A long-forgotten section of the city is likely to see more than $120 million in development soon thanks to a compromise legal settlement that will allow several developers to build in a section of a town previously reserved for one man’s bulldozers. That man, Hoboken resident Frank “Pupie” Raia, was tapped by city officials last May to develop a four-by-two block area from 10th to 14th streets between Madison and Grand that is filled with vacant lots and abandoned warehouses. Under the city’s Northwest Redevelopment Plan, which was adopted by the City Council last year, Raia was going to be allowed to develop the vacant land even though some of the parcels belonged to other landowners. In exchange, Raia promised to build more than 200 units of affordable housing, a supermarket and a new building for a charter school. But no ground has been broken because a pair of residents that own land in the proposed redevelopment area sued the city, arguing that it had no right to designate a developer for their private land. Now, thanks to a deal reached between the aggrieved parties and city lawyers that allows the landowners to retain the right to develop on a pair of parcels there, Raia has been given the green light to build. The deal was approved by the City Council last month. Ready to start “This has been a long time coming,” Raia said, before heading off to celebrate his 49th birthday at Sinatra Park on Thursday. “I am just ready to go to work.” “For years,” said 5th Ward Councilman Michael Cricco, “that land has been vacant, deteriorated, rat-infested and used as a dumping ground for other development jobs that were going on in Hoboken. Developing the area [will] be good for every city taxpayer because that is valuable land that has been bringing in only a small amount of taxes.” Original plans called for building 894 units of housing and somewhere between 200 and 300 units of affordable housing. Although the settlement will restrict the amount of land that Raia has to build on, he said that he still planned to build at least 200 units of affordable housing in the area and that he may be able to find additional parcels to build on. The entire project will cost more than $120 million to build and should commence in September, he added. Raia said he first plans to put in a supermarket and a building that can be used to house one of the city’s charter schools. Although city officials were anxious to get development of the area underway, there was considerable hand wringing before the vote at the council meeting last month, largely because lawmakers wanted to make sure the affordable housing is included in the development. “Affordable housing was one of the priorities of this redevelopment plan,” Cricco said at one point. “We don’t want to see this being built, but then as it is built, the affordable housing piece gets put on the back burner.” Later, he urged his colleagues to work with him to find a way to pass a resolution that would force developers to dedicate a portion of any new construction to affordable housing units. But city officials, while sympathetic to Cricco’s concern, informed him that the state had deemed any effort to force developers to include affordable housing units in new construction unconstitutional, unless the city also provided the developer with a variance allowing him to build a larger than average project. “Back in the ’80s, Hoboken passed an affordable housing inclusionary ordinance that required developers to set aside a percentage of any new development for affordable housing,” explained Human Services Director Robert Drasheff last week. “But the state Supreme Court ruled that the ordinance was a ‘taking’ of the developer’s private property, since it affected his net profit without allowing him to remediate the loss.” In the future, Drasheff said that he did not expect other land-owners to challenge Raia’s ability to develop the area since “the clock had run out” on filing lawsuits similar to the ones that had been filed last year. He also pointed out that the $4.5 million loan that Raia had secured from the state to build the supermarket and the charter school building was not only one of the biggest doled out by the state ever, but also one that needed to be acted on soon. “Soon you will see a level of activity in that area that has not been seen there in a long time,” Drasheff predicted.
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