To the Editor:
I am dismayed that the Community News is misleading its readers by saying professionals say defeating the project could hurt the city when in fact it’s the project itself that risks setting a precedent that may cost the city more than it can gain.
The building’s parking garage will be 3/4 the size of a football field, 35 feet tall, and extend 1/3 of the way up the block. It will destroy the residential setting and the quaint character forever.
Trying to make Bayonne something it’s not like Weehawken or Jersey City is not a sound goal. People aren’t going to come to Bayonne because of the apartments. Bayonne first needs to transform the city with arts; then the people come. SOHO in New York City and downtown Jersey City were transformed by the artists in lofts and rundown buildings making it trendy. In fact everywhere I have traveled has had an arts hub that has been the catalyst to create economic vibrancy. The Bayonne city administration doesn’t get this and remains stuck in the past trying to catch up with a plan that is obsolete before it even starts.
A 120 foot tall, 90-unit building is not meant for 46th street and Broadway. It will overload the neighborhood. The schoolchildren that now walk to school will be in the shadow of this monstrous building four time the height of the 17 west 46th Street house it will be adjacent to.
How can the city’s plan say this will maintain the character of the neighborhood? Why has the city created a custom plan for one developer, one building, for whose benefit? Not the people; they don’t want it.
The city needs a vision; a dining and arts district. A place for tall buildings isn’t narrow little Broadway. Yuppies want a hip suburb to come to with interesting people that feed into making a community an interesting place. Bayonne can be that! A modern sustainable city with community gardens, bike lanes, electric trolley cars.
To do this takes innovation not cronyism. Aren’t we tired of politics as usual?
Bayonne needs young, forward-thinking, successful professionals in city hall first or the other hipsters will never come. Bayonne has squandered each opportunity, the latest the MOTBY. Bayonne and Hudson County politics took the largest, most valuable 360 acres of real estate in the northeast and turned it into a failed development.
Now the same self serving thinkers and backroom deal makers are trying to fix it with more of the same. I have read the redevelopment plan for Resnick’s. Not only is it is poorly written; it is unsubstantiated and appears to me in noncompliance of the NJSA 49:12A statutes and will ruin our city.
That said, the purpose of redevelopment plans is to rebuild communities and needs to include the people. No one on 4th street was notified in writing and the plan will waive the need for a variance so if the council passes this it is a done deal and they will have excluded the taxpayers by manipulating New Jersey statutes against those they should protect and represent.
Bayonne can have a future to develop our own unique town that is a model, sustainable community. If we want to know what the options are let’s invite the real professionals on urban development from NJIT, Rutgers, and Stevens. Let’s make Bayonne a destination where life is vibrant, green neighborhoods, brownstone- like developments, interesting stores, and galleries on Broadway. I say no to giant concrete structures that will be given abatements and raise taxes, not save them. That is the truth. Look at the apartment building on 46th and Avenue E. It only pays about $10,000 for 40 units and isn’t bringing any yuppies in and it’s right next to the light rail.
Speak up at city hall on August 19 at 7 p.m.
BRUCE PIGGOT