By Donald Wittkowski
After literally going back to the drawing board, City Council is making its third attempt to come up with the final version of a zoning ordinance that would regulate a decorative feature in home construction known as “bump-outs.”
Two prior attempts to tweak Sea Isle City’s bump-outs ordinance simply raised more questions and objections. At one point, Councilman Jack Gibson had a drawing board carried to the front of the room during Council’s Dec. 13 meeting and began making rudimentary sketches showing why the ordinance was unfair to property owners.
Gibson persuaded his fellow Council members to scrap that version of the ordinance. After listening to the wishes of Council, the city solicitor has rewritten the measure to solve what he has characterized as “a quirk” in the city’s zoning law.
Zoning laws in Sea Isle City currently allow bump-outs only in side yards. Under the new version of the ordinance, homebuilders and architects will have the discretion to decide which sides of the house to add bump-outs on corner lots, Solicitor Paul Baldini said.
Barring any last-minute hang-ups, the ordinance will come up for a public hearing and final vote at the Feb. 28 Council meeting.
The ordinance applies only to homes built on corner lots. Homes built on interior lots would be unaffected by the measure. They can have bump-outs only in their side yards.
An earlier version of the proposed zoning ordinance – now dead – would have allowed homeowners to have bump-outs in their front and back yards if they live on corner lots.
But Gibson argued that the ordinance was defective. Using his drawing board and sketches during the Dec. 13 Council meeting, he showed how homes built on corner lots should have bump-outs in at least one of the side yards to spruce up the long, barren exterior walls of the house.
He pointed out that the side walls are often the most visible part of the house, so they should be the ones that are enhanced with decorative architectural features.
Other Council members agreed with Gibson. As a compromise, they have proposed giving homebuilders and architects leeway in choosing which two sides of the house will have bump-outs.
Bump-outs are ornamental roofs or decorative canopies above windows and doors. They are considered far more attractive on homes than just having long, blank exterior walls. Council wants to give builders the freedom to add bump-outs to make homes more aesthetically pleasing, but with certain limitations.
Building requirements such as bump-outs are a touchy subject in Sea Isle, a town that has been dealing with complaints from residents about large, high-end “monster” vacation homes gobbling up precious open space on the narrow island.
Bump-outs are a way to expand a home while legally “encroaching” into setback areas. In Sea Isle, they can be as wide as 8 feet and can jut out as far as 18 or 24 inches from the house, depending on the size of the lot, according to the proposed ordinance.
However, Council plans to limit bump-outs to only two sides of the house. In addition, all bump-outs would have to be built a minimum of 5 feet from the property line to maintain enough space between homes.
The proposed ordinance stresses that both the city and City Council “are desirous of clarifying the requirement” of setback encroachments for bump-outs on corner lots.
Local homebuilder Rich Mashura has repeatedly appeared before Council to argue in favor of bump-outs. He said they add “aesthetic value” to houses, especially the ones built on prime, corner lots.
Mashura’s Ocean View company, Mashura-Burger LLP, specializes in building high-end homes in Sea Isle and other seashore communities. In December, Mashura took some of the Council members around Sea Isle to show them bump-outs on homes that he has built, including an upscale, three-story house at the corner of 56th Street and Pleasure Avenue.
The front entrance of the home faces 56th Street, but the side of the house runs along Pleasure Avenue. The Pleasure Avenue side includes a series of ornamental canopies and bay windows to make the house more attractive.
Mashura has told Council that bump-outs would help to dress up homes throughout the island – including some oceanview and bayfront properties that have an expanse of blank exterior walls – if they were allowed in all yards.
