The trustees of the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association haveapproved a plan by Wesley Atlantic Village Enterprises LLC, orWAVE, to redevelop the site with a combination of a hotel, condos,retail and other commercial space, a parking structure and a pool.The approval culminates a several-year process during which some 50developers showed interest in the project, according to ScottRasmussen, president of Ogcma.

The project still has a way to go before ground can be broken,according to William Gannon, a local attorney who heads the WAVEpartnership. The New Jersey DEP has to sign off on it under theCoastal Area Facility Review Act, and additional approvals have tocome from the Monmouth County planning board and the NeptuneTownship zoning board and historic preservation committee.

Ocean Grove was founded by a Methodist group in the 1860s as aChristian meeting camp, and was governed by that group until the1970s when the community was folded into Neptune Twp. One of thelargest collections of Victorian structures in the world, the wholecommunity was put on the National Register of Historic Places morethan 30 years ago. While it is no longer self-governing as amunicipal body, the association still owns all the land in thecommunity and residents lease the land on which their homes sit. Inthe case of the WAVE project, the association has agreed to a99-year renewable lease, the terms of which were not disclosed.