For nearly a year, commuters passing property in Jersey City along Secaucus Road might have noticed a strange phenomena: walls of red and tan shipping containers rising along the south side of the roadway. These shipping containers resemble the back section typically found on tractor-trailers, and these are used mostly for freight shipped to United States from foreign ports.
The wall has been increasing week by week, container upon container rising at points to 10 containers high. Secaucus officials are up in arms about the wall because it borders the town and threatens to spill over into property on the Secaucus side.
"There containers are made in China so cheaply that it is less expensive for the companies to store them than to send them back the ports where they came from," said Mayor Dennis Elwell, who has been seeking answers from the federal government to the growing problem.
Railroad companies operating in Jersey City’s Croxton Yards have been seeking federal funding to build a bridge over County Avenue – the southern portion of the property along Secaucus Road – so as to make it easier to store these containers.
"We’ve been trying to get a bridge for our traffic crossings," Elwell said. "And here these rail companies may build a bridge for containers. That doesn’t seem right to me."
Rail companies are not regulated by the local or state governments, making it difficult for municipalities to monitor or control activities that local authorities may deem unacceptable.
For years, these companies have stored empty containers nearer the shipyards in Elizabeth, but the rising value of property there has made the practice too expensive, so that the containers have moved north to Jersey and eventually Secaucus.
"What we’re trying to tell the federal government is that we think the property values here will be affected," Elwell said.
To make matters worse, Southern Region Industrial Realty, Inc., of Indianapolis, Indiana, the firm that owns that property, has asked the New Jersey Meadowlands Commission (NJMC) to change zoning on adjacent property in order to allow for more storage. The rail companies are looking to rezone 40 additional acres, which would increase storage capacity by about one third. The property would be used, according to the application, to transfer cargo from containers to land transport, such as trains and trucks. The cargo is primarily containerized and is not broken down or consolidated on site. The intermodal facilities may include trailer-parking areas, interior areas for repair and serving of trailers, containers and trucks utilized on site.
Cornnell, Foley & Geiser, LLP, Roseland, which represents Southern Railroad and other tenants of the Croxton Yards and adjoining properties, approached the NJMC in 1999 to discuss the rezoning. But a NJMC report claimed it had concerns about traffic and wetlands. The rail company submitted a wetlands report showing that about 10 acres of the overall property were wetlands – principally Penhorn Creek. As part of the agreement, the rail company would install tide gates on the creek to help reduce area flooding.
Although NJCM Commissioner Mike Gonnelli voted to continue the approval process, he said he would vote against the project when the commission rules – possibly as early as April.
"I do not agree with the change of zoning," he said.
Gonnelli, who also serves at the superintendent of the Secaucus Department of Public Works, shares in the town’s concerns over the use of the property for storage of containers.
While town officials acknowledge the property will partly be used for purposes other than storage of containers, Mayor Elwell said he wants to cut back or eliminate the use of storage, and believes that this move would work against the town’s goals. Calls to the rail company, its representatives and the land management company were not returned by press time.