The newest millennium bug to hit Jersey City comes in the form of two proposed 37-story apartment buildings, which residents of the Downtown and Heights areas, as well as of Hoboken, have raised heavy opposition to. Last week, the Jersey City Planning Board heard over two hours of public speakers before voting to put off their decision concerning the Millennium Towers apartment complex for their next meeting, scheduled for April 4. The towers are asking for amendments to be made in the Jersey Ave Redevelopment Plan, of which the towers are a part. The developer, Bayonne-based United Diversified LLC, is asking for a 300-foot height extension. Depending on where they live, residents have expressed a great deal of concern on this matter since it was announced that the twin towers would be built on an old industrial site at Hoboken-Jersey City border, between 15th Street and Grove streets and Jersey Avenue. Residents living in the Heights are concerned that the towers will block their sweeping views of the Manhattan skyline. Downtown and Hoboken residents have expressed their problems with the possible influx of traffic and congestion that it will bring to the already dense area near the NJ Transit rail trestle. At rush hour, the corner of Jersey Avenue and Observer Highway, near the site, is already paralyzed with traffic headed to the Holland Tunnel and the New Jersey Turnpike. In addition to the opponents of the project that attended the Planning Board meeting last week, opposition was also raised by the Hoboken City Council and Mayor Anthony Russo. In a letter to the Jersey City Planning Board dated March 13, Russo said that the project is too dense and too high for that area. “We in Hoboken have become sensitive to the negative impact of dense projects and have significantly reduced both height and density of new projects in our community,” Russo wrote. The Hoboken council approved a resolution last week 8-0 that urges the Jersey City Planning Board to recommend, and for the City Council to maintain reasonable height restrictions on height and density in the Jersey Avenue Redevelopment Plan. “They were only concerned about their own interests at the expense of Hoboken,” Councilman Tony Soares said of the project at the Hoboken council meeting, where many issues were raised as to how the towers will negatively impact Hoboken’s southern gateway. The Hoboken council has begun talks concerning a regional resolution that would limit the size and scope of future real estate projects in the area. Jersey City, Weehawken and West New York would fall under that wide-ranging plan. United Diversified has asked the Planning Board for an extension on its height and density restrictions. Jersey City neighborhood organizations including the Riverview, Sgt. Anthony and Heights Hope Neighborhood associations, have spoken out against the proposed amendments that would raise the height of the buildings and take away part of their Manhattan views. The buildings also would have 800 parking spaces. Other concerns center on an alleged NJ Transit Light Rail station that developers say will be built in the concourse of the towers’ base. Also to be included in the six-story pedestal below the apartment stacks are 181,000 square feet of commercial and retail space that residents feel will create a private enclave and not an extension of their close-knit neighborhoods. NJ Transit has not made public any commitment to build the Light Rail stop. “Where residential development is appropriate, it should be human-scale, low-rise and in character with the older neighborhoods of Jersey City,” the Riverview Neighborhood Association said last week. “We urge the city to make a rational plan for this neighborhood’s future and reject the proposed Millennium Towers.”