The Hoboken City Council, at its next meeting on June 21, will likely consider designating 15 blocks on the city’s far southwestern corner as a new redevelopment area.
The administration of Mayor David Roberts claims that the use of redevelopment areas is a valuable tool that will transform an “industrial enclave into a vibrant, livable, mixed use community that is increasingly popular among people from all walks of life.”
But critics of the administration and its past development policies worry that city is rushing through the redevelopment process so the city can select a developer to build high-rise condos.
They also say the redevelopment plan will come with little open space outside of “a few green strips of landscaping adjacent to the buildings.”
The open space activists would like the city to investigate buying the property while it is still fallow and zoned industrial to build park space. City officials say that option might be cost prohibitive.
The area in question The Southwest “Industrial Transition” District Redevelopment Study Area encompasses 13 acres, which are bounded by Paterson Avenue/Observer Highway to the north and Jersey City on the south and west.
The area contains 15 blocks, including 31 total ownership tracts. They are completely contained in the I -2 Industrial District, which has as its permitted principal uses food processing and related activities, as well as manufacturing, processing or fabricating operations.
The New Brunswick-based firm of Heyer, Gruel & Associates was hired by the city and has already written a redevelopment study.
The properties identified in the study area as being “in need of redevelopment” include surface parking, stacked car storage, vacant lots, two residences, and a holding area for police horses and other animals.
According to the redevelopment study, many of the buildings are poorly maintained or are in need of general maintenance.
“The properties identified in this study as being in need of redevelopment have the potential to be part of a comprehensive redevelopment plan to revitalize and rejuvenate the city’s southwest corner,” reads the redevelopment study. “Conversely, to allow the study area to remain stagnant, underutilized, and unproductive would prevent it from achieving its full potential, is at odds with the master plan, and would be detrimental to the public welfare.”
The city’s position Fred Bado, the city’s director of Community Development, said that redevelopment allows the city to assemble property in an area. Instead of going door-to-door and trying to pursue private landowners of individual lots to develop in a certain manner, the city can create in a contiguous area, a single development vision.
Another benefit is that the governing body can dictate what can be built.
Bado also said that it would be cost prohibitive to buy the entire area and build just open space. But through a redevelopment plan, Bado said, the city can place conditions on new developers.
Bado said it would be premature to speculate on what the zoning for the area might be. He said there would be public meetings about it.
Is there another way? But the idea of a redevelopment plan for the city’s southwest corner is going to face resistance.
Hobokenparks.org, an activist group that lobbies for more parkland and open space, argued that the city should not create a new redevelopment because it could lead to out-of-scale development.
Leah Healey, a principal in Hobokenparks.org and an attorney who is an expert in redevelopment law, pointed to the Northwest Redevelopment Area, which was created in 1998, as an example of a redevelopment plan that has failed to create enough open space.
She said that area has turned out to be block after block of tax abated condominium buildings.
Healey said that if the city maintains the current industrial zoning in the southwest section, the city might be able afford several parcels of land for park space.
Healey added that the city shouldn’t be claiming that it can’t afford to buy the land until they conduct inquiries.
“Certainly, there is long-term financing and funding from lots of different sources [for open space] if the city has the willpower and creativity to look into it,” she said.
Hobokenparks.org has even designed an alterative park concept for a “Southwest Park,” which they say would bring much needed active park space and facilities to these neighborhoods. They offered their expertise to the city but were rebuffed.
Healey said that she is wary of high-density development on those blocks.
“Right now the congestion in that area is so extreme,” she said. “If you are talking about putting high-rise condos in the southwest of town, the area will become almost unlivable.”
What is redevelopment? Redevelopment is the process of taking blighted property, cleaning it up, and giving it new life. State redevelopment law allows the municipal government to have far-reaching powers, including changing the zoning of the redevelopment area and choosing developers.
Government reformers say that this opens the process to abuse.
The state law gives many powers to each city’s Redevelopment Agency – which in Hoboken’s case happens to be the City Council.
Under redevelopment law, the city has the authority to pool a large area of property together, even if the land has multiple owners, and then zone it as they see fit. If they want to buy some property, they can resort to eminent domain and force the owner to sell it to them.
Additionally, the city has the ability to grant the designated developer tax abatements or special in-lieu-of-tax payments, even if that means cutting the county and the city’s schools out of the tax equation.