The city’s municipal garage – which is more like an automotive repair shop, supply depot, equipment shed, and junk storage complex for the city – will soon be moving from Observer Highway, although no one knows where it will go. The city sold the property to a developer in 2008, and must now find a less pricey area of town to build a new garage.
But more than two dozen residents of a neighborhood on the city’s west side showed up at Wednesday’s council meeting to say that if the city is considering building it at the site of a former towing yard at Sixth and Jackson streets, they’re against it.
“You’re going to set that area back 15 years or more,” Chris Woronka told the council.
When Mayor Dawn Zimmer took office last year, her administration was already up against a June 2010 deadline to move the garage from its present location at Observer Highway and Willow Avenue so a development firm could start building on the site. Zimmer’s administration was able to get the deadline extended to Aug. 13 on Friday.
The potential site at Sixth and Jackson streets was most likely eliminated from the short list, but a source said this hurts negotiations.
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Zimmer said last week in an interview, “The way this should have been done is, before you sell, you find a location where you put [the garage].”
Not on the west side
The west side area by Sixth and Jackson streets includes new residential buildings, the public housing projects, Hoboken Catholic Academy, and the Monroe Center for the Arts.
A decade ago, the area wasn’t nearly as residential as it is today. Several condo buildings have popped up on Jackson Street, and a public afterschool center that helps kids with homework – the Jubilee Center – was built on the corner of Sixth and Jackson.
Residents are concerned that their home and condo values will go down and that the sound, sight, and smell of a municipal garage will severely harm the quality of life in their up and coming area.
Mark and Amanda McCormack bought their first home on the block in December.
“You probably wouldn’t want this in your area, in your backyard,” Amanda told the council.
Her comments resonated with at least two council members, Ravi Bhalla and David Mello, who said afterwards that they would not want the garage near their homes.
Bhalla and Mello joined councilpersons Michael Russo, Beth Mason, and Theresa Castellano to voice their opposition to the Sixth and Jackson site – votes that theoretically could block any attempt to put the garage there.
Jeffrey Goldberg, part owner of the Julianna condo building across the street from the site, said, “The momentum that we have seen…by doing what you’re contemplating will destroy the fabric of what we worked hard to create.”
Local politico Perry Belfiore seized the opportunity to tongue-lash a council majority floundering under intense public pressure.
“Simply because you’re cramming for a June deadline,” he said, “these people shouldn’t have to suffer.”
Even Father Vinny Fortunato from Hoboken Catholic Academy spoke out. “You’re jeopardizing these kids,” he said.
Angering the angry
The city never publicly revealed they were considering the garage site, but an impromptu meeting of concerned residents that live in the area was organized by 3rd Ward Councilman Michael Russo Monday, sparked by an online report that the area was at the top of the list for the city.
According to a local website, the site was the only potential location appraised by the city. City spokesman Daniel Bryan said last week that more than one appraisal was solicited prior to last week and that those reports were unfounded.
However, the towing site has been near the top of the list for years, dating back to the first sale of the garage to the Hudson County Improvement Authority in 2005, according to two sources very close to the matter.
One of those sources, a close ally of Russo, was working at the city under both mayors and advocated moving the garage to that site, so news of the Sixth and Jackson potential location wasn’t news to Russo, or to many other insiders.
Was city just using site for negotiations?
A government insider close to City Hall said last week that Zimmer’s administration actually did not have the site at the top of its list, but may have been using the city’s interest in the spot for leverage in other negotiations.
Now that site has been publically identified as undesirable to this administration, it no longer serves its purpose as leverage and may hurt the city as other negotiations continue, the source said.
Some residents falsely believed that the city had scheduled a “final vote” on that specific site on Wednesday. In actuality, there was a vote to bond for money for a temporary structure to be built on an unspecified site in the future. The council postponed that vote until they have a specific location.
Zimmer said in a press release on Thursday that she wished she could calm residents’ fears, but that giving out privileged information could jeopardize the city.
Photos of poor conditions
At Wednesday’s meeting, Belfiore criticized Council President Peter Cunningham for refusing to suspend the agenda at the beginning of the meeting so the residents could speak out without having to wait for the council to have to go through all of its agenda items first. Although Cunningham refused, almost all of the residents stuck around for several hours to have their say at the end of the meeting, when the public generally is allowed to speak on any issue.
“Anything would be better than a municipal garage,” said Darren Sasso, who works in development and lives near the potential site.
Local realty mogul Deno Bogdanos brought pictures from the garage before the council to demonstrate what he considered unacceptable operating conditions. He showed what he believed to be hazardous materials, old appliances like a refrigerator, and a few abandoned cars – along with a handful of police vehicles perpetually parked on the sidewalk.
He also passed out pictures of other potential sites for the new garage, but said they were probably too close to the homes of the council members to be considered seriously.
The council was given an opportunity to respond to his claims about the activity at the garage shown in his pictures, but no response was given.
Bogdanos also asked the council members who among them had visited the garage recently. No one from the council dais offered a response.
Updates
Once the city finds a location for the garage, the council will most likely approve a $2 million bond ordinance to build a temporary structure. This short-term solution is meant to last five to 10 years, city officials have said.
“There’s just a lot of moving parts to this transaction,” Zimmer said on Friday, although she would not discuss the specifics.
Sharing services with another entity is still a possibility, Zimmer said last week.
“There’s going to be a public process. We have been looking at many different options,” she said.
At the next City Council meeting on Wednesday, June 2, Zimmer said more information will be shared with the public regarding potential sites for the structure.
Timothy J. Carroll may be reached at tcarroll@hudsonreporter.com.
Why the city’s garage was sold
In 2005, the City Council – faced with a large city deficit, strong-armed by the state, and having already shut down City Hall over their budget wrangling – approved the sale and leaseback of the garage to the Hudson County Improvement Authority (HCIA), a quasi-autonomous agency, for $13.8 million.
The leaseback sale allowed the city to fill their budget gap that year, but cost the city six-figure interest payments in the following years.
The city sold the garage outright to Hekemian in 2008 for $25 million and expanded the company’s zoning rights. They used the money from the sale to pay back the HCIA and have spent much of the remainder without putting any money towards a new garage. – TJC