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Jersey Shore Towns Are Reinvented 5-Years After Sandy’s Destuction

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New bigger and better house are being constructed and reinventing these once u201csleepy towns.u201d
All along the beach in Mantoloking, new elevated luxury homes have popped up.
Many empty lots still exist on the water in Mantoloking, New Jersey.

In a recent article in the New York Times, reporters visited the Jersey Shore, where new constructions are brewing all over the area that was reduced to mere rubble five years ago by Hurricane Sandy. 

Ross Vardiman, who is working on constructing a waterfront house for his friends, told the Times, “It’s like the ‘Three Little Pigs’ story. This is the brick house. The winds aren’t blowing this house down.”

A similar sentiment could be felt all around the neighborhood. According to the NYT, “The homeowners are Bill and Michele Garofalo, two accountants from Fairfield, N.J., who decided it was time to invest in a beach house because their teenage children’s sports schedules have eased up, and they found themselves with more resources and free time. Last July they bought a bayfront lot in Ortley Beach, N.J., where a small cottage had been washed away by Hurricane Sandy. Paying $245,000 for the land, they spent another $450,000 to build and customize a five-bedroom modular home that Mr. Vardiman is hoping to have finished by the Fourth of July. Although Ortley Beach was devastated by Hurricane Sandy, the Garofalos recognized a good opportunity in this town where many empty building lots suddenly became available after the October 2012 storm. All but 60 of the beach community’s 2,600 houses there were damaged or destroyed.”

The 51-year-old Garofalo told the NYT reporter, “I saw all the horror and the pictures and it was a little intimidating. It’s not like you’re going out and buying a cheeseburger; it’s a major investment. It was a leap of faith, but we decided to do it.”

Even though weather predictions are calling for a worse hurricane season this year than normal, people buying second home like the Garofalos are willing to invest big in these beach front communities. 

With the fear of Hurricane Sandy now laid to rest, five years later, these previously sleepy towns are finding themselves being reinvented by wealthy homebuyers building giant homes and public funds going into new roads, boardwalks, parks and beaches. 

Keller Williams Shore Properties’ real estate broker Tim O’Shea, told the Times, “It’s a shiny new penny here,” referring to Ortley Beach. “Before, it was mostly a blue-collar community where houses were passed down from one generation to the next and people weren’t doing a lot of major improvements. We’ve got a whole different thing going on here now, with 3,000- to 4,000-square-foot houses going up.”

The NYT reports, “This rebirth is a direct result of the damage Sandy caused in Ortley Beach, which is part of Toms River. With 117 miles of coastline hugging Barnegat Bay and the ocean, Toms River saw 10,000 of its houses damaged or destroyed by Hurricane Sandy. Since the storm, more than 2,000 homes in Toms River have been demolished and are being rebuilt, according to Mayor Thomas Kelaher, while 1,200 are being elevated. Ortley Beach has two new lifeguard stations, a new boardwalk, a new park and new street lighting. This fall, all the roads will be repaved and new underground storm pipes will be installed.

‘We figured it was going to take a while, but compared to how bad it was, we’re in pretty good shape,’ said Mr. Kelaher, who estimated that the town was 70 percent recovered, largely thanks to millions in federal and state emergency aid.

In response to Hurricane Sandy, New Jersey has instituted new construction regulations that follow federal standards and then some. Those people building new homes or rebuilding damaged homes in designated flood zones are required to raise their houses to the base flood elevation levels determined for each community by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, plus one extra foot, as set by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection. For those living in some flood-prone areas, those elevations must be on wood or cylindrical concrete pilings, while in less vulnerable coastal areas, masonry blocks can be used. Piling foundations require open sides or breakaway walls so that if another flood occurred, the water would wash right through the base of the house. Wiring and utilities also must be placed above the elevation levels. Such measures will be protection from storms and may help prevent rising flood insurance costs.”

The state’s Department of Environmental Protection’s spokesman Larry Hajna said, “The reason we did this was obviously to protect people’s homes, but also to protect them financially. The higher you go, the lower your rates.”

Along the Jersey Shore, many homeowners have worked hard t elevate their houses, even those not required to do so under the new regulations, have lifted their homes to get lower insurance rates. Whether it is worth it… it can cost more than $100,000 to elevate a home, if you calculate in replacing sewer and electrical lines, creating a new foundation and staircases.

By Sam Stein

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