With all of the pacing of a three-toed-sloth, the public hearing for the 982-unit Maxwell House project on the waterfront trudged along Thursday night. Only a handful of the regulars were present at the sparsely attended meeting. To those that were present it was evident that these hearings are going to go on for months.
Thusfar, developers Daniel Gans and George Vallone have given six hours of testimony. As of yet they have not moved past their first witness, and planner John Chester will enter his seventh hour of testimony when the board meets again on Oct. 25 at the Board of Education building at 1115 Clinton Street at 7 p.m.
"Of course we would like to see this proceed as quickly as possible so that we can get started on what we consider to be a beneficial project," said Gans after Thursday night’s meeting. "But we understand that there is a process and will take every effort to ensure that we prove to the Planning Board that this project complies fully to all of the applicable city ordinances."
The project that is presented before the city’s Planning Board extends from 10th to 12th streets along the waterfront. It will include 982 residential units, 1,647 parking spaces, and a four-acre waterfront park that will be fully accessible and open to the public. Currently the plan before the board needs no variances.
Thursday’s meeting began with Chester taking questions from the public. In his earlier testimony, he presented an overview of the plan from a planner’s perspective. Later in the hearings, the developers will put on experts to testify as to the project’s traffic flow, architectural aspects and neighborhood impact.
Outspoken community activist and harsh critic of all new development Daniel Tumpson spent 25 minutes questioning Chester. "What you are doing is putting a residential population where there was no residential population before," said Tumpson to the planner. "Don’t you think this will have some sort of impact on Hoboken?"
The Maxwell House property, which closed in 1992, was built in 1963 as an industrial factory to process coffee.
"Currently, under the city’s code, the land is zoned – and in fact, the city ordinance recommends – that this lot should be used for residential uses over industrial," responded Chester to Tumpson’s question.
Next at the microphone was another familiar face planning board meetings, activist Elizabeth Markevitch. "Hoboken is one of the densest cities in the nation," said Markevitch to the planner. "What do you think is the impact of adding to that density?"
Chester replied that the levels of density of the project are well within the city’s regulation for density. "Our density levels are established by [Hoboken’s] own master plan," said Chester. "We do not set that limit. We are only following what the city’s ordinances say we can build."
Two businesses retain attorney
For the remaining hour and a half of the meeting, Attorney James Segreto, who represents Sparrow Wine and Liquors and King’s Supermarket in opposition to the project, cross-examined Chester. Both stores did not return a phone call by press time to determine why they are fighting the project.
Segreto engaged Chester in a barrage of complicated and intricate questions pertaining to legal planning issues, which lasted well past 10 p.m.
Segreto will continue to his cross-examination at the next meeting on the 25.