Will Wuillamey has lived in northwest Hoboken for several years, and he is ready to see more street life in the neighborhood.
“My wife and I have two boys,” he said, “and we are starving for more places in town where we can take our kids for wholesome family fun and entertainment.”
“We certainly appreciate the parks,” Wuillamey continued, “and I personally thank the mayor and all concerned who’ve provided open space for us to enjoy…but our parks for the most part can only be enjoyed during the day, and there’s only so much fun a 7-year-old can soak out of a jungle gym.”
A redevelopment plan currently moving its way through city government could provide just the type of diverse indoor activities Wuillamey and other residents are craving. After being introduced before the City Council at the end of May, the draft plan for the Western Edge Redevelopment Area went before the city Planning Board for further analysis on July 7. The board recommended it as in keeping with the city master plan.
On Wednesday, the City Council held a special meeting to hear public comments and consider 12 suggestions provided by the Planning Board. With a handful of alterations, they accepted the board’s advice, setting the stage for a final vote on approval of the plan as early as Aug. 3.
“If we decrease the bonus…are we decreasing the incentive for people to build the things that we want?”—David Mello
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Currently, that zoning allows only industrial and office space, which has kept the area in an embryonic state while the neighboring area diversified and shed its rough-and-tumble reputation over the last quarter decade.
Twice before, plans for the Western Edge have come before the City Council, only to stall out under the dual pressure of residents concerned with the scale of development and developers doubting the economic viability of permitted projects.
That Odyssean balancing act still remains the chief challenge before the City Council, but based on the dialogue at the past two city meetings, they are closer to a satisfactory compromise than ever before.
The vast majority of the public comments on July 7 and 15 were in favor of the plan, though crucial parameters like the maximum height permitted for buildings and the size of a proposed greenbelt park that will shadow the light rail tracks received significant discussion.
How high?
The most substantive change to the plan debated by the Planning Board and City Council over the past two weeks was exactly how high the mixed-use residential buildings in the Western Edge should be allowed to go.
The draft plan released in May permitted a base height of six stories, with a 16-foot bottom floor for parking and retail. By agreeing to fund additional public improvements, such as public parks or a new light rail station at 15th Street, Western Edge developers could unlock five additional stories of height.
On the advice of Hoboken Community Development Director Brandy Forbes, the Planning Board recommended measuring permitted height in feet rather than stories, with a new maximum height of 106 feet for mixed-use buildings with bonus improvements.
That led the two teams of developers who own land in the Western Edge to question the economic viability of building within the city-set envelope. As Hany Ahmed of Pegasus Partners explained at the Planning Board, a 16-foot tall bottom floor wouldn’t be nearly large enough to hold a restaurant in a neighborhood where the FEMA advisory flood elevation is already 11 feet (the Western Edge was a marsh 200 years ago, and remains one of the lowest places in town).
Ahmed estimated that a bottom floor restaurant that was flood-safe but still interacted with the street would have to be 25 feet tall. He questioned whether the city had considered these exigencies in its plan.
No one was able to answer that question directly. City officials said they contracted with Camoin Associates to conduct a pro forma analysis of the draft plan, which found its permitted base height and densities to be economically feasible, but the analysis has not been made public.
An Open Public Records Act request by The Hudson Reporter for the document was denied by the city this past week.
On Wednesday, City Council members also questioned whether trimming the allowable bonus height in mixed residential buildings in the Western Edge would mean less public amenities for the city.
“If we decrease the bonus…are we decreasing the incentive for people to build the things that we want?” asked Councilman David Mello.
Ultimately, the maximum allowable height for mixed-use residential buildings was raised from 106 to 116 feet by the City Council. The change was approved by a vote of four to two, with Councilman James Doyle and Council President Ravi Bhalla in opposition and council members Michael Russo, Beth Mason and Tim Occhipinti absent.
Public mostly in favor of plan
The majority of residents and businesspeople who spoke on the Western Edge plan before the Planning Board and City Council wanted to see that plan improved, mostly because of the new street life and opportunities for recreation, entertainment, and shopping it would bring.
“I feel like the only thing to do in Hoboken in the evening now is drink,” said Chris Miller, a resident of northwest Hoboken. Miller said he was excited by the possibility of more varied evening activities, and he was willing to have tall buildings in order to get them.
“Honestly, I implore you to block my view of that ugly parking deck that hangs off of the Palisades,” said Miller. “I don’t know who thought blue was a good color for that thing.”
Several residents alluded to the specific plans for one of the Western Edge blocks, at Thirteenth and Jefferson streets, floated by the lot’s owners in 2014. The mixed-use concept included a rock climbing gym and a bowling alley, but was shot down by Zoning Board, in part out of deference to the City Council, which had just restarted the process that led to the current Western Edge proposal.
A number of current business owners in the neighborhoods adjoining the Western Edge, including Ladislav Sebestyan, who owns Pilsener Haus, Chris O’Connor, the artistic director of the Mile Square Theatre, and Avenue Residential realtor Kristin Ehrgott, rose to speak in favor of the Western Edge plan.
Ehrgott said creating balanced mixed-use buildings with both residential and commercial space, as the plan dictates, was about more than just padding the developers’ bottom line.
“Retail businesses cannot economically survive without having business hours and activity outside 9-5 p.m., M-F,” she wrote in an email. “That area of town would become a ghost town on the weekends and nights without the residential to support them.”
Carlo Davis may be reached at cdavis@hudsonreporter.com.