Lawsuits

Suits fly over chip king's beach house

Suits fly over chip king's beach houseA group sued to halt construction of Utz potato chip magnate Michael Rice's mansion in the dunes. Rice is suing Avalon

By Jacqueline L. Urgo
Inquirer Staff Writer

AVALON, N.J. - A group of property owners trying to preserve a coastal anomaly known as the Avalon High Dunes has sued a Pennsylvania potato chip magnate, the borough and New Jersey's Department of Environmental Protection in its latest effort to halt construction of the chip king's 14,000-square-foot beach mansion.

At the same time, Utz Quality Foods president Michael Rice has sued Avalon for denying his application to add one more luxurious amenity to his Dune Drive property - a large swimming pool.

The lawsuits are the latest salvos in a saga that has pitted hundreds of local and summer residents against Rice, and his wife, Jane. Jane Rice is marketing vice president of the Hanover, Pa., snack-maker.

Placard-toting demonstrators, printed flyers and outbursts at municipal meetings denouncing the mansion have punctuated life in the tony beach town for months. The mansion is being built on more than an acre of the Avalon High Dunes - a two-mile stretch of mostly undeveloped sandy grasslands and maritime forests that is one of the few such natural areas left on the East Coast.

The Rices already own one of the largest beach houses in Avalon, a 7,000-square-foot home assessed at $8.75 million, located a few blocks from the new mansion.

Rice's attorney, Richard Hluchan of Voorhees, said this week that the Rices would use the opulent new mansion as a summer residence. Construction began last spring.

"People can oppose whatever they want and say whatever they want about the property, but Mr. Rice has lawful approvals and permits from the DEP and from the borough to continue the construction of his home," Hluchan said. "And he will."

Hluchan said Rice's lawsuit is based on approval the snack king received in 2001 from the DEP to replace a 1,429-square-foot dwelling on the property with a single-family home, swimming pool and cabana.

When completed, Rice's mansion will be six times the size of the average U.S. home and will include 40 rooms, 15 bathrooms, and maids' quarters.

The mansion under construction is a scaled-down version of the 20,000-square-foot home the couple originally wanted to build on the 1.2-acre dune-top property they purchased in 2000 for $3.5 million.

In 2001, the couple reached a legal settlement with the DEP allowing them to build a 14,000-square-foot home on the site.

The mega-size mansion has sparked a trend in Avalon, where the median price of a home is more than $1 million. In the last several months, the borough has fielded applications and queries about construction of other huge homes and restaurants in the dunes and in other areas of the barrier island community.

That has prompted a group of more than 150 property owners called Save Avalon Dunes to kick into high gear.

This summer, members of the group held several demonstrations outside the Rice mansion construction site. The group also tried unsuccessfully to get the borough and the DEP to impose stronger regulations against development in the high dunes area.

But by the end of the summer, SAD founder Elaine Scattergood said the group, now incorporated as a nonprofit, felt it needed to take legal action.

"We don't want to look like Wildwood, and the borough is basically doing nothing to prevent this," Scattergood said. "It's not just this one issue or this one house, it's a pattern of development that could forever change the way Avalon is and has been for a very long time."

The lawsuit seeks to invalidate the April 2001 agreement between Rice and the DEP that allows the construction of the mansion. The suit alleges that the state failed to properly notify Avalon and the public about the agreement as "required by governing regulation" and that the permit was granted without "rational determination that the proposed construction will result in 'minimal practicable degradation' of the High Dunes."

The lawsuit also says the Rice property is subject to the terms of a 1994 state aid agreement between the DEP and Avalon that prohibits the construction of swimming pools, tennis courts and similar structures in the dunes. The agreement was a contingency to Avalon receiving millions in state and federal aid for a beach replenishment project.

Superior Court Judge Steven Perskie this week denied a request by the residents' group to immediately halt construction until the lawsuits are litigated.

Avalon Borough solicitor Stephen Barse declined comment on either lawsuit, as did the DEP