Where do you suggest they hide the parking, below grade like the Majestic or the new Bourenquin Hardware complex?

I like it too. But did you notice they since had to tear the whole facade apart once or twice to fix leakage problems?

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I thought the new demographic was very Leben und leben lassen. I suspect that very few people 'phobe' others because they are gay, many people will 'phobe' others because they are black males. Welcome to the real America. Enjoy the weekend.

I agree with Br. While Dan has caused a great deal of "frustration" to put it lightly, the attacks on him personally, particularly as it pertains to his sexual orientation are not only irrelevant, but offensive and inappropriate.

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It fits the new homophobic demographics. Enjoy the weekend.

Since this is now the aggregate historic preservation thread, why does it still have this title?

Personally, I like this building. I have never seen it before. Thank you for sharing. Historic preservation is not about taste. It's about preserving old buildings instead of tearing them down. Dan insisted that the mortar between the bricks of my house had to be white. it makes my house look like candy land. No one thought that was a tasteful decision. It still hasn't faded yet. So much for Dan's necessary oversight.

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Heights, this is where I was going with this. Good rainy day conversation.

There was a group of constituents mostly from Hamilton Park who had a very reasonable and well supported proposal for historic preservation. The proposal was basically, if your house does not currently have a historic element, but the element in question is going to be replaced the homeowner should be able to replace with a kind replacement or something better. For instance, if you have vinyl clad windows and you wanted to replace the windows you could replace them with vinyl or a better product. This is what is typically adopted in historic preservation districts.

The proposal went on to provide that if your home had a historic element you had to replace that element with that exact type of element, (unless of course it was true divided light windows). So if you had windows that were wood, 4 over 6, then you had to replace the windows with 4 over 6 wood windows.

Someone in this group worked for an engineering firm in the city that had an architectural department. He had that team undertake some research regarding color schemes. The results demonstrated that the color of these historic houses were based upon the color of the brick. A proper historic color wheel was provided.

Another component of the equation suggested a tax credit to home owners who chose to update their home with historic elements.

A group of people protested this reasonable proposal. The reasons they gave for their opposition were irrelevant and inappropriate. For instance, one person showed a picture of what they considered to be ugly new construction. Well this proposal wasn't about new construction. It was about genuine and realistic preservation. This group has a distorted sense of their own importance in this regard.

I remain confident that the current constituency can have the historic preservation ordinance appropriately modified.

This thread is FABULOUSLY funny sans the gay-bashing aspect. Would be even funnier if Dan had not caused so much cash to be spent using a non-methodical approach.

This thread was started AWHILE ago and attitiudes towards sexuality have evolved a bunch. That bing said- he is still around. Is he still creating "Historical Hysteria"? The stories of him (and also some woman name Claire?) are legendary!

From my perspective, Dan's guidelines enforcement is like tax abatements they both have added value to property I own downtown. I've worked with Dan and his trusty sidekick Brian several times over the last few years and have had no problems. On two projects he suggested solutions that were less expensive than those in my application.

The Rosina on Wayne and Barrow is not too bad in my opinion. My only beef with it is that the whole ground floor is a parking garage, which in my opinion really kills the streetscape.

I feel the same way about Warren@York. I like the building generally, but the whole York Street side is closed off to the sidewalk, for a parking garage, and it looks really really bad.

I really hope developers start "getting it". If a building must include vehicle parking, please hide it better. This isn't Stamford, CT.

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I do not believe he can do anything about new and conforming infill, his power is limited to actual historic buildings in historic districts. FYI, there's historic district true believers who dislike any "historic looking" new infill because it will confuse people about what's actually historic.

I agree that dan is needed to prevent people from doing silly stuff, especially developers.
everytime I walk by that new apartment building on wayne and barrow, I shudder at the
terrible parapet - it has no detail and is so out of character with the rest of nab. new is fine
imo, but not trashy. btw, has anyone seen the new house at
93 bright street which is awesome - too bad its so far away.

Say what you want about Dan, but I think we need someone like him to keep everyone (including developers) from doing whatever the hell they want.

Iink Brooklyn and Hoboken have far more pragmatic historic preservation policies, from what I have heard. maybe something for someone to bring to Fulop's attention and maybe the City can make the process better for all.

I knew it would bring back memories.

Yes, he still works for the city. I believe his job is civil service, so he's dug in for life. God, reading some of those old posts from others brought back really unpleasant memories for me. Everything people have said about their headaches dealing with this guy is spot on. In the end, it was so much easier for me to sell the f*cking historical place to than to ever f*cking deal with Dan again. Not only does he not have a clue and arbitrarily imposes standards mid-project, but he doesn't care if he literally bankrupts a home owner in the process (hey, it's not *his* money being spent). I used to be idealistic and pro-preservation. Now whenever I read newspaper articles about proposals to landmark particular neighborhoods, my sphincter just tightens and I want to scream "Run for the hills, you have no clue what you're getting into!!!"

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Not sure... However someone on the board wants to do renovations, so I was hoping for their sake that they did not have to deal with him. I then googled - Dan Jersey City Permit and this is the first query that pops up. So I felt like it needed to be brought back.

Yes I believe he still works there, I think I saw him outside the building a few weeks ago.

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Not sure where you're going with this ??
Is he still employed by the city ?

Bumping this one up...

Kiss the ring!

Dan Wrieden's personal life is not the issue. He is a city employee not the "soup nazi". He has no statutory power to issue violations. He should not be doing this job period.
The overwhelming case against him is that he does not show respect toward the publc. The nonsense of him not returning calls, making up the rules as he goes etc. should be reported to his boss in Planning as well as the Mayor's office. Of course when you consider the insidious corruption within this administration its unlikely anything will get done. The hope is that good people will call Wrieden out publicly on his behavior time and again. In the meantime the city's commitment to preservation is nada. Bad economic times are preservation's best friend. Think about it.

And I ask again.

Who appointed/elected and by what authority does he act? He seems to exist and people SEEM to bow to his wishes? I ask WHY?

(I live in Newport so ALL decisions are made by Lefrac, Inc. but I am curious why homeowners give aithority to speciial people...willingly or UN.)

Again, what happens to people who buy windows and door at Home Depot insteasd of Marvin Whatsis.

Are they imprisoned or do they have to bribe this "Dan" person for special treatment?

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The title for this thread seems unusual is it a play on words based on the television reality show or towards the division director Dan Wrieden or both ? If it is towards Dan what was the give away ??

I fully support a historic district and understand and agree that developing a historic district may mean that changes to property will take a bit more time and money.

My issue with Dan is very simple:
- Provides no indication of what would be acceptable so that we can budget time/funds before

- He holds up permits for inordinate amounts of time

- Provides no guidance on how to proceed where there are issues

- Change the rules mid-course

- Doesn't return calls, emails, nothing


For a specific example, we wanted to install central air which required a unit on the roof which would not visible from the street. It would only be visible from a neighbor's roof. This should be a perfunctory historic approval as it has no historic implications. After six months, countless un-returned calls and emails, multiple escalations we finally received approval with no changes, comments, nothing. Wrieden just sat on it because he could.


I have more examples, but any more details and Wrieden may be able to figure out who I am and he may make future projects even harder.

Apologies for my feeble and misguided attempt at gallow\'s humor to relieve what was an extremely stressful situation 2+ years ago. Again, I have nothing personal against the historian and wish him no harm. My remarks were misinterpreted as a fantasy and for that I am truly sorry. My point was how personal, confusing and contradictory all interaction with him seemed to be.

I was initially looking forward to restoring our home with Dan\'s guidance - but was dumbfounded by how a simple exercise of updating the most undesirable house in the neighborhood became so unnecessarily complicated. As I work in the fashion business, I thought that this would feel similar - a very creative process, filled with larger-than-life personalities, that\'s also highly subjective. I thought that we\'d be partnering with the city but in the end it seemed that we were at the mercy of Dan\'s mercurial moods and that no helpful guidelines were available for reference.

We have a back \"yard\" that\'s blocked in by other brownstones and cannot be seen from the street. A brick structure had been carelessly erected, maybe in the 1970\'s and took up approx half of the 15ft x 15ft space. The roof and one side were partially caving in. Neighbors had suggested that it was used to raise fighting dogs, cocks, etc. and we wanted it removed. When applying for the initial permits Dan said that he\'d have to conduct an on-site inspection to ensure that the structure \"was not of significant, historical importance as in a safe-house for the underground railroad transport of slaves.\" Huh, I thought? The contractor and I would ask when we might expect his visit and were told that he was really, really, really busy, couldn\'t commit to any specific time, etc., etc. Weeks later, when the site visit had still not been made and with our timetable sliding out, we\'d schedule a second appt. with Dan. During the meeting he was flustered, took personal phone calls, etc and in the end told us that he\'d wave his right to inspect and sign off on the permit that day. Huh, again?

Later in the project windows would be installed and flashed with low profile metal trim, painted to match the woodwork. This became a huge issue as he insisted that the windows be flashed with wood (sorry if terms are not construction-accurate here) and we had to attend a historic preservation meeting to discuss.

While at that meeting, we sat behind the owner of All Iron Works on Coles Street and had the opportunity to listen as he proposed several new iron fence motifs for a residence facing Hamilton Park. Peter was representing home owners who had been trying without success for 5 years to replace a non-historic fence rail that had probably been erected in the 1970\'s. Dan was an outspoken committee critic and found none of the proposed fence suggestions to be quite the right fit. My contractor works with many historical boards throughout NJ and was struck by how unique this situation was. Seems that most local boards will work with a homeowner to quickly make recommendations, offering them several options for replacement.

When applying for the permanent Certificate of Occupancy, I met with Dan again. This time I was told that he\'d need to schedule a site inspection to ensure that our home had been painted with historically correct color. Working in a color-centric business I knew that neighbor-guy (who had received his perm C/O a few months earlier) had gone way off the palette chart into a bright color from the sale aisle. Again, he was too busy to confirm when this site visit might even occur. After much back and forth, with me challenging the fact that he could not have visited my neighbor\'s and signed off in good faith on the work, I secured Dan\'s signature for the perm C/O.

I too, put a lot of blood, sweat, tears and cash into this home updating project and don\'t regret having spent extra for windows, despite the fact that neighbor-guy replaced his on the cheap. If anything, the restoration of my home increased his property values and when reassessed for property tax purposes, I was presented with a bill much higher than his, probably for having stated so much of the work. The karma boomerang will perhaps find him someday for doing so much of the work under the radar and if not, that\'s okay too.

If I had to do it all over again - sadly, I\'d hesitate: a sentiment shared by several of the folks I came across while trying to fix up my house. I found the historian to be more of an adversary rather than an adviser to our community.

Of course personal attacks on Wrieden or anyone else are inappropriate and probably cast by those who have invested the least amount of serious thought and effort to this process.

Still the historic preservation ordinance has been unevenly and incorrectly applied for a long time. The City does NOT follow the guidelines of the Secretary of the Interior, though some volunteers associated with historic preservation will maintain they do.

There are a host of neighbors who have been living in Jersey City for a long time who have a distorted impression of their own command of the subject. While I sympathize with their concern for preserving many of the beautiful building here in JC, their misguided enthusiasm has resulted in way many missed opportunities to really build support for this ordinance and cultivate more actual restoration.

What has frustrated and angered constituents most has been the cost they have been forced to incur as a result of the lack of real integrity on this issue and unwillingness of the City to genuinely and sincerely work with the constituents on this.

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Actually (and I stand somewhat corrected here myself) HPC follows the 'Secretary of the Interior's Standards for Rehabilitation', which allows for replacing missing features and elements that are damaged beyond repair. Unfortunately, when I tried to link to the design criteria in the ordinance available on-line, my computer kept crashing.

There is guidance out there for homeowners like HamiltonParker, and it need not be left to one person to interpret as they see fit - shame on JC Division of City Planning for not making this information accessible!

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+1

Dan Wrieden's sexuality was an inappropriate subject for the title of this thread when it was first posted, and it continues to be inappropriate today.

Personally, I'm surprised at the webmaster's inability to recognize the potential legal consequences of permitting the subject title of this thread to be revived gratuitously -- again and again and again.

I would suggest that if you have issues that are germane to Historic Preservation and your interactions with Dan as a governmental official, that's fair game... but if you have any sense of personal decency, take it to a new thread that leaves out references to sexual orientation. Continuously resurrecting this thread with this title, even with faint apologies, is just plain uncivil.

All the best.

G