WEST CAPE MAY — A decision on whether to allow a residential use above Dock Mike’s Pancake House was postponed Aug. 4 when Planning/Zoning Board learned that the wrong type of application had been filed.
While local zoning allows residential uses in commercial zones, they are permitted only above a commercial use. In this case, the property at 110 Broadway (Sunset Boulevard and Broadway) had a residential kitchen on the first floor for decades, although it was part of a commercial massage parlor business at that time.
The applicant, Doc-1 LLC, was seeking preliminary and final site plan approval to allow a dwelling above the restaurant. Variance relief was requested for side yard setback, lot coverage, vegetative cover and parking for the former Well Massage Center.
The fact that part of the residential use was on the first floor was brought up by the applicant’s attorney, Anthony Monzo, who said it was discovered after the application was filed.
“That was a non-conforming use and therefore any expansion of this property would trigger a D (or use) variance,” said Monzo, who acknowledged that there is a three-story, five-bedroom residence there now with a kitchen, a dining room and a bath downstairs.
“With this coming to our attention, we realize that we cannot proceed with this application tonight,” Monzo said.
He asked for a delayed decision so the applicant can either amend the application and ask for a D-variance, or amend the plan and eliminate a living space on the first floor altogether.
Board solicitor Richard King was surprised that the illegal use was allowed in the first place.
“I just have trouble understanding that your client didn’t know — nobody knew — that there was a residential kitchen on the first floor,” King said. “There’s an illegal use, and then there’s an application made that doesn’t disclose an illegal use, and then they want to expand that above an illegal use.”
Under oath, Michael Tramutolo from Doc-1 LLC said that all plans and permit applications were submitted and paid for through the construction office. He estimated that the ground floor kitchen had been in place for decades — long before he bought the property in 2009. He also said he had no idea that what floor the residential space was on mattered.
“I had all the plans and submitted them to the construction office; had permits, paid whatever I had to pay to do what I did … . The kitchen was always there for, I don’t know, 30 years,” said Tramutolo whose address is listed as 12 Taylor Lane in Cape May.
When it was a massage parlor, customers would walk into the foyer in the reception area and it was a full kitchen, he said.
“When we took the desk out, we put in a dining room table,” he said. “The only thing we did was we added the outside bathroom; that’s the only connection to the upstairs.”
King suggested the applicant redo the plans and have them reviewed by the engineer, who would issue a review letter describing what variances are needed, and avoid more application fees.
Following King’s guidance, the board moved and unanimously voted to grant a conditional adjournment for 60 days rather than denying the application outright.
“If that all doesn’t come together in the next 60 days, then you’re going to have to just start over because we can’t adjourn forever,” King said.
Tracking building permits
Board member Paul Mulligan called for a new tracking mechanism to monitor development projects that currently bypass board review, a suggestion that received positive reaction from his colleagues on the board.
Mulligan said the recent master plan re-evaluation showed that out of more than 100 new properties that were built in the borough since the last master plan review in 2015, only a small fraction ever went before the Planning/Zoning Board.
He noted that by law they have to report and document what comes before the Planning Board. He recommended that “what doesn’t come before the Planning Board” — which is in fact the majority of construction and zoning review in the community — be documented in an annual or quarterly report so they can take note of trends, whether positive or negative.
“I think in terms of sitting here as a Planning Board, it should be more than just once every 10 years that we’re looking at what has happened to the borough,” Mulligan said.
King said in his experience as a planning solicitor elsewhere, it’s best to have the community’s land use professionals be in constant communication with each other.
Member Jon Fusco noted that the borough is moving to a unified digital file management system that should make it easier to keep track of applications as they get reviewed and processed and be aware of what is happening in real time.
By JAMES FITZPATRICK/For the Star and Wave
