History of the OGHOA
A Brief History of the Ocean Grove Community Association
TODAY
The Ocean Grove Home Owners’ Association (OGHOA) voted to include long term renters in November of 2024 and to use the d/b/a or nickname of the Ocean Grove Community Association (OGCA) to reflect that change. Starting in 2025, we are known as the OGCA.
THE BEGINNING
The “Ocean Grove Home Owners Association” was organized in 1953, and was incorporated in 1987.
Beginning in the second half of the twentieth century, Ocean Grove experienced dramatic and wrenching change brought on by a combination of external and structural factors. American society became increasingly secularized after World War I, reducing the appeal of a religious resort like Ocean Grove. The completion of the Garden State Parkway in 1957, made New Jersey’s seaside resorts more widely accessible to the population of the New York metropolitan area. Although Ocean Grove and Asbury Park lobbied for the completion of the Parkway, they neglected to secure a local route that would provide a direct connection to the Parkway. As a result, many vacationers bypassed the area for more accessible communities to the south. Finally, and ironically, the addition of Ocean Grove to the National Register of Historic Places, in 1976, and the first attempts at renovation guidelines, made it more difficult and expensive to repair and renovate the town’s Victorian structures.
By the late 1970s, Ocean Grove was home to numerous decaying houses and hotels. Challenges to its continued viability were multiplied by the accelerating de-institutionalization of patients who had been housed in State institutions. Ocean Grove’s large stock of nearly empty hotels and boarding houses made it a favored destination for State agencies charged with finding housing for the newly discharged residents of State homes and hospitals. Because landlords were paid on a per capita basis to house the deinstitutionalized people, some landlords housed as many persons as possible, leading to dangerous and unhygienic conditions at many former hotels and boarding houses in Ocean Grove.
By the early 1980s, Ocean Grove faced with an existential challenge to its continuing viability and quality of life. In response to the challenge, the Ocean Grove Home Owners Association organized an aggressive, disciplined and well-planned assault on the issues facing Ocean Grove.
The OGHOA began by gaining access to local government by securing the appointment of several of its members to major Township committees, and supporting other members to successfully run for elected office. By 1985, the Mayor, Police Chief and more than half of the members of the Township Committee were residents of Ocean Grove and members of the OGHOA. The OGHOA capitalized on its roots as a social organization to generate goodwill by organizing monthly town meetings, community breakfasts and holiday celebrations. Key to its impact was the development of strong working relationships with local and state government officials through regular meetings, support of candidates and persistent lobbying. The OGHOA made visible its growing influence in Neptune Township by orchestrating rapid and highly visible physical improvements to the Ocean Grove landscape, including street repairs, additional street lighting and decorative plantings in prominent locations. In addition, the OGHOA secured the removal of benches from Main Avenue in order to discourage vagrants from sleeping in public.
The OGHOA was the driving force in addressing the issues created by housing a large number of people who had been discharged from State homes and hospitals. The OGHOA argued that clustering large numbers of former patients at State homes and hospitals within a small geographic area that lacked the infrastructure and social services needed to serve this population was a disservice to them and an unfair burden on Ocean Grove. The Association suggested that housing former patients of State homes and hospitals in substandard and overcrowded boarding houses was shortsighted and cruel.
By focusing public attention on the housing conditions of those discharged from State homes and hospitals, the OGHOA forced the closure of the four largest and most unsafe rooming houses. The OGHOA lobbied for passage of a bill that transferred licensing and regulation of boarding and rooming houses to local governments. The bill was passed in 1993, and Herb Herbst, then president of the OGHOA, became the first chairman of the Neptune Township Rooming and Boarding House Commission.
Throughout its existence, the OGHOA has focused on improving and maintaining property values in Ocean Grove. To that end, the OGHOA leveraged the designation of Ocean Grove as a historic site to encourage Neptune Township to create an Architectural Review Board to monitor all restoration and new construction within Ocean Grove. The Board, which was created in 1984, is now known as the Historic Preservation Commission, and it is a key factor in maintaining the architectural integrity of Ocean Grove. In addition, the OGHOA formulated a detailed proposal for a new master plan for Ocean Grove designed to protect the historic character of the town by maintaining lot sizes, limiting the height of structures and rezoning the entire town, except for Main Avenue, for single family homes. The plan formulated by the OGHOA was adopted as part of the Neptune Township Master Plan in 1990.
Since 1990, the OGHOA has worked to maintain the historic character of Ocean Grove; increase and improve the availability of parking for residents; insure that short term rental properties do not harm the quality of life for residents, and other issues impacting the quality of life for residents of Ocean Grove. In short, the OGHOA has continued to focus on what matters most to the residents of Ocean Grove: maintaining property values; improving the quality of life and protecting the historic architectural legacy of Ocean Grove.