Citizens of Hoboken:
In the May City Council election the Hoboken Citizens Organization (HCO) has three candidates: Daniel Tumpson (First Ward), Alice Misiewicz (Second Ward), and myself (Sixth Ward). Along with protecting tenants’ rights , saving Demarest and Hoboken High School, keeping surveillance cameras out of Hoboken parks, and putting all major ordinances on the ballot, our platform includes:
* Stop Hoboken’s overdevelopment — A moratorium on development should be implemented by repealing redevelopment ordinances and the Zoning Law’s Planned Unit Development provisions and by minimizing Zoning variances. The overdevelopment that exploded under Russo’s administration continues unabated, despite promises to the contrary made by Roberts and Council running mates Carol Marsh and Tony Soares during their 2001 campaign. Although Marsh and Soares have broken from Roberts and formed a Ward Council slate to oppose him, their voting records do not reflect a commitment to putting the brakes on development. As City Council members, both voted to approve the hotel/office building on the Port Authority waterfront site and to initiate the designation of Maxwell House as a redevelopment zone. As a Planning Board member, Marsh voted to approve 720 Monroe and Maxwell House projects, claiming that there was nothing else she could do, even though public testimony provided a solid legal basis for rejecting the projects. .
* End harmful government/private partnerships — We oppose partnerships between the City of Hoboken and developers that the City should be regulating. Mayor Roberts has created a partnership with Stevens Institute of Technology on the pretext of improving technology-related education. The Roberts Administration has since turned a blind eye to Stevens’s building a 725 car garage beneath the Babbio Center (without necessary zoning approvals), which has involved blasting away ancient serpentine rock and releasing asbestos into the environment.
* No more PILOTs and Redevelopment designations — Redevelopment designation and “payments in lieu of taxes” (“PILOTs”) encourage massive development by exempting it from normal zoning and taxes, and passing developers’ taxes onto the rest of us. We will oppose any future redevelopment/PILOT agreements and will act to repeal existing redevelopment ordinances. In 1992, the NJ State Redevelopment Law was amended to allow valuable and desirable property (such as Hoboken waterfront property) to be declared “in need of redevelopment”, thereby exempting it from taxation and zoning and allowing the City and developers to work out back room deals for mega projects which pay only a small fraction of their tax obligations. Under PILOT agreements granted to the Port Authority, they pay only 20% of their tax obligation; the remaining 80% is passed onto other Hoboken and Hudson County taxpayers.
* Create and preserve public open space — Public lands should be used for public purposes, not to benefit developers. To preserve Hoboken’s limited public space, we will oppose the transfer of public lands to private developers.
Please feel free to contact me (201-963-0683, indiecom@aol.com) if you have any questions or comments, or if you’d like to join the HCO or help with our campaign.
Thank you for your consideration.
Cheryl Fallick
Hoboken Citizens Organization