In a wide-ranging talk with members of the city’s business community at a Hoboken Chamber of Commerce breakfast this past Tuesday, Mayor Dawn Zimmer addressed a number of concerns and cited initiatives regarding zoning, a forthcoming bike share program, and redesigns for Observer Highway and Washington Street.
Businesspeople asked that Zimmer streamline the process for receiving zoning variances, open former industrial areas of the city to mixed-use development, and maintain parking on commercial thoroughfares.
The event was held at Amanda’s Restaurant on upper Washington Street.
Zoning changes embody city priorities
At the beginning of May, the City Council introduced an ordinance to amend certain sections of the local zoning code. The proposal will go before the Planning Board to determine whether it conforms to the city’s master plan. The changes are expected to be voted on for final approval by the council sometime in June.
Many of the changes realign zoning with the city’s Flood Damage Prevention Ordinance, which was passed after Superstorm Sandy. For example, Zimmer said Tuesday, businesses will still be permitted on the ground floor of buildings in flood areas, but new residences will not.
She said that it makes sense to still allow businesses at street-level. “It would be, from my perspective, the destruction of Hoboken if we said nothing [at all] can happen on the first floor,” she said.
Zimmer also said the city is working on new design guidelines for elevating mechanical infrastructure like elevator motors. Such steps are not currently required, but Zimmer said she is trying to find federal dollars to incentivize including them in new construction.
The city is looking at a number of plans to revamp old and complex zoning laws.
“I’ve been to see the puppets being made at the Monroe Center.” – Mayor Dawn Zimmer
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Make it easier forrestaurants in northwest?
Mark Villamar, a Hoboken-based developer with Pegasus Partners, asked Zimmer to consider allowing restaurants and retail in the I-1 industrial zone in the city’s northern reaches.
“We already know that there’s places like the Biergarten and Carpe Diem,” said Villamar. “We shouldn’t have to go to the Zoning Board for those kinds of things. There’s no real industrial any longer.”
Zimmer said Villamar’s suggestion was valid, but parted from his assessment of the future of industry in Hoboken.
“I’ve been to see the wallpaper-making in southwest Hoboken; I’ve been to see the popsicle-making with Zoku at the Monroe Center; I’ve been to see the puppets being made at the Monroe Center,” said Zimmer. “I think it’s really important that we really focus on making sure that we preserve these kinds of companies and eventually expand them.”
Zoning process is long and winding
For many of the business people that spoke up on Tuesday, the major zoning concern was not flood resiliency but crushing bureaucracy.
Commercial real estate agent and former City Councilman Tony Soares compared the Hoboken Zoning Board of Adjustment to a meat grinder. He said that for an industrial artisan or small businessperson trying to start a business in a space that requires a zoning variance, “Their process will be six to eight months to go before the Zoning Board, after $25,000 to $50,000 in applications and studies, [and] in many cases to be voted down.”
“Most people who approach us…are very hesitant because they know it’s a difficult process and a long process,” said Annmarie Ieraci of Nastasi Architects. “It costs us business, it costs the people who are approaching us money to not be able to move ahead quickly, and you’re losing an opportunity to bring businesses in because it’s just really takes a long time right now.”
By comparison, said Soares, Jersey City has a very streamlined zoning process. “They have an office where they give you pedestrian traffic reports when you want to open up a business. They guide you through the process. There’s a whole list of grants,” he said.
Zimmer said she would look into Jersey City’s system, but mentioned the current size of Hoboken’s zoning office staff as a limiting factor.
“That’s always the challenge,” she said. “Nobody wants me to hire anybody, but in some ways we could use a bigger team.”
Richard Tremitiedi, a former Hoboken fire chief and Zoning Board member, said hiring more zoning staff would be a good investment. “Sometimes cheap can be expensive,” he said. “I think it’s dollars well spent as a taxpayer.”
Buying into the bike share
In light of the recent service reduction on the PATH train line to 33rd Street and the maxing out of Port Authority Bus Terminal’s ability to receive additional buses from Hoboken, Zimmer said it’s even more important that the city move forward on its plans for a city-wide bike sharing program.
“It will be another alternative mode of transportation for people to get around,” said Zimmer, adding that the bikes could be used by residents in northwest Hoboken to get to the Hudson River ferry terminals or the Hoboken train station.
“I totally recognize that not everybody is going to get on a bike,” said Zimmer. Still, she expected demand for the bike share to be high. “We’ve seen it in New York City. It’s been extremely successful. We did a pilot program here in Hoboken and we had a waiting list of over 300 people.”
Zimmer has been pursuing a joint bike share system with Weehawken Mayor Richard Turner since February 2014, but the project has been repeatedly held up by difficulties in raising the private funding needed to allow it to operate at no cost to either city.
“If all the sponsors are finalized soon,” wrote city spokesman Juan Melli in an email, “we expect the program will begin in the summer.”
Selling complete streets
The complete street redesign plan for Hoboken’s key automobile corridors, Observer Highway and Washington Street, reflects Zimmer’s bike-friendly focus. Both call for protected two-way bike lanes for at least half of the roads’ length.
The Observer concept is being implemented by Hudson County and began construction at the end of April. The Washington Street plan is at least a year away from implementation, with the city currently seeking a $14 million federal grant for the project.
On Tuesday, Zimmer asked the collected businesspeople at the Chamber breakfast to write letters in support of the city’s grant application for the Washington Street redesign, saying that the addition of a bike lane and other traffic calming measures would increase business.
“New York City has done a study that says if you have a bike lane on a main street,” said Zimmer, “business increases by nearly 50 percent for those businesses.”
A New York City Department of Transportation study found that retail sales along a segment of Ninth Avenue in Manhattan increased by 49 percent in the three years after a protected bike lane was installed. However, sales on a nearby segment of Tenth Avenue without a bike lane, monitored for comparison purposes, increased by 44 percent over the same period.
Business owners on Washington Street expressed concerns that the redesign would trim parking spaces, making an already overcrowded corridor even worse. “We burgeon up 20 to 30,000 people on weekends,” said Eugene Flinn, who owns Amanda’s and two other Washington Street restaurants with his wife Joyce, “and the demand for those people to have parking gets so frustrating that they choose to go to Jersey City. They choose to go to other communities.”
Although “Ninety percent of what the net result [of the redesign] will be for this incredible street would be a benefit for the community long-term,” said Flinn, “the short-term cost to businesses is going to be monumental.”
He called on Zimmer to invest in affordable and usable parking options in the city’s perimeter. She said she was looking at locations for new parking garages.
Carlo Davis may be reached at cdavis@hudsonreporter.com.