Saturday, September 14, 2013


RUTGERS GRAD STUDENTS HELP REINVENT SEA BRIGHT

JOE HERNANDEZ | JUNE 10, 2013

'Sandy Recovery Studio' works to transform sea walls and other structures into tourist attractions.

seabright studio
Off-season, beach parking lots can be used to host farmers markets and other outdoor activities.
More than six months after Sandy crashed into the New Jersey coastline, some towns that have been struggling to get back on their feet are just beginning to plan for the future. And one of the Garden State’s barrier islands is getting some help with that effort from a group of graduate students at Rutgers’ Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy.
“This is just a really challenging situation, and the entire coastline is going to have to face it,” said Chris Kok, a student in this spring’s “Sandy Recovery Studio.” The class is dedicated entirely to rethinking and rebuilding the central New Jersey town of Sea Bright, which saw widespread structural damage and flooding during and after the October storm.
Sandy was certainly a wake-up call, but Sea Bright has always been vulnerable to extreme weather. “If Sea Bright were not urbanized today, nobody would build on it,” said Carlos Rodrigues, who co-teaches the class with Michael Yaffe.
Sitting on a three-mile-long strip of land due east of Princeton between the Atlantic Ocean and the Shrewsbury and Navesink Rivers, the low-lying town is three blocks across at its widest, so even a heavy rain leaves it prone to flooding. During Sandy, water rushed over the riverbank from the west and through the 10-foot sea wall from the east, inundating the island.
Now, work is being done to flood-proof Sea Bright. Workers have been strengthening the sea wall and the Army Corps of Engineers is building a bulkhead system along the town's riverbank.
And students in the Sandy Recovery Studio are thinking about how to preserve the character and communal spirit of a beach town that’s being walled in by engineers...
Last month, the class presented its findings to Sea Bright residents and officials, who were pleased with the results and followed up with a flurry of questions. Having gotten the effective green light to move forward with the project, several students began working up a final report and Rodrigues started coordinating construction efforts with Mayor Long and FEMA. The Bloustein School will also stay involved with Sea Bright through the end of the year, as the town moves from wondering how to rebuild to deciding what to rebuild first.

Jersey Shore towns have borrowed $398M since Sandy, awaiting federal aid

Aug. 28, 2013

Seven months after President Barack Obama approved $50.5 billion of aid to help rebuild communities devastated by Hurricane Sandy, the New Jersey beach town of Manasquan has received about one-tenth of its cleanup costs.
It’s the same story up and down the 130-mile length of the Jersey Shore, where localities have almost doubled their borrowing, partly to pay for repairs until federal funds arrive.
Since Sandy struck Oct. 29, 42 Shore towns including Manasquan, where the $664,000 median value of owner-occupied housing is almost twice the state average, have sold about $398 million of short-term debt, data compiled by Bloomberg show. For a similar period in 2011-2012, 31 such communities issued $225 million. They’re borrowing as one-year interest rates are close to the highest since 2011.

“We desperately need to be reimbursed,” Donna M. Phelps, an assistant to the borough administrator, wrote in an Aug. 14 letter to the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The next day, Manasquan sold $3.44 million of notes due in 2014...
Seven weeks after Sandy, Moody’s Investors Service gave negative credit outlooks to four beach towns — Belmar, Lavallette, Long Beach Township and Sea Bright — and cut Seaside Heights to A3, its fourth-lowest investment grade. The towns faced the loss of taxes from destroyed property, a reliance on short-term borrowing and uncertain levels of federal aid, a Moody’s report said...
Long Beach Township is the largest town on the 18-mile stretch of Long Beach Island, which swells with summer tourists. Moody’s cited the municipality’s widespread Sandy damage and the loss of taxable property in a December report that assigned a negative outlook to $2.2 million of general-obligation debt rated Aa2, the third-highest step.
On March 19, Long Beach sold $7.6 million of unlimited general-obligation notes maturing in one year at a yield of 0.5 percent, 0.22 percentage point above an index of benchmark munis, data compiled by Bloomberg show. That spread was unchanged from when the township sold $6.6 million of one-year notes in March 2012.
Long Beach, with 3,000 year-round residents and a $23.7 million annual budget, plans to borrow as much as $10 million more. It also intends to bill FEMA $13 million for repairs to parks, sewage pumping stations and other infrastructure...
New Jersey localities are financing storm upgrades as debt sold by the state and its municipalities is losing about 5 percent this year through Aug. 23, matching declines in the broader $3.7 trillion municipal market, Barclays Plc data show.
The municipalities have the advantage of selling into the best-performing segment of local bonds. Amid bets that a growing economy will lead the Federal Reserve to reduce its bond buying, short-term munis have earned 0.4 percent this year, while longer maturities have lost at least 0.7 percent, according to Standard & Poor’s data...
Manasquan, in its Aug. 14 letter to FEMA, said it had received $401,000 of reimbursements. The borough, with an annual budget of $10.2 million, has spent $4.4 million on debris removal, according to DeIorio.
On Aug. 15, Manasquan sold unlimited general-obligation notes at a yield of 0.92 percent, or 0.58 percentage point above an index of benchmark munis, Bloomberg data show. That difference is almost half the 1.14 percentage-point spread when the borough sold one-year notes in January 2010.
Read the full article...

LONG-TERM RECOVERY: SEASIDE COMMUNITY ENVISIONS A BRIGHTER FUTURE

Main Content
FEMA Press Release date: 
AUGUST 27, 2013
Release Number: 
4086-214

LINCROFT, N.J. -- When Superstorm Sandy subsided after battering the Borough of Sea Bright, the Jersey Shore community responded with the strong determination people associate with Sea Brighters. Their resolve in recovery efforts has resulted in two realizations – one, recovery is a long-term process; and two, the small community of nearly 2,000 residents will never be exactly the same.
Ten months after the storm, the community is actively engaged in creating a vision for a brighter future – a vision that leaders call Sea Bright 2020. On Wednesday, Aug. 21, about 160 residents gathered at Holy Cross Catholic School in nearby Rumson to identify key projects and strategies that will help move them beyond recovery.
It’s part of a proven long-term planning process guided and supported by FEMA’s Federal Disaster Recovery Coordination (FDRC) office. The recovery coordination office works with state and federal partners to help streamline access to federal funding, decrease gaps in assistance, and establish recovery goals in terms of outcomes, milestones and budget. The FDRC can also provide an array of skills, Sea Bright community attends Long Term Recovery workshopSea Bright residents attend the Sea Bright 2020 Community Workshop to discuss ideas and concerns regarding key projects that will help restore the coastal town. This workshop is part of a three-month community engagement effort by N.J. Futures, the Edward Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University and supported by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Rosanna Arias/FEMAsuch as civil engineering, architecture, land-use planning, economic development, environmental science and disabilities integration.

Complete Article...

Sea Bright wants residents' ideas for rebuilding after Sandy

Aug. 16, 2013 Written by
Susanne Cervenka
@scervenka
Asbury Park Press , App.com

SEA BRIGHT — Sea Bright wants to hear its residents’ ideas for rebuilding from the damage the oceanfront borough suffered during superstorm Sandy.
Sea Bright 2020, a steering committee developing plans that will guide the borough’s rebuilding, is hosting a community meeting at 7 p.m. Wednesday at Holy Cross School in Rumson.
There, community members will be asked to give input on 17 questions dealing with housing, community facilities, downtown redevelopment and economic development, waterfront restoration and communication.
The responses will be used in Sea Bright’s recovery plan. Mayor Dina Long said she wants to see as many residents as possible come so the important decisions about the borough’s future are made by the community, instead of a handful of individuals.

Sea Bright NJ residents, FEMA talk vision of borough's future


Sea Bright residents, FEMA talk vision of borough's future

Written by
Susanne Cervenka
@scervenka
Asbury Park Press, August 23, 2013
http://www.app.com/article/20130822/NJNEWS/308220063/sea-bright-fema

Sea Bright residents plan town's futureRUMSON — A post-superstorm Sandy Sea Bright should have a pharmacy and a bakery and the borough should turn a former school into a marketplace with a variety of small businesses and, potentially, artists.

Residents in the beachside borough of Sea Bright also said they want their waterfront strengthened to protect against the next storm, then it should be opened up with a riverwalk or other amenities so they can enjoy it.

The concepts were among the hundreds of ideas from Sea Brighters at a community brainstorming session Wednesday night at Holy Cross School gymnasium in Rumson. Watch the video above to see some of the session.

Sea Bright 2020, the steering committee that is helping develop the borough’s long-term recovery plan, invited residents share their visions for their hometown. Those ideas will be incorporated into those planning documents that will become the basis by which the borough rebuilds.  Those plans will be presented at another large community meeting Oct. 9.

VIDEO - Planning a Towns Future