Dear Editor:
Has anyone been paying attention and keeping track of all the sporadic development projects all over town? A couple of weeks ago I was walking on Willow at 14th Street and felt claustrophobic for the first time in Hoboken. Bordering the 14 Street Viaduct and Willow Avenue, where once stood a small Gulf gas station with open sky all around, there is the construction of massive buildings comprising Willow 14, a seven story, 140 luxury apartment complex. These buildings felt overwhelming near a busy intersection coming into Hoboken. Are we built out yet?
Let’s see what I have tallied so far. There is 900 Monroe which is an 11 story, 135 unit luxury rental. Park + Garden, which opened in July 2015 near 14th on Park, is 212 luxury rental units and stands at 12 stories. On December 15, the zoning board approved a five story building with eight residential units on the itty-bitty triangle piece of land at Patterson Plank Road and Harrison Street. Six high-end luxury condos were approved on October 20 for the 901 Bloomfield Romanesque church with the 78 foot tower at 9th Street. In December, the City Council approved the redevelopment plan for Neumann Leather that includes 210 residential units to be built on Neumann’s parking lot, rising to at least 11 stories but will probably go up to 13 in the end. I am not even including the future Monarch project or the future 36 acre New Jersey Transit Rail Yard project.
Do we have enough space for all these future people and cars that will require use of our current sewage and road systems? Even if all these projects provide parking, (the church at 901 is not required to provide any), the cars will still have to navigate throughout our one-way streets to exit town through one of only two roadways.
We have a flooding problem aggravated by our low sea level status and a combined water and sewage system, so what about our future sewage capacity? I was told by someone on the North Hudson Sewage Authority board that Hoboken’s system has capacity for only 2000 more people. With our relentless on-going development, I foresee possibly a 60,000 population at the 2020 census and wonder will we be able to flush our toilets? How blocked are the current sewage pipes and are they planning to add more?
Look around you. All the developments that are currently hammering away and the future ones that are being approved are adding up. As this paper reported: “Although most of this densely populated city has already been developed, various new applications still came before the various city boards” in 2015.
As tall buildings on the perimeter wall us in, smaller projects in the interior are rising higher, decimating the character of the old three and four-story structures, forcing tenants out with luxury rentals or condos. Everyone wants a piece of the action in Hoboken but when is enough, enough?
Mary Ondrejka