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Toonces

Re: Show a developerr an abatement and they will come running

#31

Home away from home

Quote:

heights wrote:
Quote:

Dolomiti wrote:
So do you have an issue with the concept of abatements, or with adding apartment buildings, or both?

For me it's apartment buildings, I'd rather have owner occupied properties. Preferably condos which in theory are like apartment dwellings anyway. I am not a fan of absentee landlords.

+1 - with the added bonus that, at least in theory, condo owners are also interested in the upkeep/improvement of both the building and the vicinity, since it directly affects the value of their investment.

Posted on: 2014/3/26 18:59

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Toonces

Re: Jersey City councilman wants to pull the plug on red-light cameras

#32

Home away from home

Quote:

heights wrote:
These cameras must be problematic why else would they shut them off at the intersection of Newark and Tonnelle avenues. http://www.nj.com/hudson/index.ssf/20 ... _camera_on_routes_19.html

That's funny - that specific intersection is why I would be for removing these cameras, as well (although I suspect that Rich B, a retired policeman himself, is possibly a bit biased in his advocacy for police enforcement rather than camera). I'm often at this light, going west on Newark, to turn left onto 1&9, and have the pleasure of sitting there for 3-5 minutes - and so have noticed that the flashes often go off right in the middle of a green light. IMO, from personal observation, they take pictures far more in error than they do of actual violators.

(and no, I've never gotten a ticket here, myself - thankfully)

Posted on: 2014/3/26 15:19

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Toonces

Re: Proposed Tax Abatement for 25 Senate Place

#33

Home away from home

I live in Canco (basically next-door to this), and agree with Yvonne that there is a serious concern for parking, particularly since the area already has a lack of any - and a 266-unit building with ~125 spots for parking is unrealistic, at best. We're half a mile from any mass transit (PATH or NJT), and on the West side of town, where I'd say it's more likely that people will have cars than not.

The developer has said that all of the units in the building will be rentals - not sure if that would increase or decrease the likelihood that tenants will have cars. However, and again, personally, I'd prefer a building with at least partial if not a majority of units as condos, where owners at least in theory have a vested interest in the improvement of the area. As we can see from the multitudes that are renting in the Little India area, most really don't care about the area's upkeep at all (there's garbage everywhere...) - and I'm concerned that this is likely to be replicated here.

I think part of the abatement discussion is the developer agreeing to have some sort of childcare center or something on the property, but IMO it'd be more in the area's best interest if they had a larger parking capacity.

Posted on: 2014/3/26 15:09

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Toonces

Re: Why are almost half of Fulop's meeting hidden?

#34

Home away from home

Quote:

Dolomiti wrote:

Again: If that is your concern, look at his donor list. I even gave you a link right to it.

If you do, you'll see that the single biggest donor to the Fulop campaign is... Steven Fulop. By a huge margin. Go figure.

Interesting, though, that his personal contributions are listed as "loans". I guess this is normal...? I can't say I've ever looked at this sort of list before...

Anyway, regarding this whole issue with redacting the calendar entries - it could very easily be resolved if they were simply redacted with a side-note along the lines of "met with private citizen, name redacted for confidentiality". Heck, I'll pay for the rubber stamp that says it. The problem I have is that when so MUCH is redacted, it's easy (normal?) to assume that there are a lot of other things going on, besides individual meetings. Redactions, as potentially innocuous as they may be, obviously inspire conspiracy theories.

On a side note, the constant "my guy does this, but YOUR guy is much worse!" claims and deflections do absolutely nothing to advance an intelligent discourse. We should be able to have an intelligent discussion about the present and this specific issue without constantly drudging up the past (or current, ancillary distractions). Do we all really need to constantly be flame-bating, internet tough guys?

Posted on: 2014/3/17 14:38

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Toonces

Re: Jersey City council introduces law that says food vendors have to relocate every two hours

#35

Home away from home

Quote:

user1111 wrote:

I eat at them often when I am on that side during the warmer months. Its great to eat outside the campus, I must say all the cities I have lived in there is no student life outside the campus near any of the universities in Jersey City which I find pretty pathetic.

I can't speak to how it is, now, but when I went there (while it was still Jersey City State - 20 years ago), both I and every one of my co-students was a commuter, so of course there was no off-campus life. If we hung out, it was in Manhattan.

Posted on: 2014/3/4 21:20

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Toonces

Re: Dove to N.J.: 'When people call you 'The Armpit of America,' take it as a compliment'

#36

Home away from home

Quote:

CdeCoincy wrote:
If it gets more PATH riders to use deodorant, I'm all for it.

+1

Heck, I'll even volunteer to stand around and hand out samples.

Posted on: 2014/2/28 22:32

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Toonces

Re: Public Meeting with Port Authority Reps: 2/18/14 @ 7:30pm

#37

Home away from home

Quote:

FakeGreenDress wrote:

My going theory is that this is all about 1WTC, that someone looked at a calendar and panicked that they'd have to shut WTC service after it opens next year. Don't think they considered residents at all, but god forbid they have to inconvenience their precious tenants...

Absolutely. For the same reason that they didn't start this work prior to the SuperBowl - bad press, not any consideration for residents.

Posted on: 2014/2/19 20:49

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Toonces

Re: Public Meeting with Port Authority Reps: 2/18/14 @ 7:30pm

#38

Home away from home

Oh, and PS - they better not even THINK of closing the 33rd st. line before they complete that stupid albatross Calatrava project, so that at the very least, taking the PATH to the WTC and transferring to the subway is minimized.

Posted on: 2014/2/19 15:20

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Toonces

Re: Public Meeting with Port Authority Reps: 2/18/14 @ 7:30pm

#39

Home away from home

Among my personal myriad of issues with this whole situation, at the core is the simple concept that we, the public, apparently have to be the ones that suggest/recommend alternatives and specific courses of action that the PA should take, as some sort of contingency. If my understanding of the situation is correct, the light rail cross-honoring wouldn't have happened if Candice Osbourne hadn't pushed for it. It absolutely amazes me that a public "serving" agency can and does continue to act with absolute disregard - with clearly no intention, otherwise - to the consumers that they serve.

Did they seriously not even THINK of alternatives before they announced this outage? Everything they've said and done, so far, suggests they didn't - including the only 2-week notice. In fact, the short notice really says to me that they purposely acted to minimize the public's chance to comment or act, before they started the closures.

Absolutely amazing.

Say what you will about the MTA, but at least the straphangers organization and the NYC media hold them accountable to the point that they pro-actively offer alternatives (most of the time) when they have planned large-system outages.

Posted on: 2014/2/19 15:18

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Toonces

Re: SuperBowl?? More like SuperRidiculous-

#40

Home away from home

So all the escorts bothered me over the past week (I know that the state police have also been going with the teams to and from their practice facilities, including the Broncos, all the way to the Jets' Florham Park campus). I found this article, from the GS Parkway "Death Race 2012", that has the following - "...Troopers are allowed to accompany vehicles only in specific cases: for state, federal or foreign government officials, medical emergencies, prisoner transports, dignitary funerals, protected witnesses or money and valuables with no other security.

"No other escorts are authorized," according to the policy, last revised in 2007 and signed by [State Police Superintendent Col. Rick] Fuentes."

The NJ State Troopers also don't release overtime info for their force (see this link).

Anyone else feeling fleeced?

Posted on: 2014/2/3 19:55

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Toonces

Re: LIRR construction delayed years, way over budget

#41

Home away from home

Quote:

ianmac47 wrote:

Those jobs are in NYC whether the tunnel is built or not. What it really means is that 45,000 more NJ commuters would have access to those jobs. Also, NJ residents pay taxes in NJ whether or not their jobs are in the city. Also, in the present day, suburban northern New Jersey office markets are two to three times as vacant as NYC's office market, running between 20 and 30% vacant, while most of the markets in the city are under 10% vacant. That's a good indication as to where job growth is.

I'm really not interested in getting into this debate, but don't forget that if you work in NYC, you also pay NYC income tax.

Posted on: 2014/1/28 20:19

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Toonces

Re: Chopper in heights

#42

Home away from home

Thanks for this - I'll definitely follow up! I live in Canco lofts and almost every day am witness to at least one - and often more - chopper flying below the level of our roof (which is only 6 floors up), along the Pulaski.

Posted on: 2014/1/27 21:15

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Toonces

Re: Chopper in heights

#43

Home away from home

Not for nothing, but those of us that live along the 139 corridor are used to this, every day, courtesy of choppers flying into and out of that $@#%!! Kearny heliport...

Posted on: 2014/1/24 21:09

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Toonces

Re: Motorcycle passenger dies from injuries after crash with jitney in Jersey City

#44

Home away from home

Far be it for me to come to the defense of a jitney driver, but if those orange "POI" (presumably, point of impact) photos in the link above are true, the biker was over the yellow line (as was the jitney, but at least on their side of the road it's more narrow and understandable).

Posted on: 2014/1/23 22:10

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Toonces

Re: Eye in the Sky

#45

Home away from home

Quote:

user1111 wrote:
It is now at the square LOL Why wont the city sell this pile of crap?

Because it's a big, obvious way to make it look like they're doing something. And to prove, I heard 1010WINS mention it in a short blurb this morning.

Posted on: 2013/12/27 16:23

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Toonces

Re: PATH currently suspended 12/20 8:45 AM

#46

Home away from home

For what it's worth, whatever signal system the MTA uses allows them to run trains MUCH closer together than the PATH ever has, as far as I know. Just about every morning, I catch the A or C at Chambers, and very often if you just missed the closing doors and the train is pulling out of the station, you can look down the track and see the next train approaching.

Posted on: 2013/12/20 18:22

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Toonces

Re: PATH currently suspended 12/20 8:45 AM

#47

Home away from home

...and regarding the signal problems, their site is now saying the replacement project will be completed in 2015. I feel like it used to have an earlier date - possibly even next year... I guess it was delayed by Sandy? (which seems ridiculous, if so - why they wouldn't have taken full-system outages as an opportunity to ramp up the replacement project is beyond me...)

Posted on: 2013/12/20 15:47

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Toonces

Re: PATH currently suspended 12/20 8:45 AM

#48

Home away from home

Quote:

NewportNJ wrote:
Quote:

user1111 wrote:
You can grab the NJT lightrail using your path card to Hoboken and catch the Path there.

Path cards will get you a summons if you showed it to a ticket agent.

NJT was cross-honoring this morning. Of course that's really vague and there are never any details as to what exactly that MEANS, but I'd hope it would mean you could take the lightrail and not have to worry about a summons, on your way to Hoboken...

Posted on: 2013/12/20 15:45

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Toonces

Re: Investigation into Jersey City carjacking goes cold

#49

Home away from home

Quote:

JoeGee wrote:
I always chalked this one up to gang violence. I recall an article stating 3 people were shot through out the city that night.

Not to mention that it's right across the street from the Ringside...

Posted on: 2013/12/20 15:43

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Toonces

Re: NYT - Uninsured Americans Map

#50

Home away from home

If you zoom in, Hoboken has a low percentage of uninsured - it's the Heights that has the higher rate. Zooming out apparently melds the two areas into one, making Hoboken look worse than it is.

Posted on: 2013/12/19 23:26

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Toonces

Re: 'House Hunters' couple to visit three Jersey City homes

#51

Home away from home

They constantly complained about the walk from Canco to the PATH (half a mile), but bought at Dixon Mills - a .4 mile walk to Grove St. The show seemed to make a big deal about how much closer they were to the train - but never mentioned it's a tenth of a mile difference.

Nor did they mention that both condo complexes have shuttles to and from the PATH (Canco runs every 15 minutes, Dixon every 20), so if we're talking about a "normal" work commute, they'd never be walking, anyway.

And the PATH ride from Grove to JSQ is so short it's inconsequential. Their daily commute would be ~5 minutes longer if they chose Canco over Dixon - not FORTY FIVE...

Oh, and the Trump building is ALSO half a mile from Grove St (or .4 miles from Exchange Place) - yet they didn't mention the distance. Whoops.

That agent was a total moron.

Posted on: 2013/12/9 17:39

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Toonces

Re: 35-year tax break proposed for three-tower Journal Square project

#52

Home away from home

Quote:

moobycow wrote:

As for kids and toddlers... I lived in Grove Point for two years and there were a ton of children in that building, plenty of them school age. I have friends still in that building who have kids in the local schools.

I live in CancoLofts, where I've been since the COA was granted (~5 years ago), and of the 240 units in our building, I'd say maybe 25 have children. On my floor, on my side of the building, there are 20 units, and only one has 2 kids - both toddlers. Our building has an abatement, but as of right now (at least), there's only one child that I'm aware of that's grade-school age, and she's in private school. Will this go up in the future? Maybe, but most of my friends with kids, in the building, anticipate moving to the suburbs when they're old enough.

Posted on: 2013/11/15 20:45

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Toonces

Re: 35-year tax break proposed for three-tower Journal Square project

#53

Home away from home

Here's what I don't understand about the argument against abatements - as it stands, now, the property taxes that are collected on the lot are what they are - let's say just for example they're $10000/year. Once the building is finished and occupied, on top of this lot, the taxes collected will be significantly higher, since Jersey City bases them on not just the land but any "improvements". If the tower is 70 stories and again just for example each story has 2 condos, and each condo pays $1k/year taxes (on top of the shared $10k for the land), now the city is collecting $150k/year - or $140k/year more than they were before the project was started. How is this considered subsidizing the developer?

Are there studies that extrapolate the average cost, to the city, of the consumed city services (paid for through the taxes) that the new residents will incur? Does it take into account that, let's be real, most of the residents will not have children (or may only have toddlers, if so, and they're likely to move to the suburbs before their kids are school-age)?

I'm not trying to be argumentative, but rather, am trying to understand how this is, from a purely monetary perspective, anything but a benefit to the city...?

Posted on: 2013/11/15 18:33

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Toonces

Re: FBI investigation shuts down Bleecker Street in Jersey City

#54

Home away from home

Quote:

user1111 wrote:

UPDATE: Man charged had hazardous materials

Related stories - Jersey City Bikini Waxing

Gotta love nj.com...

Posted on: 2013/11/14 16:33

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Toonces

Re: Jersey City Sees Stardom for Loew's

#55

Home away from home

Quote:

OneSkirt wrote:

Exactly why I am against taking this approach. Also, a company like LiveNation or MSG (who runs the Beacon) is in it to make a profit for themselves only, a very big one. Ticket prices and the tacked on service fees will get astronomical. They will control all programming, leaving no room for community groups to use the space or for the GS Organ Society to hold concerts in addition to larger booked acts. We need this to run as a non-profit with a skilled, professional staff (which includes key FOL people) like an NJPAC or a BAM not by an entertainment conglomerate.

Agreed - they could follow the model used by similar-sized venues, like the Bergen Performing Arts Center, in Englewood, and the Mayo Performing Arts Center, in Morristown - both non-profits. Another really good example of a local theater that's run as a successful non-profit is the Colonial Theatre in Phoenixville, PA, which is actually VERY similar to the Loews in size, programming, and audience appeal.

Posted on: 2013/11/14 15:34

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Toonces

Re: DNA: WTC Underground Passageway to Open Thursday

#56

Home away from home

Quote:

CdeCoincy wrote:

When I read the article, I imagined that the only connection point would be behind the wall that is to the right of the turnstiles as you are entering.

I thought the same thing - and, passing it this morning, I believe you're correct. I can't say I'm looking forward to the mess of people heading in all sorts of different directions, between the escalators and the turnstiles... It's already bad enough, now that they blocked off the stairs on the east side of the handicapped ramp.

Posted on: 2013/10/24 17:12

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Toonces

Re: DNA: WTC Underground Passageway to Open Thursday

#57

Home away from home

Quote:

Azul_the_Cat wrote:

Sure did. With the rate the Fulton Center construction is going I doubt they will meet their 2015 timeline.

FWIW, Fulton Center = MTA, where the Calatrava albatross = Port Authority.

I'm curious to see where the underground walkway connects to the PATH station - and does it actually go under Tower 1? Obviously we'll find out tomorrow...

Posted on: 2013/10/23 20:42

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Toonces

Re: Massive PATH and Hudson River Crossings Toll Increase

#58

Home away from home

Quote:

tommyc_37 wrote:
Everything about the Port Authority truly sucks. Will this new WTC Path station be connected to the new Fulton Street Transit Center?

With Fulton costing $1.4 billion, and the WTC transit hub $4 billion, and the two being a block and a half apart - they'd better connect! An odd aside - unless I'm missing something, the Chambers and Fulton stops on the A and C lines will effectively be the same "station", as a result.

Posted on: 2013/9/26 14:41

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Toonces

Re: mortgage denied

#59

Home away from home

OP - I live in Canco, hence my question - and can put you in touch with a lender, of course. But I'm wondering where you got the numbers of <50% owner occupancy rate and one party owning 15% of all units...? Unless we're no longer talking about Canco? (I see that another thread of yours refers to you in contract with a developer that's recently renovated your target condo - Canco is new development, not a reno)

Posted on: 2013/9/13 16:05

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Toonces

Re: mortgage denied

#60

Home away from home

Are you buying in CancoLofts, as your name suggests?

Posted on: 2013/9/13 14:06

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