Shouldn't JERSEY CITY be doing the same thing as Newark, considering we probably have have built more of those ghastly cookie cutter houses than any other large city in the state? Check out what Newark is striving to do:

"Newark Design Forum Seeks Thinking Outside 'Bayonne box'"

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

BY JEFFERY C. MAYS

Star-Ledger Staff

The three-story vinyl-clad homes that have sprouted up on narrow lots around Newark during the last decade have provided homeownership opportunities for thousands and much needed property tax revenue for the city.

Now Newark doesn't want them anymore.

At a design symposium at the Newark Museum tonight, 12 architects will present alternative designs to what Mayor Cory Booker derisively called "Bayonne boxes" in his State of the City speech earlier this year.

The cookie-cutter design has proven to be wildly popular for developers who often bought up city blocks and knocked out the multifamily homes in an assembly-line fashion. Others were wedged into lots between buildings, frequently set back deeper than the older homes to accommodate a driveway.

While the Bayonne boxes have been key to Newark's housing boom, some see them as a blight on Newark's landscape.

Residents say the homes destroy the character of the neighborhood, lack suitable green space and bring too many cars to the area.

"Who wants to live in a box?" Newark planning director Toni Griffin asked. "They are very affordable to build and over the last five years they have been easy to sell. They fit very well with the market, but we want to explore if there are other housing types and other markets."

The city chose five sites around the city and invited a mix of local and New York architects to come up with designs other than the traditional Bayonne Box. The results are to be revealed tonight.

Georgeen Theodore, assistant professor at New Jersey Institute of Technology's School of Architecture, and student Tim Rupp came up with a concept called "breaking down the box."

Instead of the traditional Bayonne box, where the units are stacked one on top of the other, the design includes two duplexes and a ground floor studio. Separating the units creates opportunities for each unit to have outdoor space.

Newworks, a Newark design firm, developed a "push/pull" concept where the traditional box is changed based on the surrounding environment to create spaces that fit better with the streetscape.

"What you see now is the same product in every location. There's no sense of neighborhood. What you'll see is a variety of answers that are suitable alternatives so you don't have one solution. We've seen what happens when there is just one solution," said Richard Johnson, a senior vice president for construction and development at Matrix Development Group and former chair of the northern New Jersey district council of the Urban Land Institute, which partnered with the city and the Regional Plan Association on the project.

The idea of a three-story, multiple unit home isn't unique to Newark. In Boston and Chicago they are called the "triple decker." The box first appeared in Hudson County in the 1920s. Once favored by small developers, its production spread. After World War II, entire neighborhoods in Bayonne were built with this type of housing, hence the name.

Around 2000, Newark changed its zoning rules that allowed for building on the narrower lots by changing side yard spatial requirements. Combined with the desire to return unused property to the tax rolls and the granting of tax abatements to purchasers of these properties, the building of Bayonne boxes exploded in Newark. The houses initially sold in the low $300,000s and went for as much as $500,000 at the height of the real estate boom.

Soon, the city council was entertaining proposals from developers at almost every meeting. Former Mayor Sharpe James is now facing trial on federal corruption charges based on the sale of city land to his associates.

During one meeting, Joe Chinnery, the project manager for Lineas Design Group, presented the same design on behalf of two developers, angering the council.

"What's wrong with them? Lack of space. There's absolutely no imagination. They all look the same and the quality is poor," said East Ward Councilman Augusto Amador, who has fielded complaints from residents of his ward for years about the homes, some of which intrude on industrial areas.

Chinnery said his firm was just giving the city what it wanted.

"At that time, the administration had a standard to follow and we had to follow those guidelines," said Chinnery, who said his firm will submit a proposal tonight. "I was the lamb getting slaughtered."

Griffin said this process is about deciding the rules to help guide developers in presenting better products. The goal is not to produce another cookie-cutter model for the Bayonne box, but to help the city determine what zoning regulations may need to be changed and how the city's Master Plan should address efforts to create more housing diversity. Attendees will even be asked to suggest names other than the Bayonne box.

Michael Saltzman, principal of Newwork who purchased a Bayonne box for his family a few years ago, said the city is embarking on a significant process.

"What we are proposing to do is change the market and we better be comfortable with that," Saltzman said. "We all should recognize that design is not just abut how it looks. Design is function. Design is value."

Jeffery C. Mays covers Newark City Hall. He can be reached at jmays@starledger.com or (973) 392-4149.

? 2007 The Star Ledger

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