Dear Editor:
At midnight on June 19, 2001, Richard Turner and the Weehawken Planning Board rubber-stamped yet another mega-development on our waterfront, without even so much as a discussion of its potential adverse impacts.
The board granted final approval for the second phase of Hartz Mountain’s Lincoln Harbor development, locally known as the “blue whale” due its dominating scale and hue.
Two new nine-story blue towers will essentially double the size of the callosal office space in Lincoln Harbor, eventually reaching over two-million square feet. The configuration of the buildings kept changing during the last few weeks of hearings to protect views for out-of-towners headed for the Lincoln Tunnel. But the end result is pretty clear.
Most of the principles for waterfront development drafted by Friends of the Weehawken Waterfront (FWW), with input from many hundreds of Weehawken families, as well as the expertise of waterfront planner Craig Whitaker and others, are being violated yet again by this latest planning board fiasco.
Views: 60 percent of the Hudson River views from Weehawken’s Heights section will be obscured, according to testimony by the developer’s engineer. The board again refused to request computer simulations of view impacts, just as they refused for neighboring mega-developments and despite state laws that call for planning boards to use state-of-the-art technology in decision-making.
Open Space: There will be no additional open space along the riverside of the road, violating FWW’s goal to consolidate open space within a waterfront walkway park separated from private buildings by a public road. Instead, all of the new open space will be part of entranceways to the blue towers.
Traffic: The most recent traffic monitoring report for the development is over 10 years old, and the Town’s traffic consultant stated he had not yet reviewed it. It is hard to imagine a more inadequate traffic analysis than that presented by Roseland Properties for its Port Imperial South development. Well people, here it is.
Parking: There will be no on-street resident parking anywhere in Lincoln Harbor, preventing easy access to the new waterfront amenities. No testimony was provided about where Weehawken residents will park. Parking will be moved away from the waterfront road to private indoor lots behind the blue whales. Will it still be free for Weehawken residents? Will it be accessible from the north and south? Will public spaces be among the several hundred lost to the buildings configurations? None of these questions were answered.
Pedestrian and Bicycle Access: The planning board so much as said they are going to let state agencies make all decisions about pedestrians access. No pedestrian circulation study was prepared. The board asked for one in the future, but there will be no public review or hearing about it. Maybe they think we should just trust them to do the right thing on their own. Yet we’ve just seen them issue an approval that was supposed to be contingent upon review of up-to-date traffic monitoring. Not! They have now approved this mega-development without any clear plan for how pedestrians and bicyclists will get from upper Weehawken to Lincoln Harbor’s waterfront, its proposed Light Rail station or its three office buildings. We heard a new four-lane highway will be built, and rail passengers will have to cross it to get the waterfront, but there is no design for sidewalk, let alone any other specifics.
Environment: There was no testimony presented as to soil contamination at the site. They simple refused to answer questions about what contaminants exist on site, even though we know that the entire waterfront area is rich in deadly chemical toxins, including hexavalent chromium, PCBs, volatile organics, arsenic, etc.
Fiscal and other impacts: There was no testimony on any other impacts to the town. The approval is dependent on presentations made over a decade ago, with no demands for any updated information whatsoever. Why does Weehawken need three major hotels? How does this development tie into those north and south? Is there adequate sewage capacity? The unanswered questions are endless.
So as Weehawken sleeps, decisions are being made that will create a nightmare of over-development, traffic jams and inaccessible, poorly planned public facilities.
Will we wake up before it’s too late?
Benjamin A. Goldman, Ph.D