worm wrote: On a previous thread it was mentioned that rapper/actor Ludacris owns a place at the Sugar House. Yeah, I think he got a really good deal on it. He only paid 50 cent for it.

jc_insomniac wrote:
Oh, for crying out loud, it's an April Fool's joke, people

Skadave wrote:
I am not too familiar with how government awarded contracts work, but if they are finishing the project 6 months ahead of schedule and are awarded $20,000 per day that they are early, wouldn't it be safe to assume that the amount of time estimated to finish the job was incorrect and should have been noticed earlier? Or is this some sort of corrupt government way of giving contractors extra money? "It will take 2 years to complete the project, so we will give you 2 1/2."

Pisces1979 wrote:
You guys are so screwed when a hurricane hits Jersey City. The New York Bay and hudson river is a right angle, which will amplify a storm surge, not to mention when the surge causes the hudson to back up temporarily. In addition to that, a hurricane spins in a counterclockwise direction, which means that Jersey City will take the brunt of the surge. Maybe it is 5 feet, maybe 35 feet, either way, anything less than 50 feet above sea level is in danger.

Pisces1979 wrote:
Yeah, I am ashamed that they are re-routing the light rail to the Meadowlands for the Xandu project, instead of going to densly populated North Bergen, where it is needed.
The Xandu project is another waste of money like the seacucaus junction, it will be isolated from residential and commercial areas, and will service what is essentially a glorified theme park.

Alan James Alda,

elgoodo wrote:
Quote:

mimosa wrote:
i agree w/the others...as a former resident of newark, i had my doubts about JC back in the day, downtown was much more sketchy than my old neighborhood. but nyc has spread, and jc benefited. newark has been poised, even named 'the renaissance city', and i think now that people are looking outside of JC for a deal (and access to PATH) newark will prosper....and sharpe will finally get out of office...
a walk in downtown newark, and along ferry street will tell you the better...(so long as you have a base of comparison)

From what I know (admittedly, not much) about the subject, I do agree that getting Sharpe James out of office would be a decent start. And yeah, I'm well aware that there are relatively safe, relatively nice sections of Newark.

I do wonder if the stigma of Newark is as strong for people who haven't lived around here forever. If you say the words "Newark, New Jersey" to someone who grew up in Boston, does it mean the same thing to them as it does to people around here? The fact is the stigma is so strong that you couldn't pay most people around here to live in Newark. JimmyConway's reaction is typical. But the same was once true of many places. People used to say "Alphabet City" as if you needed a bullet proof jacket to walk from Avenue B to Avenue C.

And yeah, I have friends who grew up in Jersey City who used to talk about downtown in similar terms. 20 years ago, there were people who grew up and lived in Jersey City who were frightened to set foot in downtown after dark. So there you go. A lot of it is perception, and I think the perception of Newark has to change before the city actually does.

Pisces1979 wrote:
Honestly, there is a housing shortage, the whole NYC/NJ metro area is going to have a 20 percent increase in population over the next 20 years, the only way to house that population increase is by building upwards.

Now, It sounds like you biggest issue is the fact that all the units are going to be going to proffesionals who will all insist on owning their own cars and driving everywhere instead of taking public transportation.

Building more parking lots into a building is like widening a highway, initially it will cut congestion, but it will just encourage more people to drive.

In the Netherlands, the social policy is to make all new development transit friendly as possible.

Here is what they could do in Jersey City, by forcing developers to pay for bicycle racks and bicycle lanes in the neighborhood, making developers to partner with car sharing agencies like "zip car", and condo sales agreements that mean that any buyer of a condo in a new development has to not own a car for the first 5 years of residence under pain of being sued.

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PeterMoccoJr wrote:
I have viewed the changes that have been proposed. And I concede that they have lowered the amount of units. That is not enough. What I fail to understand is why these developers feel the need to put up mid-rise buildings in an area zoned for townhouses?

They have lowered the amount of units from an almost 80% increase to a 33% increase over the current zoning. All I am asking (hoping), is that we do not allow developers to pay almost a quarter of million dollars into a fund for the city that will in turn, give them a variance allowing them to overdevelop our neighborhood. To me, that is unacceptable.

I repeat: What is wrong with building townhouses?

I urge members of our community to go to this meeting and voice their opinions about this project. All it can do is help. At the very least, the developers will have to come back to the table with better plan.

I live here, you live here, and together we can make a difference if we just stand up and voice our opinions. Please come to the meeting tomorrow night.

Peter Jr.