Dr nick - the vna is a volunteer community group - not a governmental agency with a requirement to provide minutes. These are people from the community getting together, making time out of their own busy lives, to discuss issues in the village community and to be neighborly. Meetings are held at 730pm so that people can get there after work. While it may not be convenient to your particular work schedule, it is the best possible time for most. meetings are announced and all are welcome. If you cant make it to meetings due to your work schedule, find a friend in the community that can and get the scoop from them. Or, go about making your voice heard in other ways by your own advocacy. Either you get involved in your community or you don't. As you know, nobody owes you anything if you arent willing to participate in a meaningful way. It takes time and effort, often unappreciated, to get involved. Its not easy when we all have busy lives with jobs and families. Its not easy for anyone - you are not alone in these time constraints.

Dr. Nick Rivera, why dont you attend a vna meeting? These are people volunteering their time in an effort to help the community. Why don't you stop maligning them and actually do something to help the community instead, since you seem to care so much? Why is all of your vitriol saved for members of the community, while seemingly unconditional support for developers? Do you have some association with the developers that you are not disclosing on this forum?

Brewster - it is most likely that the poster is a developer and a
One that is known to the village. He spends a lot of time here due to his business dealings. I am sure he gets mail here due to his business dealings but he does not live here. Lets just leave it at that. Its not a crackpot theory.

There already is a proposal that was worked on with the vna to update the zone. However, keep in mind thaT even if you increase the height to 4 stories, some developers won't stick to that - they will still seek variances for greater height and density. That is the biggest concern and what has been happening in the village.

And if you travel over to the village you would see that the streets in the village are very narrow - much more narrow than, say, hamilton park area. its probably amongst the most narrow in all of jc. It is not the type of area that ever contemplated 6 story buildings. Its not the views that residents are concerned about.

Please keep in mind that the original poster is a developer that Seeks variances in the area - he lives out of town. He stands to make a lot of money. His real concern is his profit - not the long term well being of this community or city - or the thoughtful redevelopment of the area. Lets not get so eager for "change" that we allow anything to go up in the name of change, only to have regret 20 years from now when we are stuck with it.

we agree with DanL. The original poster, jcactivist, is almost certainly one of the developers that is seeking variances in the village to build multiple projects. Please note that while he builds in jersey city, he does not live here. He has no vested interest in this community other than making money. Of course they want variances so that they can jam more density in and make more money.

Jcguys - i already have done the research and will be happy to share Specific information by pm, for anyone that is interested in helping with rectifying this problem. I was merely telling stateaidguy that before he claims there is no problem with lead in the jc school system, he should do better research. He obviously does not have any children in the jcps.

Stateaidguy - the lead in the jc schools is not coming from the water supply which is why it is not showing up in the report you are looking at - its due to leaching from old pipes and parts in the schools themselves. Testing in 2013 came back with over 200 faucets exceeding federal limits, many by over 100x the limit. Moreover, it is not clear whether all faucets were tested or just a sampling, which would be oven more troubling. So basically the district has just shut down certain faucets from use. nytimes recently addressed jersey city in a march 2016 article ablout lead in schools and it was periodically covered by local press after rounds of testing. I dont think many people know about what a problem this is and certainly BOE doesnt want to advertise this, especially given the fact that it has been going on for years.

Other problems in jersey city include the long term use of trailers as classrooms.

Stateaidguy - you need to do the research on lead. the problem with lead in jc schools makes newark look like child's play - no pun intended. It has been known about by local, state and federal officials since at least 2005. Some school faucets have tested at astronomical levels of lead. Its widespread throughout the older schools in the district. The solution has been to use bottled water and microwavable food. It is a cost issue - the city says they have no control over it. Thr board of ed says they dont have the money to replace the pipes and parts leaching the lead. The state is offering nothing to fix these schools. Its a disgrace, with no end in sight. Recently the playground to a local school was shut down due to lead contamination from the turnpike.
And I've seen the flooding. Some of these very old schools are in a terrible state of disrepair.

Meanwhile, these jersey city children have suffered with highly contaminated lead in their school water systems for over a decade, with nothing being done. Kids in many schools don't have any greenspace to play/exercise in. During rainstorms, massive amounts of water floods through the roof and is collected in garbage cans. Nothing in done - it continues for years. Somehow, i don't see these basic health and safety problems happening in the "underfunded" suburbs.

I still find this building design very unpleasant in these renderings. It looks clunky and already outdated, but perhaps i just dont have the "eye" to visualize it in reality. the red accent looks pretty garish to me. Just because its different doesnt automatically make it good. The interior renderings remind me of the 1970s "futuristic" design style. ugh.

But I'm trying to think positive and hope the final design looks better than the renderings. I was actually pleasantly surprised by the end result of the Hamilton House building over by Enos Jones park. The design renderings didn't totally blow my mind but in reality I find it to be a very pleasant, sophisticated and good looking building. Much, much better than a lot of the stuff going up by some other builders with their faux brick exterior and vinyl siding in the back....

I guess i'll reserve my judgment until i actually see it and hope that my untrained eye will be pleasantly surprised, but the renderings do not look beautiful to me - it looks clunky and already strangely dated. And that red accent...

Good point. I think i would like it better without the red accents seen in the picture.

Re 280 newark - its imaginative, but i dont find it very pleasing to the eye, at least in the rendering. I wonder how it will age. Will we be looking back in 30 years saying "what were they thinking?", kind of like when i see a classic 1970s structure?

I wish the mall would add a banana republic and j crew. At least then i could run over to get a quick gift when neccessary.

Agreed. We live in a world where most of our work is already done electronically and even teleconferencing is super easy.

I never see anyone patrolling or inspecting the area where the pipeline runs - incidentally within stones throw of a playground and elementary school.

The irony being that the only real "winners"
Are the wealthy developers that are the beneficiaries of this tax abatement welfare from the city. Children lose out, the average homeowner is then expected to pay more, and the developers line their pockets at jc's expense and retreat to their mansions in the burbs, taking all of their $$ with then. My point being that the residents of the suburbs are the ones that abuse the system to their advantage and our detriment.

SRia- thats defintely a tear down, but it,s a very wide and deep lot, which is hard to find in downtown.

I believe jcmc has a level 3 NICU. Jcmc is also under the st barnabas umbrella now. I was very impressed with the level of care I received here. The nurses are outstanding. I went to a much more "prestigious" hospital for baby #1 and had a very bad experience. I also felt very comfortable in Dr. Yousry's care - he is incredibly experienced.

Dr. Yousry and Dr. muhammed are wonderful and work together in the same office. Dr Yousry is basically "the guy" at jcmc. dr Muhammed ended up delivering my baby and she was really great. I had a high risk pregnancy and i felt so well cared for in their hands. Pm me if you would like more information or have specific questions.

The alternative is to demand more from the developers than crappy mediocre buildings, particularly when they are seeking variances to put up these buildings and they dont even live in our community. We shouldnt sell ourselves out so cheap or else this town in going to look like crap in 20 years and everyone will say " what were they thinking?". This is why we should not be so gleeful to cave to any developer request for a variance in the name of "progress". Keep in mind that the developer doesn't give a darn about our neighborhood - they just want to jam in as much density as they can so they make more money - then go home to their mcmansion in the burbs.

I was walking by a building in downtown under construction today( a building that obtained a variance) and saw workers cutting huge "blocks" of white styrofoam. The next worker was then coating the styrofoam in concrete, so that the end product looked like large concrete slabs. They were "making" a lot of these. Any builders on here have any idea why they would be doing this? Sure seems like shoddy construction to me if these styrofoam "slabs" were going to be used in the construction....

Salvation army does run a lot of great programs, including drug and alcohol rehabs that may be the only available option for some folks. This is why i donate to SA..though i totally get the desire for a more local option.

They may try for a temporary exemption if they can show that the park will be reopened.

It might. The state generally requires a certain amount of outside space for a daycare to be licensed. Strange that this requirement doesnt seem to apply to publuc schools... Anyone know if there is a requirement for "green space" for public schools?

That video is outrageous! Could be asbestos, pcbs, lead, who knows what!!! This needs to be seen by all city state feds! Its even more egregious as this is the only outside playspace for the entire ps5 school.

The state can clean it up, but what will they do to make sure the contamination doesnt happen again? Mary benson (the only outside playspace for ps 5) was just reopened a year ago after a complete renovation due to previously discovered lead contamination. was at the meeting discussing the closure years ago. Residents asked the city official where the lead cane from. He nentioned it could be coming from the turnpuke but they werent sure. Once again, another example of where a serious problem is known about, but nobody is making sure the problem is fixed. Slap a bandaid on it....i really credit Fulop for taking action on this after it was discovered again, but there needs to be heavy pressure on the state to come up with a real solution - not just netting.

Netting seems hardly the answer as paint chips could easily pass through, especially in bad weather, and continue to contaminate.

Stateaidguy, "aka" Monroe.

Jersey city requires additional aid because costs are higher here than in more suburban areas - just think of the cost of space alone - it costs much less to rent or purchase space in freehold, for example, than it does in jersey city. We have many more english as second language students that require additional programs. Jersey city kids, by no means, are living in the lap of luxury in their "overfunded" schools.


Children in jersey city hardly have it so great. We have a lead contamination problem in the faucets and fountains ( due to old parts and pipes in the schools) across the district that has been known about since at least 2003 and the city/state/ feds still have not fixed the problem. Why? Nobody wants to spend the money despite the fact that we know that lead poisons children. Shameful! One faucet tested at over 800 times the epa limit. We have school buildings that are literally crumbling - water pouring in through the ceiling when it rains. We have schools with no outdoor space whatsoever for the kids to play. Just recently, a school playground (only playspace for the entire school) was just shut for the indefinite future because the state run new jersey turnpike overpass is throwing off lead paint chips into the playground, contaminating it. These are problems that only seem to happen in old urban nj schools and nobody seems to care enough to fix them. So i really don't want to hear about how you think the suburbs have it so bad.

I dont think every apartment needs a parking spot, but we need adequate parking generally. Even nyc has a ton of parking garages. They are not free but they are available on basically every block.

Newark traffic is terrible at rush hour, but part of the problem is that all of the traffic is commuter traffic - nobody that works there lives there. Its just all people trying to get in and get out of the city center at the same time on roads that were built in a different era.