Seawalls and Bulkheads in Harvey Cedars, New Jersey

A Small Borough Where Water Outweighs Land

Harvey Cedars sits on Long Beach Island in Ocean County, fronting both the Atlantic Ocean and Barnegat Bay, and bordering Barnegat Township, Long Beach Township, and Stafford Township. Its total area is 1.19 square miles, but only 0.56 of that is land. The remaining 0.63 square miles, 52.61% of the borough, is water. That is a majority-water footprint, a genuine distinction from the mostly-land geography of its southern neighbors Ship Bottom and Surf City. A town where more than half the map is ocean and bay is a town for which shoreline infrastructure is not a side issue.

The borough is also tiny by population: 391 residents at the 2020 census, up from 337 in 2010, though the summer population swells to roughly 12,000, since the large majority of Harvey Cedars' housing stock is seasonal, owned by people who live elsewhere most of the year. A small, low-density, high-value, majority-water beach town is exactly the kind of place where a single storm-protection decision, and a single lawsuit over it, can become the defining local story about what shoreline protection actually costs.

What Bulkheads and Seawalls Actually Are, in General Terms

In general shore-protection terminology, a bulkhead is a retaining wall built at or near the water's edge, meant primarily to hold back land and prevent erosion behind it, often serving as the bank between a developed lot and open water. A seawall is typically a more substantial structure built to absorb and deflect wave energy directly, more common where a property faces open ocean or bay wave action than the calmer conditions a bulkhead usually handles. A protective dune, the specific structure at the center of Harvey Cedars' own most famous shore-protection story, is a different category again: an engineered, vegetated sand berm built up along the ocean side of a beach to absorb and block storm surge and wave action before it reaches homes.

This page will not describe a specific material, height, footing depth, or permitted design for a bulkhead, seawall, or dune project on a particular Harvey Cedars parcel, because current construction standards and NJ DEP coastal-zone requirements were not confirmed in this research pass, and those rules vary by exact location and change over time. Anyone planning new construction, repair, or replacement of a shoreline structure in Harvey Cedars needs current, parcel-specific answers from Harvey Cedars' own Construction Office and from the NJ DEP, not a general description like the one above.

The Karan Case: What a 22-Foot Dune Actually Cost

The clearest, most concrete illustration of what shore-protection infrastructure can cost a specific property owner in Harvey Cedars is not a permit fee schedule. It is Borough of Harvey Cedars v. Karan, decided by the New Jersey Supreme Court on July 8, 2013. Harvey and Phyllis Karan owned an oceanfront home on an 11,868-square-foot lot in the borough. As part of a federal, state, and local beach-restoration and storm-protection project, Harvey Cedars sought a perpetual easement over 3,381 square feet of the Karans' lot, more than a quarter of their property, to build a 22-foot-high protective dune. The Karans had rejected the borough's original offer of $300 for the easement. When they refused to consent, the borough exercised eminent domain, and the resulting dune obstructed the panoramic ocean view from the upper decks of their home.

A jury awarded the Karans $375,000 in just compensation, measuring the difference between the property's fair market value immediately before and immediately after the taking. The Borough appealed, and the legal question that reached the New Jersey Supreme Court was whether courts may weigh non-speculative, calculable benefits of a public storm-protection project, meaning the value the dune itself added by protecting the remaining property, against the compensation owed for the taking, even when other property owners in town enjoyed the same protective benefit. The Court reversed and remanded for a new trial, holding that such benefits must be considered when they are non-speculative and reasonably calculable, regardless of whether the whole community shares in them.

The case ultimately settled in September 2013 for exactly $1 in compensation for the easement, a resolution widely reported by the Associated Press, CBS Philadelphia, the Press of Atlantic City, NJ Spotlight News, and Fox News. A couple who turned down a $300 offer, fought it to the New Jersey Supreme Court, and won a jury verdict of $375,000, ultimately settled for a single dollar. That outcome is not a cautionary tale about litigation; it is a real, decided precedent about how New Jersey courts now weigh the value of storm protection itself when a municipality takes part of an oceanfront lot to build it. Nothing about the underlying property-rights-versus-public-benefit policy debate is taken up here; the case is fully resolved, decided by the state's highest court and settled.

A Storm History That Explains Why the Borough Built the Dune

The dune at the center of the Karan case was not built on a whim. Harvey Cedars has its own catastrophic storm history, separate from the Hurricane Sandy comparisons that apply to its LBI neighbors. In 1944, a major hurricane struck the borough with little advance warning, destroying 20% of homes in Harvey Cedars and causing significant beach erosion; a real oceanfront pavilion built by Jason Fenimore was destroyed in that storm.

The more severe event came in March 1962: a nor'easter often called the Storm of the Century, also known regionally as the Ash Wednesday Storm, which destroyed approximately 350 homes in Harvey Cedars, about 50% of the borough's ratables. That damage total earned Harvey Cedars the specific, sourced distinction of being the most heavily-damaged town on the New Jersey coast from that storm. A borough that lost half its taxable property to a single nor'easter, on top of a hurricane that destroyed a fifth of its homes less than two decades earlier, is a borough for which a federally backed dune project, and the willingness to condemn part of a resistant homeowner's yard to complete it, follows a real and documented pattern rather than an abstract policy preference.

Where to Get Current, Authoritative Answers

For anyone who owns or is considering buying oceanfront, bayfront, or interior property in Harvey Cedars, the two places to get current, binding answers about bulkhead, seawall, or dune construction, repair, replacement, permitting, and cost are Harvey Cedars' own Construction Office, which administers local construction permitting for the borough, and the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, which regulates coastal and waterfront construction activity under state law. Neither office was the source of a specific figure or standard cited on this page, and that is deliberate: this page's job is to explain why shore protection is a real, high-stakes topic in this particular borough, not to guess at what either office would tell a specific property owner.

A local real estate agent familiar with Harvey Cedars' oceanfront and bayfront blocks, and a contractor licensed for New Jersey coastal shoreline work, are the other two practical resources worth involving before budgeting any bulkhead, seawall, or dune-related project, since permitted scope and cost can vary block by block, and an ocean-facing lot can face different requirements than a bay-facing one on a barrier island this narrow.

Adding It Up: What Is Real, and What We Will Not Invent

What is confirmed and real here: Harvey Cedars is 1.19 square miles, 0.56 square miles land and 0.63 square miles water, a 52.61% water footprint, on Long Beach Island in Ocean County; Borough of Harvey Cedars v. Karan was decided by the New Jersey Supreme Court on July 8, 2013, reversing a $375,000 jury award over a 22-foot dune built on a condemned 3,381-square-foot easement, and the case settled in September 2013 for $1; the 1944 hurricane destroyed 20% of the borough's homes, and the March 1962 nor'easter destroyed about 350 homes, roughly 50% of the borough's ratables, making Harvey Cedars the most heavily-damaged town on the New Jersey coast from that storm.

What we could not find, and will not fill in with an invented figure: a current Harvey Cedars bulkhead or seawall permit cost, a specific construction material or engineering standard, a current NJ DEP coastal-permitting requirement or timeline, or a current dollar-value damage estimate for either the 1944 hurricane or the 1962 nor'easter. Get current bulkhead, seawall, and dune permitting requirements, standards, and cost estimates directly from Harvey Cedars' Construction Office and the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection before budgeting any shoreline project. Nothing on this page is legal, engineering, or financial advice.