Neptune runs from Deal Lake on one side to the Shark River on the other. Lake overtopping and tight Victorian lots in Ocean Grove drive a different mix of calls than the post-war stock elsewhere in the township.
Permits & codes
In Ocean Grove, you own the house and lease the ground
Ocean Grove is a section of Neptune Township, and the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association still owns the land under it — buyers take a 99-year renewable lease on the ground rather than the freehold. It is also a designated state and national historic district holding the largest collection of Victorian and early-20th-century architecture in the United States, alongside 114 surviving tent cottages. Work that changes the outside of a building here can answer to more than the township construction office, so it is worth establishing who has to approve what before anything is ordered.
Source: Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association; New Jersey Monthly — Ocean Grove tent colony; National Register historic district listing
Drainage & flood
Two watersheds, and the lakes are the problem
Neptune sits on the Deal Lake watershed at its northern end and the Shark River at its southern. Deal Lake is the largest coastal lake in New Jersey at 158 acres, only five or six feet deep, and managed by a commission representing the seven towns around it because no single municipality can fix it alone. When the lakes come up they come up fast — the 2018 event put water through streets in Neptune, Ocean Township, Interlaken and Asbury Park at once.
Source: Deal Lake Commission (deallake.org); NJDEP Deal Lake Watershed Plan
Housing stock
Victorian cottages on lots that were never meant for plant
The Ocean Grove housing stock is late-1800s Methodist-retreat cottages on very narrow lots, packed tight with little side access and original layouts still largely intact. That constrains the work more than the age does: getting a water heater, a bath or a run of pipe into the building is often the hard part of the job, and the rest of the township is ordinary post-war stock by comparison.
Source: BHHS Fox & Roach — Ocean Grove neighbourhood guide; New Jersey Monthly
