{"id":12212,"date":"2022-09-27T04:34:03","date_gmt":"2022-09-27T08:34:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/?p=12212"},"modified":"2022-09-27T04:34:16","modified_gmt":"2022-09-27T08:34:16","slug":"seaside-park-officials-endorse-redevelopment-of-dangerous-motel-over-owners-objections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/2022\/09\/seaside-park-officials-endorse-redevelopment-of-dangerous-motel-over-owners-objections\/","title":{"rendered":"Seaside Park Officials Endorse Redevelopment of &#8216;Dangerous&#8217; Motel Over Owner&#8217;s Objections"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script src=\"\/\/cdn.playwire.com\/bolt\/js\/zeus\/embed.js\" data-config=\"\/\/config.playwire.com\/1024730\/videos\/v2\/5556320\/zeus.json\" data-width=\"100%\" data-height=\"100%\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>More than 800 police responses over five years, exposed wiring, sagging floors and mold were just a few of the items that led an engineering firm hired by Seaside Park to recommend the Desert Palm Inn be redeveloped, and were too much for the motel\u2019s owner to overcome in his opposition to government action on his property.<\/p>\n<p>The Seaside Park planning board, after a marathon hearing that lasted four hours, voted unanimously Monday to recommend the motel property be formally declared an area in need of redevelopment by the borough council, a move that could potentially signal the ultimate condemnation of the North Ocean Avenue establishment.<\/p>\n<p>Under state land use law, a property can be formally declared in need of redevelopment \u2013 essentially, meeting criteria that classifies it as a blighted area \u2013 by a municipal council. Before the council can vote on the declaration, however, the town\u2019s planning board must recommend doing so after consulting with an engineer or planner. In the case of the Desert Palm, licensed professional planner Kendra Lelie, of T&M Associates, testified that the property meets multiple criteria spelled out in the state\u2019s redevelopment statute in order to qualify.<\/p>\n<p>Should the council eventually vote in favor of the formal declaration, the borough will have numerous options to deal with the property \u2013 including working with the current owner to redevelop it, forcing the current owner to sell the property, or condemning it and reselling it to a new owner. In each case, the whatever becomes of the property would have to meet strict criteria set by the council \u2013 for example, which types of structures would be permitted, their sizes, densities and other factors. Theoretically, the property, if condemned, could also be kept for public use.<\/p>\n<p>Lelie ran down a laundry list of various deficiencies and code violations she observed on a site visit to the Desert Palm in August. Among them included faulty wiring, the presence of mold, insecure sinks, sagging floors, broken windows, rot in floor surfaces, and pool or laundry chemicals left unattended outside.<\/p>\n<p>She also noted that, since 2017, there have been a staggering 863 visits by police to the property. The calls included \u201calarms, assaults, civil disputes, criminal mischief, deceased persons dead on arrival, disturbances, domestic disputes, drugs, vice, intoxicated persons, mental health cases, noise complaints, stolen vehicles, suicide attempts, thefts, threats, unattended deaths and verbal disputes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Over the last two summers, high profile incidents have taken place at the property, including a <a href=\"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/2022\/02\/local-man-admits-pushing-fellow-guest-off-balcony-during-fight-at-seaside-park-motel\/\">man pushed off a balcony<\/a> and a <a href=\"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/2021\/04\/drug-bust-in-toms-river-leads-investigators-to-seaside-park-motel\/\">significant drug bust<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe condition of this property is putting its occupants at risk,\u201d Lelie said.<\/p>\n<p>The Desert Palm Inn is owned by Shree Jyoti LLC, a company owned by Ramesh Kania, a physician based in Livingston who previously <a href=\"https:\/\/www.justice.gov\/archive\/usao\/nj\/Press\/files\/Kania,%20Rameshcha%20Plea%20News%20Release.html\">pleaded guilty<\/a> in federal court to receiving kickbacks in a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.justice.gov\/archive\/usao\/nj\/Press\/files\/pdffiles\/2011\/Kania,%20Rameshcha%20Complaint.pdf\">Medicare fraud scheme<\/a>. Public records indicate Kania had his medical license suspended, but ultimately reinstated by the state Board of Medical Examiners.. According to Ocean County tax records, the motel was purchased in 2007 for $3.2 million. The property is currently assessed at $2,693,400, producing an annual property tax bill of $40,912.<\/p>\n<p>Kania testified that he was \u201cnot a dirty businessman\u201d during the hearing, and pledged to improve the conditions at his motel. He said he would no longer permit \u201cprom rentals\u201d in the future and has ended his relationship with the Ocean County Board of Social Services, which placed emergency housing clients in rooms at the Desert Palm. He was represented by Lakewood attorney Peter H. Wegener, who aggressively cross-examined Lelie after she presented the findings of her report in an attempt to poke holes in the veracity of the some of the violations that were noted.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m going to close this property in October of this year,\u201d Kania said. \u201cI\u2019m going to open it April 1, 2023. \u201cNow I see where the world is going. I have a feeling now with weather patterns changing and what is going on down the shore here \u2013 my presence here is 25 plus years \u2013 as it opens up we will have good business to sustain us.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Board members, including Police Chief James Boag, who sits on the planning board, questioned Kania as to his prospective tenants before Memorial Day should he refrain from offering prom rentals.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve been here for 27 years and I know, in general, who stays at motels in April and May,\u201d Boag said.<\/p>\n<p>The motel\u2019s general manager of 15 years, Das Patel, of Manchester, also testified before the board. When questioned about the more than 800 police calls to the property, Patel admitted to \u201csome noise complaints,\u201d but under cross-examination from a resident, shied away from addressing the more high-profile incidents that the motel has seen in recent years. He also said some of the calls for police services may have been related to traffic accidents that took place in front of the motel, a claim that was also proffered by Wegener.<\/p>\n<p>Patel said he or his assistant is on site \u201ctwenty-four seven,\u201d and Kania relayed a story on how he monitored security camera feeds while on a trip to Mumbai. Regarding the condition of the building, Patel admitted that code and safety violations were something of a normal occurrence during each annual inspection.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEvery year they come in for the violations,\u201d he said, referring to inspectors. \u201cWe called an electrician and we went by him. We do [repairs] in one, two or three weeks, and then they come back.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>During the last visit by inspectors, 33 of the motel\u2019s rooms were cited for violations of some kind, and inspectors were not allowed inside two rooms by management.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou\u2019re looking at 66 to 70 percent of the property with violations,\u201d board member Frank Losey responded. \u201cThat\u2019s a lot of violations. You did all those repairs? They would have to occur over a pretty long time \u2013 do you only do repairs when you\u2019re cited? It kind of shows a pattern to me where you\u2019re doing repairs when you\u2019re cited.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The calls for emergency services remained a sticking point, as well, with Kania playing down his personal knowledge of their frequency.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen I bought the property, I wanted to make it better,\u201d Kania said. \u201cThat\u2019s my passion \u2026 I don\u2019t want to be a nuisance to the community.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It was at this point that he pledged to end prom rentals.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI guarantee you now that I will not give high school groups rooms in my property,\u201d he told board members. \u201cI will not rent a room to anybody who comes with an ID card with a local address. If someone is living in Toms River and wants to stay at the hotel, he has no business.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Kania also said he has \u201ca policy that you cannot get drunk at my property,\u201d which elicited some audible laughter among residents in the audience. He added that he does not allow marijuana, despite its legality, anywhere on the property.<\/p>\n<p>As for the number of calls to police: \u201cIt was a big surprise to me,\u201d he said. \u201cIf it was true, I would not be in this business so long.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDon\u2019t you think you had a responsibility to the borough to ask the police department, \u2018what can we do better?'\u201d Losey said, after Kania testified he had not read any police reports about the incidents which occurred at the motel.<\/p>\n<p>Ultimately, board members were advised by board counsel that they should consider only the facets of Lelie\u2019s testimony that go directly toward the criteria on redevelopment \u2013 the physical condition of the building, previous code violations and safety issues \u2013 rather than \u201cwho\u2019s staying there,\u201d such as prom revelers or social services clients.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere is a history of not maintaining the property until cited,\u201d said Losey, after Wegener completed his questioning of Kania and Patel. \u201cThe conditions range from minor issues, to issues that are dangerous. It is almost impossible to believe there was not an awareness on the part of the staff that there wasn\u2019t an excessive number of police calls.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Boag motioned to send the board\u2019s recommendation to the council, affirming that the motel should be declared an area in need of redevelopment. The board voted unanimously in favor of doing so.<\/p>\n<div class=\"fcbkbttn_buttons_block\" id=\"fcbkbttn_left\"><div class=\"fb-share-button fcbkbttn_large_button \" data-href=\"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/2022\/09\/seaside-park-officials-endorse-redevelopment-of-dangerous-motel-over-owners-objections\/\" data-type=\"button_count\" data-size=\"large\"><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>More than 800 police responses over five years, exposed wiring, sagging floors and mold were just a few of the items that led an engineering firm hired by Seaside Park to recommend the Desert Palm Inn be redeveloped, and were too much for the motel\u2019s owner to overcome in his opposition to government action on [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11154,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6,5],"tags":[1897,1959,81,32],"class_list":["post-12212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-seaside-government","category-seaside-heights","tag-desert-palm-inn","tag-featured","tag-redevelopment","tag-seaside-park-nj-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/desert_palm_inn_seaside_park_nj_382-scaled.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgsn9q-3aY","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12212"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12212\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}