An underlying social condition in Asbury Park is being exacerbated by a membership-based pool club on the land east of Ocean Avenue between Sixth and Seventh avenues.
Waterfront developers iStar and Madison Marquette gained approval for the pool club through an outdated 2002 Waterfront Redevelopment Agreement and a 2004 dated CAFRA permit. The pool club parcel was not in the FEMA VE Zone when the permit was issued. It is now in a high flood area because of flooding caused by superstorm Sandy in 2012, and as recent as 2018 due to the effects of climate change.
The history of beach/swimming clubs shows racial segregation in Asbury Park and the nation. Even after Jim Crow laws were abolished, segregated swimming facilities remained in New Jersey until the 1970s. A membership-based beach club is an insult to the majority of our low-income year-round residents. The majority of Asbury Park’s year-round residents are African American or Hispanic/Latino.
More than 70 percent of them cannot afford daily or seasonal beach passes to swim in our ocean or sit and play on our public beaches. They wait until lifeguards leave in order to enjoy one of the treasures of our coastal city. In addition, a pool club brings back memories of denied access to a public pool on the public beach in the 1950s.
A membership-based pool club will only serve our wealthier residents, who already have pools in their condo complexes or can afford to put them in their backyards. Membership in the pool/beach club will not be available to the majority of Asbury Park’s year-round residents. Rising rents, home ownership costs, taxes and lack of affordable housing is already displacing many of the city’s residents from the waterfront area.
The undercurrent of a membership-based pool/beach club is socioeconomic segregation. It runs counter to the pride that Asbury Park takes in being a culturally and economically diverse city. Building a membership-based pool/club on a possible illegal land acquisition or conveyance of a once public land parcel on Asbury’s oceanfront is shameful.