Ocean County Engineering Department

It took 5 full months to resolve an issue that the repair companies quotes a half day to complete.nnI recently purchased an investment property and inquired to the town about some water buildup at the end of my driveway. After emailing and calling the town for numerous weeks the town investigated the issue and provided an extremely vague explanation stating “Repairs and maintenance past the edge of the roadway is the responsibility of the homeowner”, yet the water buildup extended beyond the edge of the roadway and into the street. They said it was required that I apply for an Road Opening Permit to do any maintenance on the driveway. I inquired about the permit application and received very little response regarding any questions I asked. Once I completed permit as instructed I emailed it to the town, the front desk told me the file needed to be printed on legal paper. I did not have a printer at the time and instead of printing the completed application they said they would mail me the application and asked me to fill it out again. Not sure why they were unable to print the completed document the way they needed it. After two weeks I called back to let them know I never received the application in the mail, and their suggestion was to mail another application. The next day I received the application in the mail and drove 45 minutes to personally deliver the application to avoid any additional loss of time. The town then required a certificate of insurance from the company repairing the driveway. I spoke with 4 local companies that repair these residential driveways and each one said this was not required for any job they have done similar to this and was completely unnecessary. It took another 2 weeks to sort that out. Once the town received all of the documents to approve the permit, there was no response for another 2 weeks. After asking for an update on the permit multiple times I was not provided with an update on the application. It took 28 days for the application to be approved. Overall you can understand the frustration. This is an unfortunate situation and personally a strong disincentive for any future investment in this town.