{"id":18614,"date":"2026-06-02T06:27:57","date_gmt":"2026-06-02T10:27:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/?p=18614"},"modified":"2026-06-02T06:27:57","modified_gmt":"2026-06-02T10:27:57","slug":"seaside-heights-planning-board-considers-re-establishing-lot-lines-on-oddly-shaped-street","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/2026\/06\/seaside-heights-planning-board-considers-re-establishing-lot-lines-on-oddly-shaped-street\/","title":{"rendered":"Seaside Heights Planning Board Considers ‘Re-Establishing’ Lot Lines on Oddly-Shaped Street"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The<\/a>

The property at 220 Porter Avenue, Seaside Heights, NJ. (Google Earth)<\/p><\/div>\n

Seaside Heights is known as a city that largely follows a grid pattern on its streets, but this week, the planning board was faced with a proposal to adapt to an oddly-shaped pattern.<\/p>\n

In the southern portion of town exists a publicly alleyway known as “Bay Terrace.” Most visitors have probably never heard of it, considering it’s snuggly-placed in between Porter and Dupont avenues. The alley has been the subject of several hearings before the board in recent years, as officials work to adapt streets designed in the 1940s \u2013 or sometimes earlier \u2013 to modern construction that is borne out of standards that require bigger and taller structures.<\/p>\n

\"Bay<\/a>

Bay Terrace, an alleyway in Seaside Heights, NJ. (Google Earth)<\/p><\/div>\n

At the June 1, 2026 board workshop meeting, members were asked to consider an application by the owner of 220 Porter Avenue, a 25-by-100 foot property that was merged, decades ago, between the front-facing lot on Porter Avenue (across from the median of Route 35’s southern entrance to the island) and the rear-facing lot on Bay Terrace. Over the years, Bay Terrace has developed as a street of its own, densely packed with homes that are fitted into lots that would never come close to the modern 20-by-100 standard for residential parcels in town. In the case of 220 Porter, the previous owner merged two lots to create the 25-by-100 foot lot, and placed a storage shed in the rear on Bay Terrace. But a new owner is seeking the re-establish previous lot lines, creating a conundrum for planners: allowing the lot to be divided, on one hand, creates two non-conforming lots out of one conforming lot. At the same time, however, it will provide for two newer, more resilient homes to be constructed and place one of them facing the dense \u2013 but neatly-kept \u2013 frontage on Bay Terrace, replacing a tool shed that looks out of place amongst its neighbors.<\/p>\n

“This block, unlike other blocks, has an alley down the middle of it,” said planner Robert Harrington, representing the property owner. “It\u2019s a bit of a weird situation \u2013 you have two frontages in 100 feet. Originally, there was a property line and we\u2019re looking at re-creating that down the middle.”<\/p>\n

In the property owner’s favor is the fact that the two lots that would be created out of one would be identical to the neighboring parcels on each side, creating symmetry. But there is also a “principled” downside.<\/p>\n

“Municipal efforts and planning board decisions should bring lots into conformity,” said Jennnifer Gorini, the borough’s professional planner. “We currently have a conforming lot, while subdividing it would produce two non-conforming lots.”<\/p>\n

The applicant’s attorney, Anthony Pagano, made the salient point succinctly: “This is just an interesting block in Seaside [Heights],” he said, pointing out that similar relief had been granted to neighboring property owners.<\/p>\n

The property next door to the east faced the exact same dilemma, and earned a variance from the board that would allow for the subdivision. Its dimensions \u2013 both of the new lots that were created \u2013 are identical to the dimensions of the two that would be created under the new application, and there was no indication that the neighboring property was ever the subject of any objections of complaints. Variances include density \u2013 where 2,000 feet is required for a single lot, the two lots would stand at 1,187 square feet and 1,312 square feet, respectively \u2013 as well as related depth-based variances. But while the board has been more intentional in terms of enforcing zoning recent cases, the non-conformity could arguably represent a fit that enhances the character of the surrounding neighborhood.<\/p>\n

Pagano said the owner, if successful in his quest to subdivide the property, would demolish both the current structures \u2013 the house and the shed \u2013 and build two new homes that comply with modern building standards and flood codes. Board officials heard both sides of the argument and encouraged the property owner to present the case at a formal meeting, which is likely to be scheduled in the near future.<\/p>\n

The Porter Avenue case was the only matter presented to the board at its meeting Monday.<\/p>\n

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Seaside Heights is known as a city that largely follows a grid pattern on its streets, but this week, the planning board was faced with a proposal to adapt to an oddly-shaped pattern. In the southern portion of town exists a publicly alleyway known as “Bay Terrace.” Most visitors have probably never heard of it, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18615,"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":[3031,3032,1959,134,404,20],"class_list":["post-18614","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-seaside-government","category-seaside-heights","tag-alley","tag-bay-terrace","tag-featured","tag-planning-board","tag-porter-avenue","tag-seaside-heights-nj-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/ssh_bay_ter.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgsn9q-4Qe","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18614","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=18614"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18614\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18617,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18614\/revisions\/18617"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}