Ocean City leaders keep showing a lack of longterm vision
Originally published in Ocean City Sentinel
by Jim Tweed
To the Editor:
Last week’s Ocean City Council meeting was hard to watch. From relatively simple matters to far more consequential decisions, the lack of foresight on display was enough to make anyone sad.
First there was the continuing effort to find the right lawyer for the city to advise them on redevelopment. Our city solicitor, mired in conflicts, and in my opinion, providing ill advice, became implicated herself in the lawsuit against the city. The second lawyer hired by council was aware of threatened litigation, yet did nothing to help avoid it. We are now on our third. Why?
Then there is 600 Boardwalk. Wonderland shut down nearly two years ago. But here we are, two years later, with the council still not having completed all the necessary third-party studies – traffic, infrastructure, parking, etc. – to make a well-informed decision. All council did was allow the developer to lead the process and pave the way for the project he wants to build. Two years, wasted.
The Boardwalk Subcommittee report was a worthwhile endeavor. But it languished for months as the city wasted time pursuing a rehabilitation vote and bickering about whether to send the report to the Planning Board for comment. At last week’s meeting it was finally adopted, but it was like pulling teeth.
This city desperately needs leadership. And even more, it needs a long-term strategic plan to drive it forward. Right now, we do not have one. What we’ve been seeing is a government that reacts to projects as they appear. A developer has an idea – so zoning changes are made. A public building reaches the end of its useful life – only then does the city think about how to replace it, bouncing from one idea to another.
That is not strategic planning. It is a piecemeal approach to decisions that deserve a long-term vision.
A real strategic review would reverse that process. It would bring on qualified, independent professionals who would gather and analyze data, engage residents, businesses, property owners, and visitors, and examine tourism, development, infrastructure, resiliency, environmental protection and community character together. A review would test alternatives and allow for smart choices. It could then build a durable plan for where Ocean City wants to be 10 or 20 years from now – and use that plan as the rudder for decisions that follow.
Other successful resort communities have done exactly this. Asbury Park did so, successfully. Wildwood is in the midst of a multi-year review. Pompano Beach studied market demand, traffic, parking and the appropriate mix and scale of uses before selecting a developer for its beachfront district; the resulting project attracted more than $80 million in private investment. Virginia Beach created a strategic plan specifically for its resort area and used it to guide development, public transportation, and public investment and zoning. Gulf Shores, Ala., undertook a two-year strategic review to decide what it wanted its beach community to become. Its mayor described the objective perfectly: move from “let it happen” to “make it happen.”
This is the mindset Ocean City needs.
We should not begin an individual project and then try to decide whether we like it. We should first decide what we want an area of the city to become, and then evaluate individual projects against that vision.
In other words: What do we want the Ocean City boardwalk to look like and be for the next 20 years? Is it primarily an entertainment district? A shopping district? A combination of those things? What scale of development preserves its character? What strengthens the family resort brand? Once those strategic questions are answered, individual development decisions become far less arbitrary.
Instead, Ocean City repeatedly puts the cart before the horse.
And frankly, that’s because we have no horse to lead us.
We need to start deciding what we want Ocean City to become. We do that by demanding more from our city leaders and insisting we develop a smart, informed plan for our long-term health and growth. There’s word that a survey of Ocean City may be under way, but there’s little transparency about it, and a survey is just one small piece of a much bigger process that needs to take place.
At the council meeting, in a single bright moment, Keith Hartzell promised that the plan for 600 Boardwalk will be the city’s plan – not a developer’s wishes. While that is a great start, we would urge him, and the rest of council to think broader – and develop a strategy for all the island, to drive us forward. Once we have that plan, then our decisions become easier.
Jim Tweed
Ocean City
