Quote:

Developers in Tiers 1, 2, and 3 of the City's new abatement policy can "buy up" to higher abatement terms. At 1st and Marin, the minimum / default term is 5 years because it's in Tier 1. In Tier 1 a developer can then "buy up" to Tier 2 (10 years) or Tier 3 (20 years) if they contribute 1.5% or 3% of construction costs (respectively) or if they build a preK facility (subject to BOE approval).

I thought JC had approved 5-year limit on abatements in dtjc..now they're giving a condo developer a 20 year abatement. why?


....Abatement for first condo development in six years

At the same meeting, the council also voted to approve a 20-year abatement for what may be the first new development of for-sale units (rather than rentals) since the economic downturn in 2008.

The proposed condo property located at 160 First St. is in the Powerhouse Arts district. The developers would construct a 14-story building with 159 residential condominium units, of which about 152 would be market rate, and seven moderate and/or workforce affordable housing. The project would also have slightly more than 3,800 feet on the ground floor for retail. The site would also provide about 64 parking spaces.

The site currently generates slightly more than $26,000 in annual tax revenue. The abatement would generate about $781,000 to the city annually, and just under $40,000 to Hudson County. The developer would also pay a one-time fee of $254,852 to the city?s Affordable Housing Trust Fund.

Councilman Michael Yun said he opposed giving the project a 20-year abatement, claiming other taxpayers would be forced to pay for school tax and the balance of county taxes. Jeremy Farrel, council attorney, said this isn?t completely accurate, noting that the city gets more as a result of the abatement so that other taxpayers get some relief in municipal taxes.

Under the abatement, the developer will be able to offer larger units for less money than they would offer without it.

Marc Simon, a resident of the neighborhood, spoke in favor of the abatement.

?This is being done by a local developer,? Simon said, noting that it will bring a positive change the area and residents who may become long-term, rather than renters who tend to drift off after a year or two.

Craig Frieberg, a 15-year resident of the area, saying that there are more than 4,000 rental units under construction.

Read more: Hudson Reporter - McGinley Square redevelopment approved And council bans displays on walls of 22 story St Peter s building ..

http://www.hudsonreporter.com/view/fu ... nce=jersey_city_top_story

Wishful_Thinking - the map only has abatements from July 1, 2013. We'll be going back in time with hopefully all abatements. Open JC is helping to get that data digitized. Abatement data is stored in a very decentralized manner, it's tedious to compile, and mapping it requires several steps from independent sources.

La_Verdad - I'm not so much "pro" or "anti" abatement as I'm pro-transparency. I'm admittedly growing increasingly frustrated with the lack of transparency around how abatements are constructed, managed, and overseen, even into 2014. The NJ Comptroller wrote a comprehensive report scolding JC and other municipalities back in 2010, and IMO the picture is not that different in 2014. Which is very unfortunate.

The Schools issue: in my opinion, the biggest problem with abatements is how they *don't* intersect with the public schools. Can you give one good reason why abatements would not contribute to the public schools in 2014, particularly in light of increasing public school enrollment in Jersey City?

The Rutgers point: are you referring to the Residential Demographic Multipliers Report? I would assert that's a reliable starting point, but not an end point. Any process that yields "1.88 students" for a building in Hamilton Park in 2014 is a process that at least warrants some scrutiny. If, upon scrutiny, there is merit to the process, then fine. But can you point to a reference or source that shows any robust debate about the veracity of the Rutgers multipliers in context of Jersey City abatements? Or any municipality's abatements? I'd be interested in some more info on this.

The Reval: I agree that's an issue. I still don't understand why it was cancelled, other than that the City is in such a deep fiscal hole at this point that to proceed with the reval would have caused some existing taxpayers' taxes to spike so high that it would price people out of their own homes. I used to own a junior 2-BR condo in Newport and paid almost as much tax as a friend who owns a full building in VVP. Clearly there's an imbalance - I don't disagree with that. But IMO this is not about comparing one homeowner vs. another homeowner - it's about taking a broad look at the tax policy and the fiscal health of JC and making a very good faith effort to educate the community about the tax situation.

The City should be initiating the "objective" discussion you're referring to, La_Verdad. But they're not, which is really unfortunate because I agree we need a broad, comprehensive discussion that lays all facts and circumstances on the table.

La_Vardad, I was here at the beginning, there was no offer of abatements. Newport came because they won a $40 million UDAG grant. Mayor Cucci asked Samuel LeFrak for affordable housing and the rest they say is history. By the way, before Newport, Dixon Mills did not receive a long term abatement, neither did Society Hill which was built over contaminated soil. When the developers saw how eager city hall was, they started to ask for abatements. Abatements became routine when Schundler ran for governor and basically gave the city away, it was developers who pay for his campaign. So, history does not match your statement.

That's it? Is the map not yet completed? I only see 10 abated projects - how many properties are there in Jersey City, and what % does this represent?

The bigger problem, IMO, is, as La Verdad pointed out, undervalued properties, those occupied by long term residents that are not taxed at their fair value.

I own a condo, and no, our building did not receive an abatement (I am in the Heights), however I as a taxpayer have no objections to the use of abatements because, from what I can see from the map, the recent ones are not in "prime" Jersey City locations and I would suspect they would have gone undeveloped. Like here, in the Heights, there are a suprising number of stalled renovations, vacant buildings, even vacant parcels, and no sign of any development "boom".

While the crusade continues against abatements, it would be wonderful to have a fully informed conversation about them - that recognises all of the elements in play and not just the convenient cherry-picked aspects that make for a salacious "gotcha".

The administration points to the need for development and job creation while paying lip service to the education piece.

The "anti" crowd pretends as though every bit of development would happen were there no abatements (and that it would happen just as quickly) and that a straight up comparison between what a development would generate in unabated tax dollars vs. PILOT payments received via abatements is actually a valid exercise. Rubbish. Some of these places have sat vacant for decades, through several bull real estate markets and but for incentives most, if not all, would continue to be undeveloped. Development that generates revenue now is worth much more than dollars ten or twenty years from now - and it is certainly worth more than revenue that never appears.

Brigid, the latest new self-anointed sheriff among the anti-abatement crowd, would have you believe that the cost/benefit analysis performed when an abatement is issued is a trifling exercise. And yet people who have been engaged statewide on this issue for a long time (the Eagleton Institute at Rutgers, for instance) have come up with tools for evaluating the appropriateness of cost allocation among new development. Sometimes using these tools generate answers that are too precise - such as a building that is forecast to result in an additional 1.8 students to the district. Yes, there is no such thing as .8 of a student - and yet it's often issues like "tell me what 0.8 of a student looks like?" that becomes the focal point of discourse rather than the substantive issues.

The Schools Canard. The point that gets lost in the whole diatribe about the school funding imbalance - and one that is not emphasised for obvious political reasons - is that the lion's share of funding received by the JC school district (somewhere in the neighborhood of 70% I believe) comes from the state, because of its (the state's) takeover of the city's schools through the "Abbot" designation. (That Abbot designation, btdubs, is the reason why Jersey City gets free PreK - a topic many of the anti-abatement crowd also has an interest in because the recently introduced possibility their free day care might become a little less convenient....)

So, while sure - as the recipient of an abatement I pay nothing into the school district and the unabated tax payer pays an extra tax - the entirety of the revenue generated by the school tax is much, much smaller than it should be. Why should that matter in terms of the fairness between me and the unabated tax payer? Because many of the unabated taxpayers are underpaying on their property taxes due to the lack of a revaluation. You can't have this conversation about what's fair without looking at the whole picture - if I'm paying a larger overall PILOT than you are in conventional, school and county taxes combined on an item of equal value, how is that fair?

Further complicating the math on abatements vs. traditional property taxes is the fact that there is no "typical" abatement.
I'll use myself as an example. I pay more than double in abatement what Yvonne was paying in property taxes before she sold her place downtown. In a condo. I bought my place at the top of the market in 2007 and the abatement is simply a percentage of the sales price. If I had bought the same condo from the developer three years later, my abatement payment would be 25% lower, at least. Anyone who bought in the run up from probably 2003 through 2008 is likely overpaying. People who bought in 2009 through 2011 might be underpaying. Abatements granted to rental building are, for the most part, tied to rents - so as the rental market rises and falls, so do PILOT receipts.

If I opted out of my abatement, my tax payment would be lower than the PILOT payment. Had I done it in 2010, it would have been a lot lower than my current PILOT. So why haven't I? Because who the hell knows if or when a reval is going to happen and what the result would be?

So while its nice to have a newbie come along asking questions and educating herself on an issue that has been discussed, studied and researched extensively for the past thirty years (at least), it would be even better if the issue could be approached objectively and honestly rather than from a position of bias that is supported by "research" that is sourced to support the bias. I have yet to hear/read an opinion on this topic (for or against) that was honestly objective.

Thank you so much. Yvonne - I'm working with Open JC to get past years digitized. I'll update this thread as we update the map.

I also submitted OPRA requests for the fiscal impact studies for all abatements listed on the map. The fiscal impact statements show the cost/benefit metrics underlying each abatement, like estimated # of public school students and estimated # of residents in the building (these #'s then drive the estimated school & municipal costs, respectfully).

If anyone has any ideas or a wish list of what you'd like to know about abatements, please let me know.

Big picture, I'd like to quantitatively analyze the fiscal impact of all abatements in JC. It's a tall order but I think with Open JC helping to scrub for the data, it's doable and would be informative for the community, particularly since JC continues to use abatements aggressively.

Great work Brigid, now we need to add the abatements that are active from previous administrations.

Wow. Excellent blog. I feel bad for not discovering it earlier.

With help from Open JC (http://openjerseycity.org), I created an interactive Google Maps tool that shows long-term abatements in Jersey City. Thus far, the abatements focus on 10+ years approved since July 1, 2013.

A quick overview of the tool, and a link to the tool itself, is here: http://civicparent.org/2014/04/abatem ... or-jersey-city-taxpayers/

Thanks
Brigid
CivicParent.org