dr_nick_riviera wrote:
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Yvonne wrote:
They are half empty because they charge an arm and a leg to rent the spaces. They are not half empty at St. John's apt and Brunswich Towers. St. John's charges very little and it is FREE for Brunswich residents. The fees and or rents are high enough, people are not willing to pay more. If the city ordinance required those spaces to be free for its residents, they would not be half empty.

What on earth are you talking about, if they're half empty, that means the units they're attached to and the rents that include them simply mean people aren't bringing them.

As long as the Yvonne and the corrupt neighborhood associations have so much influence on policy, such a thing would never see the light of day, even in an area where it would make sense like Downtown.

RU_NJ wrote:
Has anyone moved in to this complex recently? I would love to hear your opinions. I'm looking to buy a unit, but i'm not sure if the prices for them are worth it based on the area that it's in.

dr_nick_riviera wrote:
I'd love to see more emphasis on quality of life issues Downtown. I'm tired of stepping around crumbling, weed strewn sidewalks and walking past the same dilapidated buildings and abandoned lots every day. I want the city to start aggressively fining these deadbeat property owners. Hopefully most will just sell to more responsible citizens when their taxes double or triple as a result of the reval.

I'm also tired of the treeless streets and trees being cut down by the city without being replaced. They even leave the stumps in place, so property owners can't replace them on their own dime without having to pay for an expensive removal. If Downtown is going to contribute the lion's share of taxes, Fulop should start outlining policies to address some of these things.

It's quite telling that Healy #2 doesn't have any real policy specifics on his website, just vague one or two sentence platitudes. "I'm not Fulop" might work on people like Yvonne and her neighborhood association NIMBYs, but most people won't be fooled.

jc_dweller wrote:
Cops do move the cars out of the way, but for whatever reason, the entitlement attitude prevails here. The rules just don't apply to those drivers, of course! Didn't you know?

I wonder if there is some way to include the stores in this effort. It's not hard to see that the illegal parkers are patrons of just a few of the stores.

In the meantime, a few a-holes continue to impact the rest of us.

MikeyTBC wrote:
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GrovePath wrote:
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bustjc wrote:
I constantly see the police blaring away to get cars away from there, and writing tickets to those that don't move. They turn the corner and three new cars roll up. At least they attempt to do something there.

It is true - cops do move cars - but I really do think there needs to be a real crackdown on bikes on the sidewalk - someone is going to get killed one of these days.

I would be fine with all of Newark Ave being made into a "One Way" street in a westward direction (at least to Brunswick) -
and maybe add an extra wide bike lane & diagonal parking spaces for cars.

really? Killed?
How fast are these rogue cyclists going on the sidewalk?

brewster wrote:
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heights wrote:
I would go one step better, one-way with parking on only one side and use the other side for a bicycle lane.

Yes, of course, because the cars that ignore the "no parking or standing" will totally respect a bike lane.

Annod wrote:
A parking meter is about four feet tall. You can lift the chain up and take the bike.

brewster wrote:
This is just ridiculous, Newark here is reduced to one lane for 2 way traffic. It's bad enough for cars, but life threatening if you're trying to bike here with the cars swerving into oncoming traffic both ways. The should just give in and make it one way here with parking both sides.

JPhurst wrote:
Crowded at a few "choke points" but it went off amazingly well. Particularly impressive that this was done as a last minute contingency plan.

Annod wrote:
Exchange Place is packed. I think you will have just as good or even a better view from Newport and Hoboken.

Standing room only at Exchange Place. Please don't bring your grandmother.

Annod wrote:
Someone chained a women's bike to a parking meter near Exchange Place.

JerseyCityNj wrote:
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Dinger wrote:
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Monroe wrote:
I think many had hoped that Berry Lane Park would be a stabilizing force for the area; while things surrounding the park may not be getting worse, they're for sure not getting better.

Agree with the sentiment, but note this was quite a distance from Berry Lane off MLK and west of Arlington Park. Completely different hood.

Alot of the shootings and violence around Berry Lane Park, Lafayette and The Junction is the result of Montgomery Projects being demolished. If many of you remember Montgomery and Booker T Projects were always doing retaliation shootings back and forth against each other. When they displaced the Montgomery residents many moved to Lafayette and nearby areas not far from the projects they grew up and brought old beefs with them to their new neighborhoods.

This happens everytime they knock down a projects. The same thing happened when they tore down Curry Woods and Duncan. You can bet the city will get the same results when they finally decide to do it to Marion or Booker T next.

brewster wrote:
I'd like to see the cops cut off all the locks that people leave on the racks so they don't have to carry them. It's obnoxious.

There was a sketchy dude sitting on the bike rack at Shoprite, in the way as I was trying to lock up. I politely mentioned to him that if he wanted to be above suspicion of bike theft he shouldn't hang around people's bikes. As you can imagine, I got the predictable response.

brewster wrote:
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Frinjc wrote:
If I am not misguided, the interest for developers of doing rentals is for tax reason. Postponing the sale for several years allows to get a smaller property tax and, when selling, moving the profits to long term capital gains - at lower rate. As times goes, developers will eventually put their units on the market which should temper the current rise - which is also fueled by the stock market. The situation might be quite different a few years down the road...

Sorry, I don't follow. Most of the new properties are abated and their taxes are not changing. If there is a general retreat of all property prices due to the reval (something I doubt) then they've lost money.

TheBigGuy wrote:
I got my Voter Ballot and the stack of candidate pamphlets that have been carelessly tossed on my front steps for weeks.

I plan to cross off the ballot names from all the pamphlets collected and vote for any name not crossed out on my ballot.

Dolomiti wrote:
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Yvonne wrote:
brewster:
The letters I wrote had to do with these subjects...

Don't change the subject.

Are you happy that one person underpays their taxes for years, knowing full well that means someone else is overpaying their taxes?

Should we feel sorry for someone whose taxes are going up, because the value of their home increased from $150k to $1.5 million?

Did delaying the reval make that better or worse?

mfadam wrote:
Let's say the typical DTJC rowhouse goes from about 12K in taxes to 24K - a simple double. What do you think that does to post-Reval valuations?

Maybe 15% haircut?

I think psychology may play a bigger role than the calculator in that it is a tough sell to say you pay suburb level taxes without the good schools/safe streets/etc.