Is Jersey City about to buy the Sixth Street Embankment?
The embankment consists of six blocks along Sixth Street from Marin Boulevard to Brunswick Street in downtown Jersey City that carried a Pennsylvania Railroad freight line from 1902 through the 1970s. Right now, the property is owned by New Yorker Steve Hyman and his wife, who want to develop houses there.
But city preservationists would like the property used for a park or a light rail extension. And the city itself is considering additional options.
In January, the city and the Hymans started negotiating toward a settlement and a purchase of the Embankment, according to city officials who took part in the discussions. Those officials also said that $7.7 million was a number that came out of those discussions.
The City Council voted 6-1-2 to introduce the bond ordinance.
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On Wednesday, in a move that preservationists hailed, the City Council voted 6-1 with two abstentions to introduce an ordinance allowing the city to issue $7.7 million in bonds to buy the Embankment.
If the ordinance is approved at the next meeting on July 14, a four-year battle between the city and Hymans might come to an end.
But Hyman said in an interview before the meeting that he was not impressed with the city’s bonding attempt, and he gave no indication that their differences were settled.
“I don’t know what they are trying to accomplish,” Hyman said. “On the surface, it is not acceptable.”
Representatives from the Embankment Preservation Coalition, an activist group, declined to comment for this article.
Leading up to the vote
The city, along with those who want the Embankment to become a park, filed a petition in 2006 with the Surface Transportation Board (STB) to determine if the former landowner, Conrail, followed proper procedure in abandoning the Embankment before selling to Hyman in 2005 for $3 million.
The STB decided a year later that Conrail did not, saying the railroad should have gotten authorization from the STB to legally abandon the Embankment. Then, the railroad should have offered it to public entities before it was sold to Hyman, the STB said.
However, Hyman went to the U.S. Court of Appeals. The court ruled against the STB decision. Then, the city and the Hymans continued going to court to debate the ownership of the land. Hyman also went forward with trying to get approval from the city’s Historic Preservation Commission to demolish some of the Embankment and start building two-family homes on the cleared land.
But the commission denied the Hymans’ request to demolish.
Lot of bank for Embankment
The bond ordinance introduced Wednesday says the city anticipates paying back the bonds from grants, including a $1.6 million grant from the state’s Green Acres program, a $3.5 million grant from the Port Authority of New York/New Jersey, $1 million from the Hudson County Open Space Fund, and $500,000 from the New York/New Jersey Baykeeper. The city would have to raise the rest of the money to buy the property on its own.
Councilman Bill Gaughan, the lone dissenting vote on the ordinance, took issue with the city presuming that Hyman will agree to sell for the amount they are bonding for.
“Hyman has not agreed to anything,” Gaughan said. “That’s why I am upset that they’re rushing too quickly.”
Councilman Steven Fulop, one of the six council members who voted for introduction of the ordinance, said if the city acquires the Embankment, one of the six blocks could be developed for housing that would produce revenues to pay the bond.
Fulop said he plans to introduce a resolution at the July 14 council meeting to specify that the revenues from any residential development on the Embankment would go toward paying down the bond. That way, the taxpayers would not be involved.
Also voting for introduction were councilpersons Peter Brennan, Nidia Lopez, David Donnelly, Michael Sottolano, and Mariano Vega. Abstaining were Viola Richardson and Willie Flood.
Ricardo Kaulessar can be reached at rkaulessar@hudsonreporter.com.