Margate looking to hatch a plan for attracting more year-round residents. If the Mayor and his planning board fail, more Margate businesses could be hurt and potentially close. That’s the warning coming from the city leadership.
Margate leadership tasked with offering more affordable housing.
Fix the problem or else we’ll all have fewer places to shop and eat. Shuttered shops could make full-time residency much less attractive, too.
One way to attract young families to Margate is to help them financially. That’s according to a recent Margate Planning Board meeting.
Listen to clips from Margate Planning Board and Director Rich Patterson:
Listen
Another way to encourage home ownership: greater housing density. This would, theoretically, lower housing prices by increasing residential inventory.
Higher density neighborhoods may be necessary said Margate’s esteemed zoning officer, Roger McLarnon.
McLarnon says higher density would drive down cost of purchasing a Margate home.
Potential neighborhoods that might be feasible: area between Amherst and the bay, and between Argyle and Essex Ave. It’s an older stock of nice, single-family homes.
Rich Patterson: No normal family can afford new construction in Margate.
Semi-cryptic, awkward chatter. Crafting a scheme to boost full-time residency. Margate Planning Board is a bit baffled. That’s why they’re gonna cut a check to the main man of master plans, Jim Rutala.
Serious decline in Margate school enrollment. Now less than 350 students, total, split between 2 half-empty schools.
Impending school consolidation. Diversity mandates. Declining full-time residency. Uncomfortable topics being discussed in Margate.
With an average home price of $750,000, young families are just not moving here. Mayor Becker and his school board struggling to defend expenses related to Margate’s two half-empty schools.
Margate losing full-time residents at a faster clip. A declining year-round population, says Margate Planning Board Chairman, Rich Patterson.
How can we make it more affordable to live in Margate? An official committee will be formed as an advisory to the planning board, or maybe the city itself.
Will Margate help subsidize initial cost of home ownership? Will Margate assist with down payments? ( listen to audio )
Typical mortgage guy pitch: How can Margate provide more affordable housing without lowering prices? Answer: show how to buy $150k more house in Margate, with the same monthly payment.
Is the Margate Planning Board suggesting a 40 yr mortgage loan? This hairy tactic could help a home buyer get into a Margate home they couldn’t otherwise afford. Reducing monthly payments and stretching it out over 40 yrs, rather than 30.
40 year loans are most popular where housing costs have exceeded a region’s growth rate of income.
- The 40 year loan appeals to first time buyers who hope to buy more home. The lower payment makes handling their first mortgage far more manageable.
- 40 year mortgage offers a fixed rate for a longer period of time. However some of the 40 year loan products are actually balloons, or 40 due in 30 year loans, which are amortized over 40 years but due and payable in 30 years.
Estimates suggest that up to 75% of Margate tax revenue comes from 2nd homeowners. This benevolent group of summer-only residents have virtually no input or voting rights within the city.
‘The committee will look at ways to make Margate more family friendly.’
If these families can’t afford to pay rent/mortgages here, how can they afford to buy stuff here?
$13 sandwiches are not ‘affordable’ to middle-America.
Bad idea. It will attract undesirable people which would decrease the value of our property.
They want to lower the value of homes with affordable housing, to save the over-paid school officials.
The hand writing is on the wall. Protect the school employees. Screw the taxpayer. If you believe this BS they’re feeding you, you are stupid.
Schools are what makes a community great. We have great schools, but it’s expensive.
True enough … if the school age kids keep whittling away … disband and join another school district … or … or… consolidate elementary and middle to one building. … use the other building (we have 2 right ??)) and make it a high school … that way we can charge Ventnor to switch to us rather than pay AC an additional $1 million this year for nothing … and Margate will save as well .. you’ve been handed an opportunity to strengthen your schools due to lower enrollment. … adapt and make the best use of the downturn in school age kids.
Developers and Real Estate Agents are running the town, and destroying it at same time. Every $350,000 to $650,000 home is being torn down and replaced with 6-bedroom, 5-bath weekend $1.6 mil houses.
It’s not rocket science folks. Just look around and see what is being built
Tim J is right on point. Too many affordable homes are being sold to developers and replaced with mega boxes. Instead of 40yr mortgages change zoning rules to allow renovation without raising the house and offer lower interest loans with the commitment to renovate and remain. The school issue is a related but separate challenge that needs to be addressed regardless of any action on real estate demographics.
Great point. Affordable housing isn’t available because it’s scooped up by developers. Raise the bar to development by increasing costs. The extra revenue would pay for the schools.
Schools do make the community, but you only need one school not two with the amount of students you have and the enrollment with be shrinking.
Exactly .. and turn the second building into a high school and bring Ventnor in to hs … win win. For all.
Absolutely correct statement.
Yes, the schools from K-8 are excellent. I know because my son attended them and is now a sophomore at Mainland. He won a spot applying to the Choice lottery.
The point everyone is missing is that no one is going to pay big bucks for a home when the sending school is Atlantic City HS. I don’t want to make this a debate about if the school is good or not. But it is the perception that is an inner city school.
I will add that every one of the Margate school board members with kids in high school send their kids to Ocean City using the Choice program. Note it is a lottery and only a small percentage of applicants are accepted. What does that tell you they don’t send their kids to AC?
Without ‘Choice’, many of us full-time residents would have moved. Gov Christie started it about 8 years ago. Longport applied to have their HS kids go to Ocean City and won. Margate had the chance and blew it (in my opinion).
Without more year-round people, businesses will close over time. What happens to property values then? Margate has been too short sighted with trying to increase tax revenue by building giant homes on every square inch of land. The developers and realtors have owned Margate for many years. Now the can they kicked down the road has landed.
The McMansions bring in great tax revenues. If there wasn’t a market for these types of homes, they wouldn’t get built. Trying to create an artificial market probably will be a disaster. Unfortunately, due to the decline of the Atlantic City Casino industry, full-time housing demand in Margate went down.
Jobs, jobs, jobs. That’s the reason why people no longer live in Margate year round. We need job creation in the county and in the region. Hopefully Gov. Murphy is on his game.
Consolidation is sometimes needed in government to achieve efficiency. I think it’s crazy to allow more density…then it becomes a quality of life issue.
Don’t try to artificially create lower cost housing at the micro level. Try job creation at the macro level.
Since school enrollment is down, take one of the schools and make it into Senior Citizen units for sale or rental.
I am sure many elder residents want to remain in the neighborhood.
Irene Ruzzo
BHHS FoxRoach
Affordable housing in Margate will never be built unless it’s on school property as part of a high density development, if one of closes.
This affordable housing effort is a smoke screen by Margate’s Planning Board to help Ventura’s high-rise plan get approved. Margate City is obligated to have compliant COAH plan in place to show where affordable housing could eventually be built (but in reality, never would be).
If they don’t get a COAH plan in place soon, Ventura’s would be required to provide affordable units in their proposed high-rise. That would effectively kill the project.
The views from Lucy the Elephant that Richard Helfant raves about, will be destroyed forever if anything is built over 40 feet in height at Ventura’s Greenhouse site.
The National Park Service that oversees historic landmarks, and other preservation groups are aware of this. They are prepared to make Margate City the laughing stock of the country when and if an application for a high-rise comes forth.
The 3 Amigos are working behind the scenes again to help facilitate this project. They take the residents of Margate for fools. So sad.