By Allison Perrine
ATLANTIC HIGHLANDS – Nearly eight years later, the last rebuild of Super Storm Sandy is underway at the Atlantic Highlands harbor, with a new building under construction for the towboat and public restroom facilities.
The building will also include office space for the marine division of the New Jersey State Police, according to Adam Hubeny, borough administrator and office of emergency management coordinator. The NJSP currently has three or four boats in the harbor and will lease office space on the second floor of the facility.
The borough started designing the plan in 2016 after going back and forth with Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) for almost three years regarding the elevations of the building. According to Hubeny, the new floodplain ordinances and base flood elevation maps in the borough do not allow permanent restrooms to be installed under the base flood elevation. That would require the borough to put bathrooms on the second floor of the building, which Hubeny said did not make sense.
Since then, the agencies agreed on a plan for office space on the second floor and moveable trailer bathrooms outside the building. That way, if the borough is expecting a major storm like another Super Storm Sandy, officials can hook the trailers up to a truck using “quick connects” and tow them to higher ground. The borough is currently out to bid for these trailers.
“Like at a campground, it’s a trailer but they’re bathrooms,” said Hubeny. And some are so well-appointed, people might not recognize them as trailers from the inside, he added. “That’s how nice they are.”
The borough is working with Eli Goldstein from the Maplewood-based Goldstein Partnership architectural firm for the work. Goldstein was also hired for the borough’s renovation work on the municipal building in 2010.
Now, the fate of the towboat building project lies in the hands of FEMA. According to Hubeny, the borough rejected bids for the work in 2018 and 2019 after they came in too high. Then, at the end of 2019, the borough bid the project again and received the lowest bid of $1.265 million. Officials decided to appeal to FEMA for more money.
According to Hubeny, the project will require additional funding so that the building can be constructed properly and meet the new codes and standards as required by the flood elevation maps. The borough at first received just under $1 million in funding and has since appealed for more. Officials are now finalizing a letter to send back to FEMA after receiving a request for more information, dated April 29, Hubeny said.
“It has not provided us with the amount of money that we need to bring the building into compliance with today’s codes and standards,” said Hubeny. Hopefully, FEMA will “do what’s right.”
The article originally appeared in the May 28 – June 3, 2020 print edition of The Two River Times.
