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Ventnor Planning Board OKs 32 more condos on Ventnor Ave.

VENTNOR - The Planning Board cleared the way Wednesday for a developer to build 32 condo units at the corner of Ventnor and Nashville avenues, directly across the city's main commercial street from a 24-unit condo project the board OK'd last month.
/ Source: The Press of Atlantic City

VENTNOR - The Planning Board cleared the way Wednesday for a developer to build 32 condo units at the corner of Ventnor and Nashville avenues, directly across the city's main commercial street from a 24-unit condo project the board OK'd last month.

The members voted 7-0 to give a series of zoning variances that will allow Mark Alsentzer to create a five-story project called La Costa, with 48 enclosed parking spots on the first floor and coverings over several top-floor porches that will make those sections 2 feet higher than the city's redevelopment zoning normally allows.

The approval for what the board chairman called a "key site" in the redevelopment zone also overrode several setbacks and size limitations included in the area's zoning. Jay Cooke, the chairman, said he voted to grant the requests because Alsentzer - who is also approved to build the 24 condos across the street on the ocean side of Ventnor Avenue - wants to bring an "aesthetically pleasing, motivating, revitalizing project" to an area of the city that needs it.

But three residents of the neighborhood, two of them from Nashville Avenue, complained that the building would bring in too much density and create new problems for their block.

"The traffic and parking is going to be horrendous," Angelo Tabasco said.

Linda Roy, who lives right across the street, said her proposed neighbor "just seems so big and so tall and so in-your-face. ... We're going from three houses to 32 units."

And several board officials expressed concerns with the project's effect on the neighbors, but all of them argued that it's a big improvement for the area and the city.

Bert Sabo, a board member who's also Ventnor's fire chief, acknowledged that "parking there in the core area of Ventnor is tough."

But he noted as he voted that the Ventnor-Nashville corner was the longtime home of Lou's Restaurant, which had more than 100 seats, served three meals a day for years and had no parking of its own.

"I think it would have been a lot easier to sell this (idea) if Lou's still existed," he said.

ayor Tim Kreischer added later that the corner is now an empty lot because Alsentzer, the owner, knocked down the long-closed Lou's after the city asked him to.

"I don't think he should be penalized for that," the mayor said.

The proposed project is for an odd-sized, roughly L-shaped lot that will run the length of the block from Nashville to Oakland avenues off Ventnor Avenue, but leaves a recently refurbished, three-story brick building at the corner of Ventnor and Oakland in place.

To e-mail Martin DeAngelis at The Press:

MDeangelis@pressofac.com