scarboro (the previous owner of the property) wants and who receives the rental income ?

Water traffic on the bay now has got to be a mess in the heat of the season. There is always a need for another well managed "marina". A "new" marina should have a fuel dock due to the fact that my last reccolection there is only one fuel dock in Ocean City & that would be South of the 9th St bridge. With all of the boat traffic there is a need for another fuel dock altho the epa, dep @ other governmental entities would be involved, but it could be done. What The heck, if you're gonna a do it, do it right and be profitable.

Yeah, I was never privy to OC looking for an operator for the "new marina" . I'm not a "good ole boy having not been born & raised there". I had my years dealing w/the OC government. Those were hard years and unless you have DEEP pockets you really don't want it.........

I Have to concur with propertymanger there are already 5 businesses operating down there, North Star, The OTHER Booze cruise, 2 wave runner business and a kayak rental that draw 100's of cars to the area and do not provide 1 parking space for their customers and the residents have to clean the trash up every day. As usual parking always seems to be an after thought for the city. This public bay area is a great idea but where are all these people going to park? 10 years ago there were 4 or 5 empty lots on 2nd & Bay that were sold to a developer and duplexes were built which would have mad an ideal parking lot. Now there are 3 empty lots at 3rd and Bay? And how about some pedestrian cross walks on Bay?

Unfortunately for those of you that were at the meeting they DID take public comment at the end of the meeting (and after most of you left). What the Planning Board voted on is if the proposed use is consistent with the Master Plan. They determined that it is, which isn't surprising since the intended use for that land is as a harbor. One thing we know for sure is that the area where the parking lot exists now will not be developed since it was purchased with Green Acres funds. Green Acres sounds like a great idea until you realize that it doesn't provide for green space but "free" parking lots for the City and the surrounding businesses. However if that designation includes the adjacent bay (I believe private property includes an offset into the bay) there would be a question as to whether those boat slips can be rebuilt (under Green Acres). At any rate this is going to come before City Council. If you want to comment watch the agenda. What you can count on is that both the City and the developer will make money off the deal and off of those otherwise "useless" Green Acres lots.

There was another item on the agenda that hasn’t been reported. We have a Beach and Dune zone which runs the entire length of the island and by definition cannot to be developed. In the Beach and Dune zone there are currently 8 residences and one business. One of those property owners went before the Zoning Board for a variance to expand his property. It was denied. Now he’s taking legal action against the City.

Being that the Beach and Dune zone is deemed not for development there are (understandably) no building regulations for that zone. As a part of the current Master Plan review building guidelines (for a zone that is not to be developed) are being proposed. I see that as being problematic. What you’re basically saying is “this is what you can build” in a zone in which you’re not allowed to build. Once those standards are established those property owners will be able to appeal to those standards. If their property is substandard they’ll have the ability to bring their property up to that standard. It may well encourage re-development and confuse the issue. Better I think to say you can’t build in that zone, keep what is grandfathered in as it is, and be consistent. We could be opening a can of worms here. At the very least any building guidelines for that zone should employ the lowest common denominator. Almost all of those properties are on the north end where beach erosion is a very real problem.

Wasn't Scarborough the one that was going to build condo's and a possible hotel like unit blocking everyone's view that live near that area ?? Wasn't he the one the erected a horrific fencing within day without a permit that lasted better than a year?
A zebra never changes his colors..Only his company name !

Judyhl

Here it comes. A nice new amenity for OC and the negative people will start ripping it apart whether they know any facts or not.

I did a drive by at the harbor and it has potential. Do you remember Chris's and Hogates? I don't know if we can get those kind of restaurants back but it sure would be a good location. And we certainly could use public boat slips. That area of town should be preserved for commercial (related to marine) and dinning. But I'd like to see plans for something more than boat slips and an open parking lot. Landscaping is not included in this project. You can't make money off of trees, right? That's the problem with public / private partnerships. Public land is used for private profit and asthetics are not profitable. We need to think in terms of that area's potential.

You know we can all voice our bonfied opinions but people you really need to understand... this is Ocean City, when you have the connections & the deep pockets ANYTHING can be accomplished, and you can bet your last peso that it is a possibility that this thing is already a done deal. So I do not believe I will waste my valuable time commenting on this item of news. Thank you for reading all of the well meant comments.

Hogates had parking.. Chris's had limited parking.. The only parking is on residential streets and Bay Avenue. If you lived in this area, you will find that there is absolutely no parking for the residents if they do not have off street parking. You will also find that the intersections are blocked so that you cannot have clear view of on-coming traffic because the intersections are not yellow-lined for spacing. Cars are parked as close to the corners and alleys as they can manuever.
The next thing will be a high rise parking garage for the Hogates and Chris's. !

This whole story going back to when the property was purchased by the city smells to the high heavens of corruption. Please folks remember this the next time the city proposes purchasing a property.

I know, I was not going to comment on this news item, but I just could not resist the last comment......WOOOO EEEEEE !!!! DO YA THINK !!!!!?????

It is a very big POSITIVE. The City does not want to put more money into repairs and Sean and his Company will. People come every day and enjoy fishing and the view here on 2nd street. KUDO's to the project.

Also, to the ignorant POS with the retarded comment reservations and being late and thats why someone ran a stop sign and killed that poor older women's dog...... that was not even the situation. let talk real story. The lady was walking her 2 dogs, crossing at 3rd & Bay, and some PA shoob was SPEEDING and taking that turn onto 3rd way to damn fast and just ran that dog right over and it was the saddest damn thing I've ever seen. the point being is that the crazy lady speeding was not going on any wave runner, or boat, or pirate ship she was going to the beach and just in a damn rush. i think about that every day and how upset she was . ALSO.. the businesses approached the City about using the vacant lots as a parking lot and that was shot down simply because "adding a parking lot to a busy corner is not very pleasant on the eye" ... but lets have it sit there overgrown looking like a friggen safari instead of taking some rent so businesses can utilize the property. So it's the City's fault for the parking situation, not the businesses that bring MONEY AND VISITORS AND ACTIVITIES to the island. everyone loves hating on the wrong person. who's running this crap show?!?!?