The Hoboken Planning Board has given the green light for two local developers to build 832 units of market rate housing at the site of the old Maxwell House coffee plant on the northern central waterfront.
After 24 public hearings over 22 months, the Planning Board voted 7-1 on Dec. 23 in favor of allowing Daniel Gans and George Vallone of the Hoboken Brownstone Company to construct the development on Hudson Street between 10th and 12th streets. The project is slated to include apartments and luxury condos. The entire residential component of the project will be approximately 1,090,000 square feet and will mostly be made up of high rise buildings.
One benefit for the city’s residents is that the project is projected to include five and a half acres of fully accessible public open space, mostly on the banks of the Hudson River. Included in the open space will be the restoration of Elysian Fields, a waterfront park that will be a quarter acre larger than Pier A park, and the renovation and reopening of a small sliver of beach that has been mostly unused for more than half a century. It would be the only beach in the city, according to Gans.
The construction and future upkeep of the new parks will be funded entirely by the developers and eventually by the buildings’ tenants and condo owners.
Open space vs. size
The project will represent one of the largest residential developments in the city. If occupied to full capacity, the completed development will account for about 3 percent of Hoboken’s total residential population. According to the 2000 census, there are approximately 38,000 people living in Hoboken.
Several residents who attended the Planning Board meetings over the past two years have voiced their opinion that 832 units are just too many and could cause undue strain on city infrastructure when it comes to traffic, parking, sewers, light and air.
But Gans said Wednesday that the new park will be one of the largest in the city and that the ratio of open space per new resident is exceedingly high compared to the rest of the park-starved city.
“It’s really not that big of a project, especially in comparison to the rest of the city, where very little open space has been set aside for each resident,” said Gans. “This project is going to provide over five acres of open space that will cost the taxpayers nothing.”
According to figures supplied by Abeles, Phillips, Preiss & Shapiro, the consulting firm that is assisting the city in rewriting its master plan for development, there are only 35 total acres of open space in the entire city.
Gans pointed out that the project’s five and a half acres of open space would represent approximately 15 percent of the city’s open space, while only increasing the city’s population by 3 percent. “The plan speaks for itself in the end,” said Gans. “We have listened and have tried to understand what the community wanted and we feel that [the Planning Board] has approved a fine plan that effectively utilizes the land.”
Several compromises
In order to gain the favor of a majority of the Planning Board, the developers made several concessions in an attempt to make the project more palatable to the surrounding community. One compromise is that Gans and Vallone have reduced the number of total units by 150. Originally the project called for 982 units. According to the approval, while the number of units will decrease, the residential square footage of project will remain the same. The end result will be that each unit will be substantially larger in size, with more two- and three-bedroom units.
A second condition is that the developers eliminate a number of townhouses and the two levels of parking garages that were planned for the historically noteworthy Elysian Field, the site where many historians believe the first baseball game was played.
This land, which is about an acre and half, would be given to the city to be restored as either an athletic field or open space. Previously, Gans and Vallone only proposed four acres of open space, and this new addition puts that number to five and a half acres.
Mayor David Roberts, who supports the plan, said Wednesday that the addition of Elysian Fields is the crown feature of the project.
“I’m very happy about that turn of events,” said Roberts about the developers’ compromise. “The city is regaining one of our nation’s most important historic sites. There was a clear attempt here by the developers to accommodate the citizens of Hoboken.”
Timeline
There are still several steps that must be taken before demolition and construction can begin on the project. The developers must get county and state approvals. Gans said he anticipates that it will take at least three months to get county approval and anywhere between six and 12 months to get approvals from the state.
“By year’s end we will hopefully begin with demolition and construction,” said Gans. He added that construction will take approximately four years.
$10.5 M in Taxes
As of right now, the project is slated to be fully taxed. According to Vallone, the property owners will contribute $10,666,932 a year in property taxes once the entire project is built out. According to current tax rates, the city would receive $2,564,512; the county would receive $4,173,875, and local schools would receive $3,928,545.
This, of course, assumes that it is regularly taxed. In November, the city commissioned a study by the Planning Board to investigate whether the site qualifies to be designated a redevelopment area. Redevelopment is a technical zoning term that means that there is an area within the municipality that, for one or more reasons, is not being used to its full potential.
One aspect of declaring a site a redevelopment area is that the city and developer can enter into a Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILOT) agreement. Under PILOT agreement the developers pay a fixed tax amount every year for a set number of years. The amount of taxes the developer pays is usually less than what would be paid at a full tax rate. Because of this, the city could negotiate with the developers to downsize the project further of to make other concessions, such as setting aside more public open space.
The city also is able to cut out the county and schools when it makes PILOT agreements, so that the city collects more taxes while the developer pays less. PILOTs have become a controversial topic countywide because there are many who believe that it is not fair to cut out the county and schools, especially since residents in these buildings will be using the schools. In addition, eventually someone, somewhere in the county will have to pick up those expenses.
According to Roberts, the outcome of the Planning Board investigation should be completed by the end of January.