When the 2009 municipal budget was introduced last month and Town Council members began combing through it for ways to save tax dollars, they noticed a line item that raised some eyebrows.
In the budget, there was a $1 million revenue stream that was to come from the Secaucus Housing Authority. Town Administrator David Drumeler explained that Secaucus Housing Director William Snyder had approached him and former Mayor Dennis Elwell asking whether the town had any available land on which Snyder could build 15 affordable housing units.
Elwell and Drumeler offered Snyder a 1-acre plot of land on Jefferson Avenue.
Drumeler said last week that he, Snyder, and Elwell saw these plans as a “win-win situation for all parties involved.”
“This would have set a precedent. Secaucus has never before sold off an asset to generate income.” – Michael Gonnelli
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And 15 working families with limited economic resources could have new homes.
But the transaction proved difficult in the end.
The housing plan
Under New Jersey law, municipalities are required to build one affordable housing unit for every 16 jobs created. Based on the estimated number of jobs expected to come to Secaucus by 2019, the town is currently required to build 303 affordable housing units. The 15 units that Snyder planned to build would help to fulfill that requirement.
In a PowerPoint presentation made before residents and the Town Council Wednesday night, Snyder gave an overview of the small community he had hoped to build on Jefferson Avenue.
Fifteen 1-, 2-, and 3-bedroom modular town homes would have been built using Housing Authority resources to purchase the property, which had been assessed at $1.13 million. Snyder also had a $1.5 million commitment from Hudson County to help build the homes. The total dollar estimate for the project would have been roughly $4 million, including the land purchase, according to Snyder.
The small development would have included parking and a playground.
But these plans did not sit well with several members of the council and residents who argued that the town’s limited open spaces should not be sold off and used for development.
“With the limited amount of park space we have now, it would be very foolish to sell any park space, regardless of the condition that it’s in,” said Town Councilman Michael Gonnelli, who as a founding member of the Secaucus Shade Tree Committee led the charge against the sale of the Jefferson Avenue property. “They really didn’t do their homework because that’s a designated Green Acres plot and they would have needed to get approval from the state, which I don’t think they would have gotten.”
Selling off open spaces, Gonnelli added, is “a move that desperate communities make when they need money. We are not a desperate community. This would have set a precedent. Secaucus has never before sold off an asset to generate income.”
Gonnelli was also angered by the fact that the Town Council only learned about the sale of the property through the budget process, and not over the summer when Snyder initially approached Elwell and Drumeler.
The town administrator explained that sale negotiations between Snyder and the town took place within days of Elwell’s arrest on alleged corruption charges on July 23.
“If this had been a normal summer, I could understand his complaint,” Drumeler said. “But this was not a normal summer, and after July 23 other matters took precedent over this issue.”
After hearing similar complaints from the community, the council voted unanimously on Sept. 10 not to sell the land to the Housing Authority. The move calmed residents, but created a hole in the budget that had to be closed by funding cuts, delays in hiring, and a slight tax increase
Seeing both sides of the argument
At Wednesday’s special council meeting, at which the 2009 budget was passed without the sale of the property, Mayor Richard Steffens said, “I can see both sides.” He acknowledged that the loss of open space should be avoided, especially if residents oppose the move.
But, he added, “as a businessman, I hate to miss the opportunity to generate some revenue. The Housing Authority will now go out and buy land from the Hess Co. or Hartz or some other company and will pay them $1 million that could have come to the town.”
The Housing Authority is now considering a piece of property owned by Hess on Meadowlands Parkway and the total cost of building the development will likely be more expensive since the land itself will cost about $2.5 to $3 million to purchase.
E-mail E. Assata Wright at awright@hudsonreporter.com.