When sun worshippers, homebuyers, restaurateurs and other investors began realizing that Asbury Park had a perfectly good beach barely an hour from the Holland Tunnel, with vintage arcades and a rock 'n roll shrine to boot, city officials adopted a Waterfront Redevelopment Plan in 2002 to guide what would finally prove to be the faded tourist town's long-awaited resurgence.



But after 16 years of new restaurants, new condos and increasingly crowded streets, beaches and boardwalks, community activists, environmentalists and others say the redevelopment plan is now hopelessly out of date.

It's precisely because Asbury Park has changed so dramatically since 2002 that the city council approved a resolution last week demanding that the waterfront's designated developer, Manhattan-based iStar, halt work on a boardwalk replacement project that was included in the redevelopment plan, and that iStar reconsider other components of the plan that critics say run counter to environmental concerns and the city's core value of inclusiveness.

The Nov. 8 resolution cites the public's opposition to the plan over "environmental concerns, public access, loss of public beach, loss of public space, and loss of public boardwalk," as cause to order the developer to "cease and desist" the project, and redesign the Boardwalk Improvement Plan.

Kathleen Mumma, an Asbury Park resident and member of the newly formed Save Asbury's Waterfront coalition opposing the boardwalk project and others pitched by iStar under the redevelopment plan, said heavy equipment was removed from the site a day after the council adopted the resolution.

"We are happy," said Mumma, expressing cautious optimism. "After every mountain there's another mountain."

A lawyer for iStar who was at the Nov. 8 meeting, Jennifer P. Smith, did not respond to requests for comment. A spokeswoman for the company later contacted NJ Advance Media, asking that questions be submitted in writing, then failed to answer them.

The demand was prompted by an outcry from the coalition, which includes residents and advocates for the environment and beach access, who were alarmed by iStar's removal of a four-block stretch of boardwalk last month between Convention Hall and the city's northern border with Loch Arbour, and by other waterfront projects permitted under the redevelopment plan.

IStar had been working on a project to replace the straight, 25-foot-wide boardwalk with a narrower walkway that would meander through an area of natural and man-made dunes and link to a paved parking lot containing more than 100 spaces where a gravel lot has been.

Apart from the boardwalk project, the coalition also opposes a 15-unit townhouse development known as Bradley Cove, as well as a private beachfront pool club. Both are projects envisioned by iStar under the redevelopment plan that coalition members say would threaten the environment and beach access.

"The old plan is (16) years old, and should be reviewed in light of Asbury Park's needs today, and in a future informed by Sandy and climate change among other things," American Littoral Society director Tim Dillingham, a coalition member, said in an email, referring to the waterfront's devastation during Hurricane Sandy in 2012.

"We want to ensure broad public access and use along and to the beach is protected, and enhanced where possible. Also, environmental impacts on Deal Lake from stormwater, and the dunes and beach need to be addressed."

Deputy Mayor Amy Quinn, who voted in favor of the resolution with Mayor John Moor and the city's three other council members, said Monday that the city had reached out to iStar to set up a meeting on revisiting the development plan, but had not heard back from the company.

Quinn could not say just what the city would do if the developer defied the council's demand to halt work or insisted on its right to proceed with projects outlined under the redevelopment plan.

"I don't know," Quinn said. "Do I want to spend taxpayer dollars and get involved in a lawsuit that we may lose?"

Pat Fasano, another developer and property owner in Asbury Park, said losing in court is just what the city would do if it tries to keep iStar from moving forward with projects permitted under a redevelopment plan the company has been legally designated to carry out.

"I'm not surprised iStar's following the plan," said Fasano. "That's their mandate."

Quinn said what's happening on Asbury Park's north end was symptomatic of the city's steady growth of the past two decades. It's a process Quinn referred to as a "renaissance" but others call gentrification.

Some of the very things that have helped drive Asbury Park's resurgence have now been threatened by the rising property values, development and exclusivity that have followed: the city's art and music scene -- anchored by the Stone Pony and its reputation as a rock 'n roll cradle for Bruce Springsteen and other acts; and its diversity of races, socioeconomic levels and sexual orientation.

Other recent manifestations of the same dynamic have included a failed ballot proposal by activists from the city's predominantly African-American west side to change the city council to a ward-based system in order to enhance representation of a part of town that has lagged behind the waterfront and downtown sections in the city's boom. Another is a controversial ban on "aggressive panhandling" approved last month by the council but opposed by civil libertarians.

"Yes, I think there are some growing pains," Quinn acknowledged. "I think Asbury Park has gone through a revitalization, and what we want to make sure of as we go through this renaissance is that the people who have remained in Asbury Park are part of it."

Steve Strunsky may be reached at sstrunsky@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @SteveStrunsky. Find NJ.com on Facebook