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Re: The New York Times: LeFraks Envision Even Bigger Skyline Across Hudson
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That 4% can easily be eaten by the difference in residential real estate taxes. A single family townhouse in Brooklyn often has taxes under $2K. It's the getting out of town that made us look here to begin with instead of Brooklyn. Getting out of Park Slope can be brutal. The Gowanus? just shoot me now. One of the main differences is most of our developers are carpetbaggers who have no love of JC and could care less what it's future will look like, and that includes the Lefraks. The guy who developed Dumbo may have been hard on the artists but at least he "got it" about what makes people love a neighborhood and city.
Posted on: 2006/6/2 2:11
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Re: The New York Times: LeFraks Envision Even Bigger Skyline Across Hudson
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Not even true. JC loaned them hundreds of millions of dollars that Schundler let them repay for pennies on the dollar because it let him plug his budget hole. JC politicians are forever screwing the future over for the political now, which is why the city is poorly planned and perennially broke. According to Janice M., Newport exceeded their enviromental impact statement many years ago but still gets their projects approved. There is simply no feedback loop here to check compliance with the terms of PILOTS or any other agreements.
Posted on: 2006/6/1 23:05
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Re: The New York Times: LeFraks Envision Even Bigger Skyline Across Hudson
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I nearly sprayed my coffee when I read of his vision of Newport as the "experimental prototype city of tomorrow." Lord help us. I guess in his city of tomorrow people don't need parks, they just report their poorly built apartments to contemplate a view of Manhattan and wonder how they can afford to move there.
It was quite a love letter, but suprising in that it was in the Metro rather than Real Estate or NJ sections as most of the recent coverage of JC has been.
Posted on: 2006/6/1 18:33
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Re: 30% rent increase
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Raises according to CPI only apply to rent control. The state anti-eviction statute applies to 4 units and above. (we found this out when we were told if we bought a 4 family we could not evict a tenant to have an apartment for ourselves). 3 units or less I think you're on your own. What you suggest above is a NYC attitude about screwing the landlord and dragging it out. I've heard that don't fly so well here, the courts'll toss you out quick if the landlord is within his rights. And as a landlord, credit checks cost $10. If you did that to me I'd put a lien on you. But then I've never had the nerve to raise a tenant 30%!
Posted on: 2006/5/24 21:00
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Re: Earl Morgan on Steven Fulop in today's Jersey Journal
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I'm sorry, but I don't get your point. It seems to me the only alternative to failing against overwelming odds with his initiatives is join the machine and play the time honored, pork barrel, budget busting game of "approve my proposal and I'll approve yours". Loyal opposition is a tough role, and too many politicians roll over and play the game to get their piece of the pie to take home and impress the people who say what you did about "what have you actually done?" If my representative does nothing but vote no for things that pass anyway, but I agree with him, he's done his job.
Posted on: 2006/5/23 23:14
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Re: Wireless Internet - Steven Fulop
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Because dialup sucks so badly with all the poorly designed bandwidth hog websites out there it makes using the net torture. If we want to help the poor & ignorant become less so, internet access is the 21st century equivalent of the public library, town square and the newpaper rolled into one. But then,helping the poor & ignorant become less so is not such a clear goal in some circles. Quote:
While I'm sympathetic to your libertarian argument, it would hold more water if Verizon & Comcast actually competed against each other in the marketplace rather than in the bidding war for politicians who will grant them secure monopolies. Both of them have nothing but contempt for their customers, and deserve the same from us. Probably the only reason the government needs to be involved in the wireless venture is to protect it from those anticompetitive monsters who are like black walnut trees that poison anything that tries to grow near them. These are the guys who are currently whining to Congress that being paid by their customers for broadband isn't enough, they need to get paid for bandwidth by websites that are already paying for their own broadband bandwidth!
Posted on: 2006/5/23 1:55
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Re: Ledger article about building boom downtown
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No, in the broader sense, you can't. Once wall to wall development has taken place with no creation of greenspace other than tiny patches like they have in Newport, you can't go in and build a decent park. I'm an ex-manhattanite who also applauds the positives of our continuing gentrification, but one of the places I lived was Morningside Heights, with Morningside Park, Riverside Park and Central Park all within an easy walk. A great city is more than just coffee bars and sushi. What's going on here is a once in a lifetime opportunity, and JC is blowing it by it's doing business as usual, without any overall vision. You should see the plans Lefrak has for 10th st. They want significant increases in density and height for 3 buildings by giving tiny "parks" on each property. The real joke is that they will be out of sight on top the embankment!
Posted on: 2006/5/21 19:58
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Re: Ledger article about building boom downtown
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Yeah, all those people staying here with their kids, except that if they live in a abated property they pay no school taxes.
What also amazes me is that while proximity to parks is a staple of the realty ads, not one of the local developers is actually willing to build a real one. The city is too broke and inept to even maintain what it has, so we get 15k new apartments and no new parkspace for them. For example, Hamilton Park will be the local park all the new development on 10th, Brunswick, and up Jersey and Coles to the Hoboken line, and split the Grove Pointe-Marin traffic with VVP. The wait for a kiddie swing will seem like Disneyworld. How this city can be broke in the midst of a historic RE boom is going to be a great book someday. It's too bad we don't have a local newspaper. (sarcasm)
Posted on: 2006/5/21 18:21
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Re: Wireless Internet - Steven Fulop
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I believe some of the citywide wifi networks use a sliding scale fee. If you could charge $10/month for dsl equivalent 300/1500 service to the public, and means test for free service, it might be budget neutral but still kick the hell out of Verizon and Comcast. (boohoo). Perhaps free "visitor access" could be available at lower bandwidth.
I know means testing is an invasion of privacy, but we do it for free school lunches, why not internet? On the other hand, this city can't even give parking tickets profitably, how could they provide wifi at any price?
Posted on: 2006/5/19 22:24
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Re: Final results
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Yup. I find something squeamish about workers having a definitive vote for their choice of supervisors. Most people wouldn't vote for a boss that would make them work harder. But they can have this power only due to the apathy of the rest of us. What harm would it do to have this election on the regular balloting in Nov, other than to shake the comfortable out of their trees? Despite the competition from the other races, it can hardly get less attention!
Posted on: 2006/4/20 16:32
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Re: Final results
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How do you figure? Cucci was more than 800 votes ahead of the top loser.
Posted on: 2006/4/20 15:08
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Re: Final results
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Chalk up 3 more for the old boys.
The lack of info on both the incumbents and challengers was appalling. I don't know whether these guys are the ones who got us into the mess or are have been trying to get us out but dealing with systemic inertia. There's simply no data for the civilians voting, which leads me to assume (perhaps unfairly) it's the former. I agree with Alb that any system that isn't trying to clone Learning Community isn't doing it's job. The charters were supposed to be experiments from which the system could model the successful. But both the successes and failures seem to be out of the system's view.
Posted on: 2006/4/20 2:42
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Re: The Coming Garden State Office Boom - Companies in overcrowded Manhattan begin to look west agai
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And that gives them unbiased veracity? They're hardly uninterested in promoting investment in NJ.
Posted on: 2006/4/14 18:54
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Re: The Coming Garden State Office Boom - Companies in overcrowded Manhattan begin to look west agai
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What a crock. Anyone following the Battle of Ground Zero knows that one of the issues they're duking it out over is the fact that no one but Silverman sees a need to replace the amount of office space destroyed.
Posted on: 2006/4/14 18:46
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Re: Hudson residents say: Build smaller
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It's an easy bet that most of Hudsons residential areas are already zoned for 1 or 2 already.
It's ridiculous opinion polls like this that result in reduced density zoning that won't allow a new infill 3 or 4 family in a older row of them, resulting in a disjointed looking ugly block like mine. Suburban zoning for an existing rowhouse district is vandalism. Say what you will about Hoboken, but they don't force the aesthetically struggling areas outside the historic districts to look even crappier. The new infill fits in as far as setbacks and density.
Posted on: 2006/4/4 16:51
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Re: Flooding (help)
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Beckmeyer is another hack who should be purged from our pathetic beaurocracy. He's insisted that the flooding is an "act of god", and as chief engineer of a antiquated system his dept. has not even the slightest plan as how to update it. His only plan is to pass the problem along to his successor while he collects his generous city pension in Boca.
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Posted on: 2006/3/15 18:51
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Re: Flood Insurance.......Do You Need It ?
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Actually, while biking it seems HP itself is downhill from Newark! Flood insurance is a great rippoff for us. I'll bet a house hasn't EVER been declared a total loss due to natural flood here. Even in New Orleans the houses wouldn't have been totalled if they weren't below sea level and the water stayed for so long. Lots of river flooded houses in NJ survive just fine, though the furnishings are junk. We all know how the great flood of NY harbor will play out eventually. Rising sea levels will insure that we'll eventually get a storm surge over the bulkheads all around the harbor and river. The Govt will claim they never saw it coming and no one warned them. And only after hundreds of billions in damage will they take the obvious steps to secure the harbor like Venice and Amsterdam have done, with closable sea gates at the Verrazano Narrows and Throgs Neck. That, or Ogden Ave will be waterfront property in 2100.
Posted on: 2006/3/8 3:09
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We live on 5th and are required to have flood insurance.... we used to live on West Hamilton and were not.... but if you ever walk down Coles st. you notice there's not much of a change in altitude. Politics. That's the answer to all questions. 
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Re: Fulop Calls for Resignation of Police Chief Robert Troy
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So Chief Troy came to HPNA for a bit of PR and damage control.
I've been agnostic on this issue, feeling I didn't really know enough. I asked him 2 questions. 1: why do we need more cops per capita than NYC? 2: why do you allow one fifth of the force to be on vacation during the summer, our highest crime period? He weaseled on both of them with the typical politico "I'm glad you asked that..." and then not answering the question. It was not a confidence inspiring performance. Perhaps Steve is right. People often rise to the level of their incompetence in bureaucracies, it doesn't mean they aren't sincerely trying their best or weren't good at their previous positions. At the very least he's actually talking to the community. But it was more like a campaign stop than a dialog.
Posted on: 2006/2/2 4:32
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Re: Fulop Calls for Resignation of Police Chief Robert Troy
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Ah, but we actually have an even more concrete measure of failure for those "Authorities", they're all losing money! At least the JCPD isn't expected to make money or at least break even, but they are. When the Parking authority, with practically a licence to print money if it actually does it's job, loses it instead, you can assume the rest are deeply f***ed up.
Posted on: 2006/1/27 19:17
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Re: $9M TAG: 300 block of first street
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This whole "listing" is an elaborate piece of "performance art" by a self professed "artist" solely for publicity. And he's getting it!
In Paulus Hook it could bring up to $2-3m perhaps, but no one in their right mind would pay 3 times that for such a horrible location. Its simply PR hooey.
Posted on: 2006/1/15 6:31
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Re: 44% increase in water and sewage charges
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Ah, so. A little googling was a reminder of what a mess it is. I had read the talkingpolitics.net page about it a while ago but the complexities slipped my mind, which of course was the whole point of Schundlers deal, to make it too complex to follow, while he milked the utilities to balance his budget.
What's amazing from the googling is how the deal is touted on websites as a public victory by privatization! So, given the water delivery beaurocracy is a mess and the sewers are a physical disaster, were you in charge of MUA how would you solve it? The sewers would probably cost several billion to modernize. They don't even have a plan for it if they did have the money.
Posted on: 2005/12/30 1:38
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Re: 44% increase in water and sewage charges
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Ummm, the water was sold to United Water under Schundler for a one time budget save. The charges have gone nowhere but up.
Posted on: 2005/12/30 0:45
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Re: Those New construction 2 Families
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Well put HR. Apparently if your block isn't worthy of Historic Districting, the HD advocates would just as soon throw you to the wolves as allow a Conservation District overlay to address the needs of these blocks. Yes, they might lose some neighborhoods to it that might have become Historic otherwise, but that can still be done later while the area gets some level of preservation. Since these better preserved areas have already chosen no, by not choosing to apply for Historic status, why not give them another alternative? For the record, I have yet to hear ANYONE seriously advocate the removal of a historic district. The interpretation of the proposals as "gutting" are subject to debate, but lets not do it here. The authors of the proposals certainly don't have that intention. I will say that perhaps if a Conservation overlay had been available over the last 25 years a much higher percentage of JC might have been cared for, with more tasteful infill, rather than a few little zones downtown. So touting the real estate values downtown is a little bitter if you live in an area that wouldn't or didn't qualify for Historic yet could have benefited from a Conservation overlay.
Posted on: 2005/12/28 4:26
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Re: Those New construction 2 Families
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There, JP, a genuine dissenter. Do you really believe he's unique? As for myself, I've made clear I am in the same boat as the Heights residents with ugly infill rampant. I have it worse in fact, without even their Historic application possibilities, since my block was obviously already deliberately left out of a historic district (the line runs through the back of my yard). I said about the revisions that I really didn't have a dog in the fight. Here I'm up to my eyeballs. This thread started with Byrd saying " Is there ANYONE who can stop the construction of these two story box houses going up all over the heights?" Nuada inquired about Historic designation because in this town that's currently the only option. Informing us as RT did that there's ways other cities do this isn't changing the subject, just adding an answer.
Posted on: 2005/12/28 1:05
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Re: Those New construction 2 Families
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I'm ordinarily no ally of Minnie's, but Good Lord!! Why don't you actually listen to what people say instead of putting words in their mouths! What she said was in relation to CONSERVATION DISTRICTS not the HD proposals! "Extreme" is subjective! It's like arguing about what "expensive" means. The "happy medium" is for areas that have chosen not to apply for Historic status like RT's Lincoln Park, but would still like some protection for their neighborhood. why is this such a difficult concept for you? I'm sure you can be a wonderful ally, but you seem committed to making sure your way is the only way.
Posted on: 2005/12/27 23:03
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Re: Those New construction 2 Families
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I will agree that Minnie's post was certainly thread hijacking, but the topic from the top of this thread was how to affect the crappy redevelopment of non historic district areas. Your defending the validity of the historic ordinance here is a non-sequiter. These areas aren't covered and for the most part aren't likely to be. So why attack the idea of a lesser zoning overlay more appropriate, yet protective of their fabric? No one in this thread has suggested replacing current Historic Districts with a "Conservation District". The proposed revisions are another topic in a another thread, in my opinion.
Posted on: 2005/12/27 19:55
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Re: Those New construction 2 Families
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Actually, I don't think my block on 7th DESERVES exalted "Historic District" status, even if I was as purist as Mr. Parkhurst! With 7 empty lots when we moved here, it ain't no showcase even though it has some of the oldest houses in the area. But it deserved better than to have 2 hideous white brick, setback 2 families stuck between 3 impressive 4 floor corniced bricks, like poodles among mastiffs. A "conservation district" zoning could help heal blocks like mine back to former glory, instead of ignoring them like Historic did, cutting cleanly around it. I believe there's plenty of other blocks in JC similarly distressed, but getting no help from indifferent zoning.
Posted on: 2005/12/27 5:43
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Re: Those New construction 2 Families
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Unfortunately, making the only option to be a full blown "Historic District" may be why there is so little under protection in JC at large. From reading this thread, what people are reacting to is contemporary style infill in a period neighborhood, which is exactly what Historic designation would require!! They would likely be perfectly happy with what you disdainfully call "theme park" type preservation, calling for period looking infill and features without being precious about it. Such a "Conservation District" would probably get far more support and be extended to more contiguous areas of JC, rather than a few patches worthy of the museum treatment. Your way is NOT the only way, which if you bothered to read the Dallas documents you would see. I'm sure plenty of other cities have a multitiered approach. "All or nothing" has done exactly nothing for the rest of JC, or even the downtowners outside the districts.
Posted on: 2005/12/27 3:12
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Re: Those New construction 2 Families
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Yup, that's it EXACTLY!! Too many times governments large and small act like nothing exists beyond their borders as examples of other approaches to problems.
Posted on: 2005/12/26 19:02
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Re: Those New construction 2 Families
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Be careful what you wish for, in Hamilton Park Historic District there's plenty of disgruntled homeowners who believe some of the rules or their application are hurting more than helping. How does $2000 per new window sound to you? As I also live outside a historic district, I wish there was some designation of "historic lite". Not the anal restrictive museum preservation of the current districts, but a design guideline like many cities have. Things like: historic color bricks (no white, etc), no chain link fences, flat roofs in a row of flat roof town houses, no dish antennas visible from the street and some review of teardowns. I'm sure anyone can come up with more. There should be a middle ground between the absolutes of the Districts and the "anything goes" outside them. If Santa Barbara can require red tile roofs as a matter of design code, JC can surely have some aesthetic codes too. FWIW, I said as much to Mariano Vega years ago and his only response was "extend the historic district". So don't look to the Council for vision.
Posted on: 2005/12/26 17:28
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