Dear Editor:
On September 30, 2003, Mayor Glenn Cunningham, along with members of the Jersey City Redevelopment Authority and Pro Arts, staged a groundbreaking ceremony at the site of 140 Bay Street in Jersey City’s WALDO “arts” district. The event kicked off the City’s development of low-income housing intended exclusively for board-certified artists. The Mayor took credit for his administration and its backers for making this long-awaited dream a reality.
I strongly encourage the Jersey City Reporter to dig deeper into the facts of this story and not take the City’s self-congratulatory support of the Downtown arts community at face value. By offering six rental units to artists in a development of 59 luxury condos in what is promised to be Jersey City’s versions of SoHo, the masterminds of the WALDO plan will only succeed in rapidly gentrifying this neighborhood and driving out 200 or so working artists (the tenants of 111 First St.) from their studios.
Is the present administration – and its advisors at Pro Arts – serious about creating an artists haven with galleries and other cultural amenities? Or is this just a ploy to jack up Downtown real estate prices by giving a rundown part of town some SoHo cachet? A few token artists living in city-subsidized housing does not an art scene make.
The City had ample opportunity since it passed the first WALDO ordinance in 1996 to attract artists and galleries to its so-called arts district. Instead we have seen more galleries close than open, scores of artists evicted and hundreds of thousands of square feet of prime commercial space go idle. Where’s WALDO indeed.
The latest attempt to jump-start WALDO by converting affordable commercial space into high-end residential ($660,000 for two-bedroom units) is misguided. It raises the cost of occupancy beyond the means of most artists and gallery owners, and further increases the urban sprawl in Downtown. On top of this, the developer of 140 Bay St. – with its 59 units – is not required to provide parking accommodations for its residents, forcing them to park on the City’s already overcrowded streets. Unbelievably, in spite of this blatant disregard of the City’s masterplan, the project was awarded a 25-year tax abatement.
At its core, the problem with WALDO redevelopment is that there is too little impute in the planning process and no impartial oversight. The first two zoning ordinances were written in virtual secrecy with little or no participation from the property owners or leaseholders impacted. The result was a lawsuit by the property owners against the City, and the ever-present threat of eviction for the artists whose studios are at risk if their buildings are forced to convert to residential.
Now the City has embarked on writing yet another redevelopment plan; this time it’s called the Powerhouse Arts District (or PhAD) ordinance. And once again the process is a closed-door affair with no oversight or accountability. As an interested party, I submitted my own plan, called the Jersey School plan (which was the subject of an article in the Jersey City Reporter back in April), to Mayor Cunningham. For my effort I received a hostile response by phone from one of his aides. I would take it personally except that I’m not the only person being shut out. But still, it is disconcerting to be excluded by an administration whose very existence is a testament to inclusion.
Robert Costa
Art in Plain View