The New Jersey Shore town of Belmar New Jersey has launched a website called Belmarrentals411.com.
The purpose of this site is to inform the residents and renters of the variance rules and regulations for renting a home in the borough.
For years, the town was mostly a summer destination for many. Small bungalows, great beaches and bars were to be found. Over the past several years, with shore home and land prices increasing, the town has been evolving. Those little bungalows have been razed for 3 story homes. The number of rental units went from around 1000 units to 320. The goal of the administration was to upgrade the image of the town by ridding itself of he summer renters or rowdies.
The amusement center was sold. With it, minigolf. In it's place, several multimillion dollar homes.
Mcdonalds on the boardwalk left after its lease ended.
Don't get this wrong.Belmar is still a fun town. You jsut have to be a good renter.
Following is a response to the website that appeared in the local paper, the Asbury Park Press.
The Belmar Rental 411.com Web site does nothing but further prove that Belmar is using public funds to contribute to a pattern of segregation between homeowners and landlords who rent their homes to summer renters.
It amazes me that Belmar, which in 2001 was fined $14,000 in New Jersey Superior Court for violating the federal Fair Housing Act, continues to push the envelope with its Rental 411.com Web site hosted on our municipal Web site using taxpayer dollars.
Attorneys general throughout the United States have been fighting housing segregation for years, but it is now OK for a public entity to violate property owners' civil rights.
If you're only a landlord/taxpayer and rent your home out in the summer, you're now added to a special Belmar Web site list. All the other property owners in Belmar won't make it.
The Web site allows anyone to zoom in on a satellite picture of the borough's 320 summer rental homes to a street-level view of selected homes. Those viewing the site can click on the selected homes earmarked with a color and a window opens up displaying: the property owner's name, property location, number of noise violations, picture of the landlord's property and amount of bond that has been posted due to violations. Some pictures are of the homeowner's garbage cans, etc.
The Rental 411 Web site is reminiscent of how Hitler's Germany would most likely have segregated its population using today's technology. The site further assigns the rentals into colors and characterizations: the cop with the night stick (very bad), red (bad), yellow (close to bad) and blue ( good).
Absent from the Rental 411 Web site are things that people in Belmar would really like to see. Maybe orange could be used to flag the properties where drugs have been found or where a recent arrest was made. Black could flag a list of properties where sex offenders are living, and gray a list of wife beaters' homes. Maybe a passport image could be placed over the homes where illegal immigrants are known to be living, since they tax the schools with their children. Purple could flag the restaurants where the Board of Health found violations.
Brown could flag properties of year-round homeowners who rake their leaves in the street. Bright green could flag the public officials' homes, who are paid high salaries to think of Web sites such as this one. A beer bottle character with a rose could be used to flag all the bars in town that have been given sweet deals instead of closure. Foreign flags could be set up to identify the Irish, Italians and every other nationality. Maybe a new deadbeat character could be designed to designate the homes and property owners who owe the town back taxes, water bills or are deadbeat dads.
Where will it end? Once a pattern of segregation is supported by your local government, you and every citizen of the United States are the ones who are impacted and at risk. It's only time before you make the next list of segregation.
Lastly, just how new is the information on the Rental 411's site? I was astonished to see the home of a friend, Robert Sullivan, a veteran Jersey City police officer, on the red or bad list. Especially, since he has not rented his home in more than two years and died in the spring of 2006.
Not only is segregation going on in Belmar, but there is a lack of respect for its citizens who have met the supreme commander after years of public service.
Kevin J. Devine
BELMAR
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