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About 115 area residents attended a community interest session at Asbury Park’s ShowRoom Cinema Tuesday night to hear details of three projects being proposed by one of the Rebuild by Design teams at work in Asbury Park.

With the main theatre at capacity before the start of the meeting, event organizers had to split the one two-hour session into two one-hour sessions to accommodate everyone who showed up.

The sessions outlined the three projects designers and researchers from “The Sasaki Team” want to implement in Asbury Park. The Sasaki team comes to Asbury Park through the regional Rebuild by Design competition, an initiative of President Obama’s Hurricane Sandy Task Force and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Other teams are working in other Sandy-affected areas, with the furthest north in Bridgeport, Conn.

The Sasaki team is made up of individuals from diverse planning, research and design backgrounds from Sasaki Associates, Rutgers University and Arup design consultants. Besides Asbury Park, the group also has project proposals in Union Beach and Toms River.

All of the projects are focused on remarrying the natural ecology with the unique cultural elements in the areas, according to Brie Hensold, a senior urban planner and project manager with Sasaki Associates.

For Asbury Park, one project would see the boardwalk at the northernmost and southernmost ends become a dune-boardwalk hybrid. The traditionally straight boardwalk would instead weave to create pockets that would trap sand that could then be anchored down with plants to create a natural dune, she said.

A second project seeks to bridge the divide between East and West sides of the city, Hensold said. It focuses on beautification and flood control of streets that run east-to-west in the city through the creation of hyper-absorbent streetscapes.

The third project would see the hard edges of retaining walls on Deal Lake replaced with bioengineered edges that create more natural slopes to attract species, said Hensold.

Any one of the projects, or all of them, has the potential to be funded since the competition does not operate in the sense of a true competition with one winner and several losers. Instead, it is more of a challenge, according to Courtney Smith, a project manager with the Municipal Arts Society, one of the managing partners of the overall competition.

Between 3-5 billion dollars of Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery funds have been earmarked for the competition, Hensold said.

Essentially, there is enough funding so that as many good and fundable designs can be implemented, said Alexis Taylor, a project manager for the Rebuild by Design Competition.

Asbury Park was chosen for its unique urban landscape on the Jersey Shore, vulnerability, divided urban fabric and culture and dead ecologies, Hensold said.

If the projects are successful, Asbury Park would then become an example of unique and storm-resilient design ideas to be replicated across coastal areas along the eastern seaboard.

Concerns from residents include the narrowing of streets that would take place if the hyper-absorbent streetscapes were implemented, how the funding mechanism would work and how the teams would work with individual municipalities to see the ideas realized.

Funding mechanisms have not been fully worked out and actual implementation would not take place for a few years, said Hensold.

Overall, most responded positively to the ideas presented.

“I think this is a tremendous opportunity for Asbury Park,” said city resident Gail Helfrick, who was excited at the potential to encourage a “better living atmosphere by cross-pollinating both sides of the city” through the beautification of east-to-west streetscapes.

“I’m really excited about this project,” said Councilwoman Amy Quinn, who attended the event. “This has the potential to take Asbury Park to the next level and to secure millions of dollars to improve the infrastructure of the city.”

“It’s an amazing opportunity for Asbury Park to increase its ability to deal with major storm events and control flooding to its streets and lakes,” said Joe Woerner, a city resident and member of the Surfrider Foundation. “One encouraging piece of this design is that it is not focused on the beaches but incorporates both the west and east sides of the city.”

All of the projects will be put through a juried review in the months ahead, and community support is a needed element for the group to get the projects funded, Taylor said.

Comprehensive feedback on all of the projects is exactly what the group is looking for, according to Smith, who said any information or concerns can be emailed to info@rebuildbydesign.org.

On March 22 the team will lead residents on a informational walking tour/parade starting from St. Stephen’s AME Zion Church at noon. The route ends at Langosta Lounge where another informational event will be held from 2 to 4 p.m.

The group has created an interactive tool that acts as a survey to gauge the public’s preferences for preservation, and what projects and policies they prioritize. Click here to access the tool.

On April 3, all of the projects in the regional competition will be displayed in two locations, one in New York and one in New Jersey, possibly at Liberty Science Center.

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