50 acres of new parks + 145 acres of old parks = $$$
Master plan calls for at least $75M to be spent on green space

Ricardo Kaulessar -- Hudson Reporter -- 12/08/2006

If you want 50 more acres of parks in Jersey City, as well as upgrades to existing parks, you can now go to the internet to check out the preliminary draft of the city's recreation master plan.

But the upgrades won't be cheap, as a $75 million price tag has been estimated just to make recommended improvements in existing parks, and that's without spending millions more to add 50 more acres to the city's open space inventory of 145 acres.

At least two public meetings will be scheduled in January for residents and public officials to comment on the preliminary plan.

The plan notes that Jersey City, based on a state formula, should have 356 acres of open space and recreation land, meaning the city currently has a deficit of 211 acres.

Meetings coming in January

The plan, which looks at the city's 67 parks and open space areas, was put together between February and October by T&M Associates based in Middletown, N.J.

The preliminary draft is subject to changes and is not a definitive document.

Glenn Wrigley, director of the city's architecture department, said last week that the more than 150-page draft was posted on his department's website (www.cityofjerseycity.com/arch/) in late November. It can be downloaded.

Copies of the plan are also available for review at the City Clerk's office and all Jersey City Public Library branches. Also, copies can be purchased for $90 from the City Clerk after first filing an Open Public Records Act (OPRA) request.

Wrigley said that so far he has not gotten any feedback from Mayor Jerramiah Healy or any of the City Council members, or members of the public.

"We expect significant commentary in the next week or two," said Wrigley. "We just wanted to make sure this was in the hands of the public first so that they have time to study the document."

There were originally public meetings scheduled this month to discuss the plan, but officials felt that with the holidays here, they should give the public more time to look it over.

So the meetings originally scheduled for this month discuss the draft are being rescheduled for January.

Wrigley said several definite dates and locations will be posted on the architecture department website before the end of this year.

The color of money...and parks

It will take a lot of green to preserve and create a lot of green.

That's the conclusion made in the preliminary draft.

There are several specific projects mentioned for landmarks around the area.

For instance, there are two plans suggested for the city's now-defunct Reservoir No. 3.

The 13-acre reservoir, at Central, Summit, and Jefferson Avenues, used to provide water to the city. Now some city residents want it to provide recreation space, while others think it should just be a wildlife preserve.

Plan A for the reservoir would cost $21.1 million to turn it into an active recreation field. The plan says that if the area were to include a football field and baseball field, both synthetic turfs, those fields alone would cost $3.5 million.

Meanwhile, plan B for that park, at only $7.1 million, calls for a mix of active and passive recreation with a six-foot wide boardwalk for $60,000 and eight-foot wide nature trail costing $100,000.

Both concept plans also call for an elevated jogging path with fencing at an estimated cost of $1 million. However, before the reservoir ever becomes a park, there will have to be a complete inventory of the natural resources and assessment of the walls around the reserve.

Three other costly facelifts

Also demanding some major dollars is development of the city's portion of the Hackensack River Greenway, about 34 acres of land on the west side of the city, for an estimated $10.7 million.

The area, much of which is freshwater wetlands, would see two multi-purpose fields and a baseball field, all costing $4 million. Also, there would be parking for 120 cars with estimated cost of $450,000, and a boat launch area at $250,000.

Also with hefty costs are the $8.1 million cost for the proposed Berry Lane Park, a 14.7 acre athletic complex to be carved out of undeveloped land off Communipaw Avenue.

And $5 million is suggested for the proposed upgrading of Hamilton Park on West Hamilton Place. Plans would include rehabbing the gazebo in the middle of the park for $300,000 and creating two new playgrounds for $600,000, and a dog run at $100,000.

Show us the money

But the preliminary master plan also spells out ways to obtain the necessary funding for improvements and acquisition.

One suggestion is to create an open space trust fund, which would be placed on a ballot for approval by public referendum. People would pay based on their property taxes.

Hudson County itself had a trust fund where one cent per $100 of property tax is applied to the county's open space trust fund. The fund generated $4.2 million from 2005, to be used this year. It also received $1.2 million in state Green Acres grants as a result of having the trust fund in place.

The fund contributed to about a dozen projects for this year including four in Jersey City.

Setting priorities

The plan also prioritizes various park projects, including renovations of smaller parks.

Recommended for year one are certain park projects already underway, including the Apple Tree House on Academy Street, Edward Crincoli Park on Terrace Avenue and Thorne Street, Fitzgerald-Holata Park on Newark Avenue near the Grove Street PATH Station, J. Owen Grundy Park near Exchange Place, and York Street Park at the foot of York Street overlooking the Hudson River.

Other prioritized parks include Riverview-Fisk Park on Palisade Avenue and Ogden Avenue, Columbia Park on Kennedy Boulevard, and Summit-Cornelison Park on Clifton Place and Fairmount Avenue.

The public on the plan

During the year, there were public meetings held in the city's wards to discuss improvements to city parks. The feedback from those meetings was incorporated into the recommendations in the draft.

Some people who read the plan weighed in last week.

City Council President Mariano Vega said he had read through the entire plan. Vega is also the Department Of Parks, Engineering & Planning for Hudson County.

"As someone who deals with parks on a daily basis, this draft is a good blueprint to get us moving forward in our open space planning," said Vega. "Even if we deviate from what was recommended and don't accomplished everything, we at least know what we are deviating from."

But Vega had a few objections. He was concerned about a plan to turn the one-acre Veterans Park at Freedom Point into an active recreation site and 20-car parking lot.

Downtown Jersey City resident Dan Levin thought there was too much active space in the plan.

"The plan is very informative and identifies every park space in the city," said Levin. "But there are a lot of the recommendations that skew towards active recreation when there's a need for more passive space."

Ricardo Kaulessar can be reached at rkaulessar@hudsonreporter.com