In her 2015 State of the City address, Mayor Dawn Zimmer alluded to controversial local issues like charter schools and affordable housing, but focused largely on her ongoing program to address flooding, infrastructure, and quality of life in the city, emphasizing her execution of long-term plans rather than any brand new initiatives. She reiterated a strong vision for Hoboken’s future as a city safe from the surges of the Hudson River and buoyed by its own surge of economic development and entrepreneurial investment.
“Our city is the envy of the region and we’re just getting better every day,” said Zimmer before approximately 50 people at Stevens Institute of Technology on Tuesday night. Positive signs she cited included falling crime rates, rising bond ratings, new parks, and newly-arrived businesses such as e-commerce start-up Jet.com and Pearson Education, which will move its 900-person headquarters to Hoboken this year.
Hot button issues
Among the issues Zimmer addressed was affordable housing, a perennial point of concern as rents and home prices continue increasing in the city. The issue has come to the fore again recently thanks to questions about the Zoning Board’s treatment of projects featuring affordable units.
Zimmer touted an audit of Hoboken’s affordable housing completed last year, which she said showed that Hoboken has the highest number of units per capita among similarly sized cities in the state. Still, she expressed concern that, “without help from the community, we too often lose families that are part of the fabric of Hoboken.”
Most of the units cited are decades old and have low turnover in tenants.
“My focus is to make sure that the affordable housing that we have and the new affordable housing that we are building goes to those who truly need it the most so that we can help to maintain the diversity of our community,” said Zimmer. She promised to create an online clearinghouse for affordable housing opportunities in the city.
“I know infrastructure is not quite as exciting as a new park, but it is just as critical to our future. – Dawn Zimmer
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She is one of over 200 mayors nationwide who has signed onto a challenge sponsored by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to end veteran homelessness in their towns and cities by the end of 2015.
The redevelopment plan for the Hoboken Yards approved in December, which Zimmer supported, could also bring hundreds of new affordable units to the city.
Zimmer also made reference to the city’s charter schools. Some residents, including members of the Hoboken Board of Education, have criticized charter schools for siphoning money from traditional public schools and increasing de facto segregation.
But Zimmer appeared keen to lessen the division, expressing support for both the charters and Hoboken’s traditional public schools.
“I know firsthand how important both our traditional school district and our charter schools are to our city’s families,” she said, “and as mayor, I will do everything I can to help make all of our schools as successful as they can be.”
Zimmer noted that her youngest son would be graduating from Elysian Charter School this spring and planned to attend Hoboken High School in the fall. Her other son attended the charter school as well.
Resiliency
Two years after Superstorm Sandy, flood mitigation remains a central focus of Zimmer’s legislative agenda.
“When it comes to resiliency,” said Zimmer, “I must confess that I am obsessed about flooding… It may be because my house flooded. It may be because my husband didn’t move our car, so we, too, have a new Sandy car. But really as I reflect on it, it’s the memory of the mountains and mountains of debris on our sidewalks.”
In her 2014 address last March, Zimmer described the budding flood plan her administration was developing in conjunction with an international team of engineers and architects led by the Office for Metropolitan Architecture.
Eight months after that comprehensive proposal won $230 million from HUD in the Rebuild by Design competition, Zimmer allowed herself another small victory lap. The federal funding, she said, was “a historic opportunity to protect our city.”
The HUD money for flooding in Hoboken will be controlled by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, which detailed a seven-to-ten-year timeline for execution at a public meeting last month.
On Tuesday, Zimmer announced the creation of a Rebuild by Design Citizen’s Advisory Committee tasked with providing community input throughout the process. She named Hoboken Quality of Life Coalition coordinator Helen Manogue and Hoboken Cove Boathouse Board member Carter Craft as co-chairs.
At the same time, Zimmer focused most of her flood resiliency discussion on concrete projects the city already has underway, which will not be covered by the federal bonanza, though they feature in the award-winning conceptual strategy.
These include a brand new boathouse in Weehawken Cove, which will feature a flood berm and office and amenity space elevated above the 100-year flood plain. The final design was presented last September, and Zimmer said she hoped to complete the project soon.
Another imminent project is the North Hudson Sewerage Authority’s second flood pump, which will address flooding in northwest Hoboken. After the City Council approved an $11.9 million bond for the project in December, Zimmer said construction on the pump should also begin soon.
The first stage of a Southwest Park featuring a 250,000-gallon stormwater retention basin is also expected to break ground this year. The project is a special one for Zimmer, who noted Tuesday that she “first got involved in politics as a resident of Southwest Hoboken advocating for a local park.”
Many of these projects were featured in last year’s State of the City address, and Zimmer said she was proud of the progress Hoboken has made so far. But other initiatives acclaimed last year, including the ongoing renegotiation of Hoboken’s contract with its water utility United Water, received no mention this year. Last year, Zimmer said a new contract would ensure that “our water revenues…are used for the necessary upgrades to bring our water main infrastructure into the 21st century.”
On Wednesday, city spokesman Juan Melli said that a professional had been hired to assist in the negotiations with United Water, which are still underway.
Infrastructure
Zimmer also singled out Hoboken’s aging infrastructure as an area ripe for improvement. She promised to repave 50 blocks of roadway and make pedestrian safety improvements to 11 intersections this year. In addition, said Zimmer, Newark Street between Washington and Hudson streets would be converted to cobblestone to make the area more pedestrian-friendly.
For Observer Highway, Zimmer promised a complete overhaul starting this spring. “Working with the county,” she said, “we’ll be repaving Observer Highway and converting it from a dangerous high speed thruway into a safer street with shorter crossing distances and a two-way protected bike lane from Marin Boulevard to Hoboken Terminal.”
While many of these projects are covered by bonds or state grants, Zimmer said the city needed a reliable source of funding for transportation projects in an era of dwindling state and federal assistance. According to Zimmer, the annual state allotment for repaving in Hoboken has fallen from $1 million to $400,000 in recent years.
Zimmer cast her plan to install meters on all of the city’s visitor parking lanes in these explicitly monetary terms, promising to reinvest the revenue they generate in repaving, new garages, and new parking technology. In addition, she said the meters would encourage turnover and free up parking for residents.
Zimmer also mentioned that the city was looking into laying fiber optic cabling beneath Washington Street as another way to “create potential new revenue streams for the city.”
Meanwhile, PSE&G’s replacement of outdated cast iron gas lines on Hoboken continues, and Zimmer said she is actively seeking “grants and public-private funding” for a microgrid that will maintain power at crucial city buildings even during an outage. “I know infrastructure is not quite as exciting as a new park, but it is just as critical to our future,” said Zimmer.
Zimmer was introduced by Stevens President Nariman Farvardin, who touted the “productive working relationship” he enjoyed with her administration.
Former state Sen. Bernard Kenny, State Assemblyman Carmelo Garcia, Council President Ravi Bhalla, Council members Jen Giattino, David Mello, James Doyle, and Peter Cunningham, and Municipal Court Judge Michael Mongiello were also in attendance.
Carlo Davis may be reached at cdavis@hudsonreporter.com.