OCEAN CITY — As a kid growing up in the city, Dave Fuschillo recalled in a recent interview, his mom was always busy.

A lifelong Quaker, Jean Cooper Fuschillo campaigned for multiple causes, including working against pesticide use and advocating for solar energy.

“She was into so many things,” Dave Fuschillo said. Now 66, Fuschillo described a childhood of community meetings, people gathered at their house and organizing efforts, which only became more intense with the construction of the Gardens Plaza at 921 Park Place, looming over the north end of the Boardwalk at more than 14 stories.

The building opened more than 50 years ago, an anniversary that condo owners celebrated at an event at the Ocean City Yacht Club. While it was under construction, the size of the structure galvanized local efforts to limit high-rise development.

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“I remember the line, ‘We don’t want to be Ocean City, Maryland,'” Fuschillo said.

In the early 1970s, that line helped motivate an effort to limit building heights in Ocean City. In the decades to come, storms and amendments to local, state and federal rules changed those height limits more than once.

A proposal for a new hotel on the Boardwalk has a new generation of activists campaigning, but rising seas, and the state response to that potential, may have a more lasting impact on the community.

Things change, then change again

The two seaside communities in New Jersey and Maryland share a name, and some history. Both began as resorts in the late 19th century, both looked to railroads to bring visitors each summer before the automobile became commonplace.

But Ocean City, Maryland, remained relatively remote before World War II. The completion of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge in the 1950s and the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel in the 1960s literally paved the way for a wave of development, and as the 1970s began, more than a dozen high-rise buildings went up along the coast.

Some people in Ocean City, New Jersey, saw the rapid development as a dire warning.

John Loeper, an Ocean City historian who worked on the creation of the city’s Historic District and currently leads the city Planning Board, recalls the rallying cry of not wanting to be like Ocean City, Maryland.

Other multistory structures, like The Flanders and Port-O-Call hotels, predate many zoning laws. In the 1930s, the city’s zoning ordinance took up just a few pages, Loeper said.

“Gardens Plaza was the last high-rise building built in Ocean City. That was the death knell for high-rises on the beach,” Loeper said in a recent interview.

Building height became a focus for city zoning, but there were complications, Loeper said. For one thing, Ocean City’s ground elevation is highest on the ocean side, and slopes down from there toward the bay.

At one time, height limits were based on the crown of the road closest to the structure. There are other means of measuring, including based on the mean high-water mark.

Fuschillo, who built homes in Ocean City and in other shore communities, said the city’s zoning laws could be tough to navigate and changed often. In some instances, he said, the limits on building heights led to contractors including parking areas below grade to allow parking space under the home while still meeting height limits.

In the fall of 2012, Superstorm Sandy washed away beaches, flooded streets and damaged many homes. One of its lasting impacts has been to wash away height limits.

“Sandy really changed everything,” Loeper said. “Everything is going higher since Sandy, and there’s no way to change that.”

After Sandy, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, through the National Flood Insurance Program, sought to have new construction in flood zones built above base flood elevation, in essence above the level of what is described as a hundred-year storm, one that has a 1% chance of happening in a given year.

Ocean City added another two feet, meaning the first habitable space in new homes started about a half a story up. Existing homes were lifted above base flood elevations, and new construction included that space, which meant the same two or three stories of living space were now that much farther above the ground.

In some neighborhoods, especially where few houses were lifted, new construction towers over the old, even as the housing market pushes for more living space within that envelope.

New state rules under consideration could push those rooflines even higher.

Till there’s no more room up there

In 2024, the state Department of Environmental Protection opened public comment on new flood protection rules, ones that did not only react to floods, but anticipated future sea level rise connected to global climate change, anticipating more than 5 feet of rise by the end of the century.

Cape May County fought hard against the new rules during the public comment period, and Ocean City attorney Dottie McCrosson said at a recent City Council meeting that there may be legal action to forestall the new regulations, but that the city has to proceed as if they are going to go into effect. She said the new regulations, as proposed, would have a profound effect on Ocean City and surrounding communities.

“The immediate impacts on Ocean City will be an increase in the height of our buildings,” she told council members. That could mean a period of adjustment, just as happened after Sandy. The potential effect could be living space that begins at base flood elevation plus five more feet.

One issue will be getting people in and out of their homes. That will mean longer staircases, and in many more cases, elevators in single-family structures, which can add a significant expense for new construction.

Building codes are also different for private homes than other buildings. At the building heights that could result from the new rules, new homes could be tall enough to require sprinkler systems, which will mean another additional cost for construction.

“We’re working through the immediate issues,” McCrosson said.

Allowable building heights vary depending on the zone, the lot size and other factors, according to Ocean City spokesman Doug Bergen. With the allowable heights of houses now based on base flood elevation, he said, low-elevation neighborhoods like Ocean City Homes or Merion Park may see the start of the habitable portion of a structure at nine or 10 feet off the ground.

"An elevated home the same size as its neighbor appeared to stretch much higher," Bergen said. "In addition to the visual impact, the new requirements led to practical considerations. How do you construct a staircase that doesn't stretch into the street or a neighbor's yard? Are there required zoning setback laws that now contradict required zoning height laws? Would it even be possible to construct a handicapped ramp? Would it require an elevator? Would that be affordable? The list goes on."

Higher and higher

In public presentations, developer Eustace Mita used the Gardens Plaza as a benchmark for the height of his proposed hotel at the site of the former Gillian's Wonderland at Sixth Street and the Boardwalk, with the height of his proposal shown as a red line about halfway up the side of the building.

So far, the plans for Icona in Wonderland presented to the public are conceptual. No formal proposal has been presented to council, and no drawings have been submitted to the Planning Board. The next step in what promises to be a long process seeking local approvals for the controversial proposal is expected in March.

Opponents of the plan still cite Ocean City, Maryland, as the fate they want Ocean City, New Jersey, to avoid, raising the specter of a wall of waterfront development along the beach.

No one from the Gardens Plaza board responded to a request for an interview. The listed prices for the condos in the building run from more than $500,000 to close to $700,000, and there are 184 units in the building.

Fuschillo's mother died in 2005. He found an undated document in which she describes the fight against overdevelopment in the early 1970s. She states that by that time, there were few lots left to build on in Ocean City.

“Unfortunately, our city in that year was vulnerable to unchecked, unwanted development since there existed no ordinance restricting building height or the number of dwelling units,” she wrote. “Quite clearly, it was time to act, and act quickly.”

Loeper said he had to be careful not to discuss any proposals that might come before the Planning Board, but could talk about the history of building and zoning rules in the city.

“Height has always been a hot-button issue,” he said. But he does not believe development is necessarily unwanted. Ocean City is, in fact, a city, he said, one founded as a religious retreat but also as a development opportunity.

“We’ve been tightly built since day one,” he said. “It has always been densely populated.”

When people bought land after the city’s founding, along with restrictions on alcohol and other covenants, there was a clause that stated the owner had three years to begin construction.

Within a few years, there were thousands of houses, and by the 1930s, there were triplexes and large hotels in operation. Ocean City’s founders wanted it to prosper and grow, Loeper said.

Aside from Corsons Inlet State Park and other specifically preserved areas, there are still few buildable lots in Ocean City that do not have a structure on them.

That’s one reason Loeper sees any city investment in open land as a good idea.

“Every piece of open space that it can, the city should buy it,” he said. “The land is only going to become more valuable.”

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