The Jersey City Independent"

Despite having 25 scheduled speakers in the public comment portion, Wednesday’s City Council meeting clocked in at a svelte 1 hour 47 minutes. Seven ordinances were introduced, two were voted into law, and a handful of citizens spoke on a few different topics. Ward C Councilman Steve Lipski was absent.

The action began before the meeting was even called to order, with At-Large Councilman Peter Brennan initiating a sing-a-long of “Happy Birthday” in honor of Ward D Councilman Bill Gaughan, who was celebrating his 71st birthday. (Gaughan later noted that he wasn’t quite as old as Mary T. Fallon, who was being honored with a resolution for making it to 100 years old, but joked that they “did go to school together.”)

Journal Square Redevelopment: ‘Paradigm Shift,’ ‘Quantum Leap,’ or ‘Dramatic’ Density Changes?

The Greater Journal Square Redevelopment Plan made its City Council debut on Wednesday, and it swiftly brought about confusion, as Claire Davis of the Division of City Planning briefed the council members on minor amendments to the plan that had come out of Monday’s Council Caucus meeting.

The project, headed up by the Jersey City Redevelopment Agency (JCRA), is a massive undertaking encompassing 244 acres. It calls for gargantuan high rises, a revamping of the Journal Square transit center, introduction of green space, a light rail spur and a trolley. (For all the nitty gritty details of the plan, check out the JCRA’s website.)

Ward A Councilman Michael Sottolano was first out of the gates with criticism of the proposal, questioning the plan’s District Improvement Fund Bonus (DIB), which would allow development at an increased density in exchange for the developer paying into the Journal Square District Improvement Fund.

Sottolano said he wanted to see the bonus money go to all parts of the city, not just Journal Square. Ward F Councilwoman Viola Richardson agreed. Under this kind of deal, “parts of the city get nothing” if they have no development, she argued.

The JCRA’s executive director, Robert Antonicello, countered that it would be illegal to spread the DIB funds around the city. He defended the DIB, calling it a “quantum leap” and a “paradigm shift” in the financing of redevelopment. He told the council that the DIB has already undergone “70 hours of debate,” and that he’s willing to give the council as much time as they need to continue to debate and understand the new approach to redevelopment.

Mayoral candidate Dan Levin and the Riverside Neighborhood Association’s Becky Hoffman both also aired concerns about the plan.

While calling the plan “creative and interesting,” Levin said he continued to struggle with two concepts. First, he argued that it will be difficult to make Journal Square a destination area — which the plan relies on — without it having human scale. He said that as is, with 100-story buildings, human scale would be absent from the plan. Secondly, he called for a more detailed analysis of costs and benefits of the DIB for the entire city and its taxpayers.

Hoffman pointed out the “dramatic” density changes that the plan will bring, with the allowed maximum floor area ratio (MFAR) skyrocketing in some buildings up to 80 MFAR. MFAR is obtained by dividing the gross floor area of a building by the total developable area of the lot — high rises on small lots will produce the highest MFAR, whereas low-rise development produces a lower MFAR.

She also questioned why the area around Baldwin and Magnolia Avenues is in need of redevelopment, and wondered how the project would actually be able to become reality while keeping the promise of avoiding eminent domain, specifically referring to the planned widening of Tonnelle Avenue.

Ultimately, Council President Mariano Vega said that the DIB concept needed to be more fully explained to the council over the next two weeks, since it was such “a big financial matter.” The council voted 8-0 on approving the amendments and then 8-0 to introduce the legislation, but not before Ward E Councilman Steven Fulop pointed out that the councilman representing the area in question, Lipski, was not at the meeting, and that he knew some citizens’ groups had expressed their concerns to Lipski. The plan will be up for a second read and adoption on Feb. 25.

Embankment Coalition Wins a Small Fight

The e-alert went out at 1:49 pm on Wednesday — “ACTION ALERT: CALL AND COME TO COUNCIL!” The Embankment Preservation Coalition was asking its supporters and allies to call council members and come to the council meeting.

The group was rallying support because the council was considering a resolution “urging” the state assembly to enact a bill (A-3120) that will require railroads to negotiate in good faith with governments when selling abandoned railroad rights of way. “If passed intact, this law would almost certainly provide the opportunity to purchase the Embankment under reasonable terms,” the alert read.

And so the battle over the 6th Street Embankment continued to play out in City Hall on Wednesday, with six residents speaking out for the resolution and two representatives from the development company that purchased the Embankment from Conrail in 2005 speaking against it.

Maureen Crowley of the Embankment Preservation Coalition urged passage of the resolution, saying that other states — including Mass., Vt., N.H., and Ct. — had similar laws on the books. She noted, as did several other citizens, that the cost of fighting this out in court is borne by the taxpayers, and said that developer Steven Hyman and Conrail were “continuing their juggernaut against the city.”

The resolution “doesn’t send the right message to anyone” currently involved in negotiations, argued Daniel Horgan, the attorney who is representing Steven Hyman in litigation. “We don’t need the state of New Jersey to help us,” he added. “It’s just nuts; it’s not going to work.”

But the council clearly disagreed. While several members (Sottolano, Gaughan and Brennan) hedged a bit by noting that they weren’t actually voting on any legislation, just a recommendation, the council voted 8-0 to approve the resolution urging passage of the bill. “The process has been going on so darn long … too long … too expensive,” Sottolano said as he voted for the resolution.

Food Trucks Under Siege?

Gus Papathanasis and his son Billy were first up in the public comment portion of the meeting. They came to tell the council how their food truck that had been operating near New Jersey City University for more than a decade had recently been shut down by the police for violating the seldom-enforced law saying that “an itinerant eating or drinking establishment” cannot “remain in any location for a period exceeding twenty (20) minutes during a four-hour period.”

The council quickly rallied behind the vendors.

“It’s bad government, bad politics and bad public relations,” Ward B Councilwoman Mary Spinello said. Viola Richardson said that these were people just “trying to earn a decent living” and that she didn’t understand why the law was all of a sudden being enforced. The vendors have been there for so long, Richardson noted, it’s “almost like squatter’s rights.”

This is a “clear case of selective enforcement,” Gaughan said, adding that the city should revoke the four tickets given to the vendors. Corporation counsel Bill Matsikoudis said they’d look into it.

Vega said he thought this particular incident stemmed from a renewed enforcement of the law after a building owner in the Exchange Place area starting complaining about food trucks last summer.

Matsikoudis said the city is looking into several solutions to the problem, including extending the 20 minute rule and, more substantially, potentially licensing vendors to specific spots in the city.

[UPDATE, Tuesday, Feb. 17: NJCU’s student paper The Gothic Times is reporting today that the trucks returned last week, after “an agreement was reached so that the food trucks would not have to follow this law since they never did before.”]

Despite Arts Center Proposal, City Moves Forward With Firehouse Sale

Want to buy a historic firehouse? Got at least $450,000? The city is holding a public auction for the old Passaic Hose Engine Company headquarters at 14 Bright St. and the vacant lot next to it (16 Bright St.) on Thursday, March 19 at 10 am. The auction will take place in the Council Caucus Room in City Hall.

“That’s disappointing,” J CITY Theater’s Clay Cockrell told the Independent when informed of the coming sale. “I was told that if it were to go to auction that they would contact me and let me know — that I was on some sort of list. Maybe they just haven’t gotten around to calling me.”

Over the summer, J CITY had lobbied the city to let the firehouse become the company’s new home, to no avail. J CITY proposed leasing the building from the city for $1/year, and said it would finance the renovation of the building. The end result would have included a 75-seat theater, gymnasium, art gallery and community room where plays, films and art could be shown. Click here to check out the proposal.

“Everybody seemed excited about it,” Cockrell said as he noted that six council members had pledged their support, including president Vega, who was “really pushing it.” JCRA executive director Robert Antonicello was also on board with the project, according to Cockrell.

But the city wasn’t interested. “We hit a roadblock with the mayor and city [business] administrator Brian O’Reilly,” Cockrell said. The administration needed to raise money immediately via a sale to plug budget holes, and also wasn’t convinced that J City wouldn’t keep coming back, hat in hand, asking for more money from the city, as some other arts organizations have done. “He’d been burned in the past,” Cockrell said of O’Reilly.

At a June 2008 council meeting, O’Reilly told him that “there are many people who want to open a restaurant there, open a professional business there, who want to build on the lot next door.” He encouraged Cockrell to consider using the Jersey City Museum or the Loew’s Theater as locations for J CITY’s productions.

This week Cockrell lamented the short-sightedness in pursuing an auction sale and immediate money from the property, when recent studies have shown that art spaces, particularly theaters, flood local economies with tax dollars. What’s more, the city will lose quite a bit of control over the historic property once it is sold to a developer. Lastly, as he pointed out, there’s this little thing called the housing bubble.

“You have to question the wisdom of selling off your assets in the worst real estate downturn in a century or so,” he said, arguing that the city should pursue a short-term lease with the theater company and sell the property down the road, once the market has rebounded.

‘This Has Got to Stop’

As we noted yesterday, the parents of the 16-year-old girl shot in the face on Monday afternoon addressed the council on Wednesday. Rev. Robert Allen, referring to the violence in Jersey City, said that “this has got to stop,” and blamed the council members for running a dysfunctional city. Annie McCord, visibly shaken, said her family was “being harassed” by the JCPD — the cops tossed the family’s house reportedly in search of a gun that might have been used in the shooting. The police also reportedly have some interest in the victim’s 19-year-old brother, possibly as the intended target of the shooting.

The Other First Reads

The council did not vote on Ordinance 09-013, which would have adopted a revised Grand Jersey Redevelopment Plan. The plan, which covers the environmentally contaminated swath of land north of Liberty State Park and east of the NJ Turnpike extension, is slated to be introduced instead at the next council meeting.

Ordinance 09-106 would extend the city’s lease of a portion 361 Montgomery St. with building owner Essex Plaza Management. The city pays Essex $1/year and provides senior services at the address.

Under Ordinances 09-014 and 09-015, the city would transfer a vacant lot it owns on Bishop Street and a parcel of land it owns at 167-169 Monticello Ave. to the JCRA. The Bishop Street lot is in the Morris Canal Redevelopment Area and the Monticello property is in the Monticello Avenue Redevelopment Area, both of which the JCRA is in charge of developing. You may remember the Monticello Avenue address — it is going to be the site of the seven new affordable condos we reported on yesterday.

Ordinance 09-017 would create a “no parking” zone on one side of Nelson Street north of JFK Boulevard during school days from 7:30 am-4 pm. The ordinance comes after a request by the principal of Saint Anne’s School, who says that cars are double and triple parked in the area where parents and buses drop off and pick up students, which “makes for a very hazardous situation.”

Ordinances 09-018 and 09-189 would approve two separate 30-year tax abatements to Whiton Street Associates for a project at the intersection of Monticello and Fairmount Avenues. The project calls for 120 housing units, a parking garage, and 17,256 square feet of retail space. Ninety-six of the housing units will be market rate, and 24 will be reserved for moderate income tenants. There are two abatements because one covers the residential portion of the development, and the other covers the commercial portion.

Whiton will pay the city an estimated total of $281,870 in lieu of taxes on the property, and the project will generate an estimated 20 construction jobs and 12 new permanent jobs. While its good to see development in parts of the city other than downtown, we have to wonder — as always — about the wisdom of this particular abatement.

All of these first-read ordinances were introduced by an 8-0 vote.

The Second Reads

The two ordinances voted into law by 8-0 margins are both standard tedious city business.

First, Ordinance 09-010 would create six new designated parking spaces for handicapped residents and eliminate two such spots.

Second, Ordinance 09-011 would amend an earlier ordinance that calls for the sale of a swath of land near the Tonnele Circle to the NJ Department of Transportation (DOT). Essentially, the DOT realized that part of the land they had purchased from the city had already been seized by the state via eminent domain. This brings the total cost of the sale to DOT down by $70,000 for a grand total of $482,716.

Odds and Ends

The council approved a 10-year deal with the Port Authority to place a “Welcome to Jersey City” sign on the footbridge visible as vehicles exit the Holland Tunnel. “You’ll be able to know you’ve entered Jersey City,” Vega said as he praised the resolution.

The city settled three separate lawsuits — all involving one traffic accident — to the tune of $499,500. The suit alleged that George Reyes, while driving a city vehicle, rear-ended a vehicle stopped at a red light on Sip Avenue. The city settled with Duncan Barco for $318,000; Claudia Yulan for $113,500; and Teddy Saltos for $68,000.

Speaking of lawsuit settlements, the city also settled a suit filed by former police officer Titus Johnson, who alleged that the city violated NJ anti-discrimination law and breached a contract. The city settled the suit, paying Johnson $150,000. Ward B Councilwoman Mary Spinello voted against the resolution.

“How many more accidents do we have to have?” longtime council gadfly Yvonne Balcer asked as she spoke about the deadly hit-and-run accident that happened a few weeks ago in front of the Jersey City Medical Center on Grand Street. Intimating that she saw this coming in the 1980s and 1990s when the council first starting talking about moving the medical center to Grand Street, she proposed that the buses running on Grand should loop around the medical center so patients wouldn’t have to cross the busy street. Vega pointed out that there are other solutions to this problem as well, like pedestrian bridges and ramps, and that the whole thing warrants further study.

Lavern Washington once again spoke on behalf of COMBATT, a youth boxing and martial arts organization she wants to bring into the Armory. She asked the council to put it on the agenda soon, but it remains unclear whether or not that is going to happen.

The city approved an amended resolution to increase the Affordable Housing Trust Fund award to Webb-Washington Community Development Corporation for its Fred W. Martin Complex on Martin Luther King Drive. The resolution had been taken off the last meeting’s docket because the project had been altered to include 10 housing units for physically disabled residents. “The issues that were of concern have been resolved,” Vega said.

More: Click here for the text of the first reads, the second reads and the resolutions.

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