Seems that the inmates still run the asylum in Wildwood. The mayor stated that they are NOT bringing in “low-income” housing. It’s “affordable” housing. Okay, call it affordable housing with low-income tenants.
I moved away 35 years ago, when affordable housing generally meant North Cape May, or Erma, or other places in Lower and Middle Townships, at least for most working stiffs. I found affordable housing in Pomona at the time, and also found it easier to land engineering-related jobs in Atlantic County. It also shortened my commute to Drexel, not really a factor when I moved there, but I enjoyed the convenience later on.
Back on the island, the business district along Pacific Avenue seemed pretty healthy when I left. Marlyn Manor, in Rio Grande, still drew some shoppers, as did the Grant’s in CMCH, and, to a lesser degree, the so-called mall at Rio Grande.
In ’81, I moved out of the state in pursuit of engineering jobs in the nuclear industry. Things in Wildwood started heading downhill a few years later, as crime in the area increased. This was totally unrelated, of course, to the increase in low-income residents. Actually, a number of factors caused property values to plummet, even in the Crest, and motels went on the market in the six-figure range during the mid to late eighties.
Eventually, the downtown area along Pacific Avenue lost most of its curb appeal to shoppers, mainly because it seemed unsafe to walk the sidewalks. By the 1990′s, elected officials decided that if a pedestrian mall worked in Cape May, it would probably also work in Camden, so why not Wildwood? Apparently, none of these officials had ever actually seen Cape May’s mall, but they heard it was a good thing, so they covered a stretch of Pacific Avenue with brick pavers and blocked vehicle traffic. This brilliant plan succeeded in driving most of the barely-surviving merchants out of business. The costs for creating this mall were assessed to property owners along Pacific Avenue who “benefited” from this “improvement.”
After someone alerted the officials that their mall plan didn’t exactly work, they ordered the pavers removed, and gave them away to residents. Concerned that visitors, upon crossing the bridge into town and eventually seeing the ocean, would not be aware of being in a seashore resort, the municipal regime ordered the new sidewalks colored turquoise and blue, in wavy patterns. This proved highly effective in scaring people, and most visitors refused to get out of their cars. They thought vandals had spray-painted the concrete and might still be lurking nearby.
Okay, so I kid about the reaction to the sidewalks, but not about the sidewalks themselves. In theory, the hideous pigment was permanent, which never explained why it started wearing off. Officials reconvened and came up with yet another way to fix a taxpayer-supported mistake. Without offering the old sidewalks to residents who wanted them, they tore them up and replaced them with ordinary sidewalks. Well, almost. Someone decided that blue inserts at some of the expansion joints would keep the drama alive. The current mayor works in the concrete placing industry, which might explain this obsession with replacing sidewalks every few years.
A year or two ago, property values skyrocketed as developers flattened motels and existing homes to replace them with condos and townhouses. The plan worked for awhile, and they sold like hotcakes at caviar prices. Then someone figured out that caviar only commands high prices because of its relative scarcity. Oops! New multi-family structures reached the saturation point long ago, yet construction noises still echo from every scrap of vacant land. In desperation, developers increasingly turn to auctions as a means of marketing their wares, while others attempt to add more water to an already dripping sponge. The island motto has become, “I don’t want to hear it – just build!”
News travels as quickly as one actually wants to hear it. Ignoring it never makes it go away, however. Some supposedly omniscient individuals decided that vacationers wanted condos, high rises, silly-looking street signs and street lights, and they wanted to pay dearly for them. As it looks now, all most of them wanted was good old Wildwood-by-the-Sea, with its cheap and not-so-cheap motels, and enough money left over to enjoy the party.