Sharing the invite that's been circulating on FB..

Councilwoman Joyce Watterman in partnership with Sustainable JC is hosting an open forum tonight about the construction code. Concerns, questions, issues, etc. are all open and fair game.

If you've renovated a part of your home or just have questions about how the building dept works, this may be a good opportunity to learn more about the process.

City Hall Chambers @ 7pm.

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Developers in Tiers 1, 2, and 3 of the City's new abatement policy can "buy up" to higher abatement terms. At 1st and Marin, the minimum / default term is 5 years because it's in Tier 1. In Tier 1 a developer can then "buy up" to Tier 2 (10 years) or Tier 3 (20 years) if they contribute 1.5% or 3% of construction costs (respectively) or if they build a preK facility (subject to BOE approval).

Jersey City, We Have a Problem. http://civicparent.org/2014/05/jersey-city-we-have-a-problem/

Happening now - come on down to City Hall chambers.

Wishful_Thinking - the map only has abatements from July 1, 2013. We'll be going back in time with hopefully all abatements. Open JC is helping to get that data digitized. Abatement data is stored in a very decentralized manner, it's tedious to compile, and mapping it requires several steps from independent sources.

La_Verdad - I'm not so much "pro" or "anti" abatement as I'm pro-transparency. I'm admittedly growing increasingly frustrated with the lack of transparency around how abatements are constructed, managed, and overseen, even into 2014. The NJ Comptroller wrote a comprehensive report scolding JC and other municipalities back in 2010, and IMO the picture is not that different in 2014. Which is very unfortunate.

The Schools issue: in my opinion, the biggest problem with abatements is how they *don't* intersect with the public schools. Can you give one good reason why abatements would not contribute to the public schools in 2014, particularly in light of increasing public school enrollment in Jersey City?

The Rutgers point: are you referring to the Residential Demographic Multipliers Report? I would assert that's a reliable starting point, but not an end point. Any process that yields "1.88 students" for a building in Hamilton Park in 2014 is a process that at least warrants some scrutiny. If, upon scrutiny, there is merit to the process, then fine. But can you point to a reference or source that shows any robust debate about the veracity of the Rutgers multipliers in context of Jersey City abatements? Or any municipality's abatements? I'd be interested in some more info on this.

The Reval: I agree that's an issue. I still don't understand why it was cancelled, other than that the City is in such a deep fiscal hole at this point that to proceed with the reval would have caused some existing taxpayers' taxes to spike so high that it would price people out of their own homes. I used to own a junior 2-BR condo in Newport and paid almost as much tax as a friend who owns a full building in VVP. Clearly there's an imbalance - I don't disagree with that. But IMO this is not about comparing one homeowner vs. another homeowner - it's about taking a broad look at the tax policy and the fiscal health of JC and making a very good faith effort to educate the community about the tax situation.

The City should be initiating the "objective" discussion you're referring to, La_Verdad. But they're not, which is really unfortunate because I agree we need a broad, comprehensive discussion that lays all facts and circumstances on the table.

Thank you so much. Yvonne - I'm working with Open JC to get past years digitized. I'll update this thread as we update the map.

I also submitted OPRA requests for the fiscal impact studies for all abatements listed on the map. The fiscal impact statements show the cost/benefit metrics underlying each abatement, like estimated # of public school students and estimated # of residents in the building (these #'s then drive the estimated school & municipal costs, respectfully).

If anyone has any ideas or a wish list of what you'd like to know about abatements, please let me know.

Big picture, I'd like to quantitatively analyze the fiscal impact of all abatements in JC. It's a tall order but I think with Open JC helping to scrub for the data, it's doable and would be informative for the community, particularly since JC continues to use abatements aggressively.

With help from Open JC (http://openjerseycity.org), I created an interactive Google Maps tool that shows long-term abatements in Jersey City. Thus far, the abatements focus on 10+ years approved since July 1, 2013.

A quick overview of the tool, and a link to the tool itself, is here: http://civicparent.org/2014/04/abatem ... or-jersey-city-taxpayers/

Thanks
Brigid
CivicParent.org

Hi - my latest article on abatement is posted, and it look at the issue of transparency (a noted issue with abatements statewide), using Mayor Fulop and the KRE abatement as a lens into the issue.

http://civicparent.org/2014/03/tax-ab ... 1-the-transparency-issue/

Thanks,
Brigid

Hi, my 3rd article is now posted and it is specifically about PILOTs - the pros and cons. The link is here: http://civicparent.org/2014/02/17/tax ... -sides-of-the-same-pilot/

Also, in follow-up to Yvonne's post below, the 9th & Brunswick abatement really does beg for more information. I don't know if 20 years is merited or not; I'm emailing my city council reps separately to inquire for more information about this before the vote occurs. Hopefully others will do so too, because if there is merit to the abatement, then fine, but let's put the merits out there for public discussion, in advance of the vote itself.

dtjcview and JCSleeze - Agreed, the PILOTs have an impact here and that is increased revenue to the city but a subsequent cost to the schools. I will be looking at the PILOT's in more detail in the follow-up post that will look at the blue slices of the pie. I'm aiming to get that out in the next day or so.

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I'd love to know the city's stance on this, too. Case in point?there is an abatement at 9th & Brunswick that was up for 1st reading ordinance at this past Tuesday's City Council meeting. I assume it passed (though am not positive), so I assume it'll be up for 2nd reading at the next meeting. It's a 20-year abatement in Hamilton Park; on its face, I simply don't understand why any development in Hamilton Park needs an abatement at this point, though perhaps the city can make a case. Either way, I think many people need to be asking the city about it.

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Thanks Yvonne, I will add this to my notes, this is very helpful. Right now I'm trying to keep my posts at simple as possible and engage others, because it helps build the discussion up and gets others asking questions. The nuance is extremely important though to have, as you stated, an accurate analysis at end of day.

I would like at some point to build up to an analysis of Jersey City's ratable base, and somehow show how each future abatement would impact (good or bad) the ratable base and revenues. I don't even know if this is feasible or possible given available data, the math involved, the many factors that may be required, etc. It's all admittedly so complex. I would love too to engage the city at some point, as I think it is incumbent on them to help show any future abatement's cost/benefit profile to the public, so that if a new abatement is granted, the impact to the ratable base is justified with a future benefit that we all can believe in.

Hi - the 2nd article in this series is now posted on CivicParent.org.

http://civicparent.org/2014/02/10/tax ... n-conventional-taxpayers/

In this post I looked at the ratable base and how abatements affect the tax rate.

Yvonne: The 2 articles you provided in this thread were what I used as primary source/context for my post. I'm familiar with them both, have read them, and cited with footnotes in my blog post where I reference them. Just wanted to clarify this for benefit of anyone else reading this thread.

I'm writing a series of articles about abatements, and wanted to share the link for post #1 ("the basics about abatements"), here: http://civicparent.org/2014/01/30/tax ... nts-101-a-basic-overview/

My plan is to write a series of articles that build up to a concrete analysis of abatements in Jersey City specifically, and also look at how public schools intersect with abatement funding in Jersey City.

Congratulations to Open JC, who took 1st prize at the NY "PDF Liberation Hackathon." See here for more info on the win: https://github.com/pdfliberation/Jersey-City-Budget-PDF-Liberation. Also, to understand value-add of these efforts, check out Open Oakland's budget visualization for an idea of how city budget data can be transformed into a visual display that anyone really can analyze and start to digest (Oakland's example shows the ultimate goal with respect to taking data, digitizing it, and then visually presenting for greatest end-user ease/accessibility): http://openbudgetoakland.org/2012-2013-sankey.html.

Open JC is comprised of our neighbors who aim to help push Jersey City's government into the 21st century; it's a local chapter of Code for America Brigade supporting civic hacking in Jersey City.

I'm a member of Open JC, but more an interloper / interested citizen at this point since I do not have the "hacking" skill set. I think what they are working on is truly fantastic.

Just wanted to socialize their efforts, say congrats and thanks to the hackers for their efforts, and hope that others take some time to learn about Open JC (http://openjerseycity.org).

Would be interested to learn what others think of this, and how you think open data can benefit the city, after you've had time to learn a bit more about it.

Why is more than 5 minutes needed? If comments longer than 5 minutes are required, can't the person put their concerns in writing, submit the letter to the BOE, and refer to the letter in his/her public comments so that the concern itself is on the record and referenced?

I've been to numerous BOE meetings where parents with kids, there for a school-specific issue, have to wait until the public comments portion of the meeting to have their say. That means, at times, waiting until 9 or 10pm. This proposed change would, I assume, ease the process for the parents and children.

Granted, individuals who need/want lengthy time in front of cameras and a large audience might suffer, but their rights are not being denied, they simply must learn how to be more succinct.

I have a blog called CivicParent. Wanted to share my most recent post?.a 2013 "year in review"/ highlights of Jersey City Public Schools?a very impressive list of accomplishments when you look at it in totality through the year.

http://civicparent.org/2014/01/07/jer ... ools-year-in-review-2013/