Love the idea of a redeveloped Journal Square but who is going to pay for it? They are jacking up our taxes already because they don't have any money where do they expect to get the cash to pull this off? Are they going to give sweet heart deals and abatements to build more housing and continue to tax the existing property owners of JC?

A responsible City Government would perform emergency first aid on Journal Square, rather than stick it?s head in the clouds and imagine some golden future. If the city can do as much as simply pave over the gravel pit it left when it demolished the decrepit shopping plaza and get rid of that hideous temporary fence, I wouldn?t mind so much if they then went ahead and daydreamed about an unlikely 100 story building. But even then I would still point out to them that without financing they weren?t really providing the city with any service and in fact were just wasting everyone?s time.
The priorities should be in the order of dealing with the existing situation first, then imagining a future for Journal Square. Don?t talk to me about unfunded visionary light rail lines, I?m just going to be insulted as I daily hustle through the urban blight at journal Square, skirting the long dead debris choked ?911 memorial fountain? watching the cracks in the granite widen and the blowing debris pile up against the temporary fence surrounding the abandoned gravel lot.
I want to hear short term realistic solutions for the existing problems, not pie in the sky imaginings that everyone knows are unrealistic.

Proposed Journal Square Core Redevelopment Plan up for review and discussion Tuesday, February 9th, 5:30pm at City Hall.

Among the usual concerns of height/density/uses - 40 year plan opens door to 40 year tax abatement.

Attend the meeting to learn more. I cannot find the plan on-line, but can email the pdf to anyone interested.

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I guess nobody thought to ask two salient questions:
1. How much were Nelesson and Marchetto paid?
2. What campaign contributions have they made in Jersey City in the last 24 months?

IMO its throwing money down a rat hole.

What you see now in JSQ is the result of the last round of urban planning: I don't think our developers have gotten any more talented. They are in the business of making money by building sh*t, the more, the better.

JSQ is primarily a transit transfer point. And like the PA Bus Station or Penn St areas in Manhattan, they remain good places for business, but undesirable locations for living. And relatively high in crime.

I just think that they will be building the slums of tomorrow.

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So basically you rather JSQ to remain the way it is right now as a semi desolate and rundown area as oppose to a brand new modern neighborhood because of the potential of a surge in population that may crowd the area?

I take it back all the jokes about the city council, with residents like that how can you blame the city council for not able to get anything done......the mind boggles.

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+1!

Excellent reportage of this Council Mtg.!

Jon Whiten is a terrific writer, journalist, editor and I wish him, Elizabeth and Shane much success with their new venture, Jersey City Independent!

I spoke at the council meeting and parts of my comments were printed in the paper. When Journal Square is fully built, it will have an population of 45,000 residents. The population of Hoboken is 40,000 and the population of Bayonne of 60,000. Can our city truly support the services of 45,000 additional people when it struggles to provide support for 240,000 residents? And can Journal Square support that many people?
Yvonne

I have a great vision for renovating my condo. My wife and I approved it. We also have no money, so we're keeping an eye on this Journal Square Plans for ideas.

IMO an excellent article - well written, accurate and comprehensive, by the Jersey City Independent - the new online "newspaper" in town:

By Jon Whiten ? Feb 27th, 2009

Wednesday?s City Council meeting was a doozy: Clocking in at 4 hours 5 minutes, the meeting was almost an hour longer than the last two combined.

But I suppose that?s to be expected when you have a proposal to change the very nature of a roughly 244-acre swath of land ? and indeed the entire city ? on the table.

That?s right ? most of Wednesday?s meeting was devoted to the Journal Square Redevelopment Plan, a long-term visioning project pushed by Mayor Healy to revitalize the area.

All nine council members were present at the meeting ? at least at the beginning ? to discuss not only Journal Square, but also tax abatements, public housing and other issues.

The aforementioned redevelopment plan, prepared by planning firm A. Nelessen Associates (a planning firm) and Dean Marchetto Architects in coordination with the Jersey City Redevelopment Agency (JCRA), is a dense 254-page document that the JCRA has had posted on its website for several months. (Read the plan for yourself at the JCRA website.) Some citizens came clutching it in their hands, others recited quotes from various passages. One thing was clear, though ? many of the 21 residents who spoke about the plan on Wednesday had done their homework.

But before the citizens got their chances to speak, there was a mini-circus for city clerk Robert Byrne to contend with. A TV reporter from My 9 News was on hand, interviewing folks in the crowd; myriad small groups were conversing amidst the crowd of 80 or so people in attendance; and Byrne was trying to call the meeting to order.

He finally did, and after eight ordinances were introduced by a 9-0 vote (more on those later), the conversation quickly moved to the Journal Square redevelopment ordinance (Ordinance 09-012, for those of you keeping score).

?We?re here tonight to hear your concerns,? Council President Mariano Vega said. He explained the process: The public hearing would be open at this meeting, people could speak, and then it would be closed. From there, the council would have further discussion and could approve the ordinance without additional comment at a later meeting.

Ward E Councilman Steven Fulop wondered why the public comment portion would close at this meeting, as did Ward D Councilman Bill Gaughan. City business administrator Brian O?Reilly said the public hearing process would happen again if changes to the plan were ?substantial in nature.?

At-Large Councilman Peter Brennan assured the crowd that the process would remain open to their concerns. ?We will listen to them again,? he said.

The parade of public speakers gave plenty for Brennan and his colleagues to listen to. Twenty-one citizens aired their concerns about the plan for a total of an hour and 20 minutes. The recurring themes: fear of eminent domain, too much density, a perceived lack of citizen input and a strain on of infrastructure and city services.

Most speakers commended the idea of the plan, while taking issue with the plan?s specifics or how it was carried out.

?It?s about time someone started to think about the inner city,? Rich Boggiano, the president of the Hilltop Neighborhood Association, said in reference to the city?s focus on development in downtown areas over the past 20 years. But he was angry that residents were not included in the process, and said many of his neighbors were too. ?There?s a lot of people ticked off in Journal Square, in the Heights.?

Referencing the planned towers that anchor the redevelopment plan, Boggiano was blunt.

?Give it up,? he said. ?We do not want it.?

But others stressed the need to build towers. ?We can no longer expand horizontally,? former planning board commissioner Jeff Kaplowitz said, adding that building vertically is the only option in the future, and that the best place to build up ? instead of out ? was on top of transit hubs.

?The plan is not perfect, but to do nothing is far worse,? Kaplowitz said, echoing president Obama?s recent comments on the federal stimulus package.

However, most did not seem convinced of that statement?s veracity.

?We?re worried about our communities being destroyed,? area resident Sebastian Bernheim said. He said Journal Square should be developed, but that any development should be respectful of what already exists there.

The Riverview Neighborhood Association?s Becky Hoffman, meanwhile, said the plan included ?untenable? increases in density and questioned the financial instruments being used in the plan.

The District Improvement Bonus Fund (DIB) is one such instrument. It allows developers to build beyond the density levels laid out in the plan if they pay into the Journal Square District Improvement Fund.

Hoffman argued that the DIB seemed like ?a bargain? for developers and bad planning, in that it allows developers to break the planning guidelines ? if they pay.

She also wondered about the makeup of the District Improvement Fund Advisory Board, which will advise the JCRA on how to administer the moneys collected from the DIB. Under the plan, only two of the seven members of the board would be members of the public, and they would be mayoral appointees. She urged that the board include more citizens and perhaps members of local neighborhood groups.

The other financial instrument that Hoffman questioned was the Revenue Allocation District (RAD), which doesn?t yet actually apply to the plan, but will if pending state legislation is approved.

A RAD, known in other parts of the country as Tax Increment Financing (TIF), ?allows for dedication of certain revenues? within a district to pay off debt issued ?in connection with the redevelopment? of that district, according to a presentation by law firm McManimon & Scotland to the JCRA.

While the JCRA says that RADs and TIFS ?are an excellent tool? for redevelopment financing, they don?t come without controversy. Critics say that TIFs are often used to fund what under normal circumstances are private improvements to properties. They also argue that any public revenues generated in these areas (property taxes and parking taxes, for example) are funneled back to the redevelopment area, not to the entire city ? even if those revenues are unrelated to the redevelopment but just happen to fall in the plan area. (For a five-year exploration of the havoc wrought by TIFs on a city, check out Ben Joravsky?s work at the Chicago Reader.)

Nothing gets a crowd of homeowners out to a public meeting like the fear of losing their homes via eminent domain, and indeed, a good number of the speakers on Wednesday worried about the city?s use of eminent domain in this project.

No need to worry, the city says. Since the area is classified as an area in need of rehabilitation, not an area in need of redevelopment, the city has no legal right to use eminent domain under the plan?s auspices.

?I don?t want anyone to go home thinking that the government is going to take your house,? city planning director Robert Cotter said. ?The power is not there. The will isn?t there either.?

The only legal way for the city to take any land via eminent domain ? whether it is in this redevelopment plan area or any other area of the city ? would be if it was taking it for a public good, such as a school or a road widening.

And, yes, there are calls for roads to be widened in the redevelopment plan.

However, JCRA executive director Robert Antonicello explained that any road widening, such as the one called for on Tonnelle Avenue, would not involve eminent domain. He pointed to how difficult and prolonged a legal fight any attempt to take all the houses along that road would be for the city.

Brennan added that, either way, the administration was against eminent domain.

?Mayor Healy doesn?t believe in taking houses,? he said.

Overall, the council expressed support for the plan while thanking citizens for coming out voice their concerns.

Getting a little sentimental, Brennan said he was going to miss some of the current council members come July and called it the best council the city?s had in some time. ?We always sit back, and we always listen to what people have to say,? he said.

Fulop said the process had been ?educational? for him and said it showed a real ?appetite for progress? in Journal Square. ?The best ideas come from the people,? he said, not necessarily from the council or from city employees.

Ward F Councilwoman Viola Richardson, though, remained fairly apprehensive about the plan, saying ?there are loads of questions that have to be answered.? She pledged that the council was ?committed to working this out.?

Ultimately, Vega said that the project was ?the essence of new urbanism,? and that while it was ?easy to vote to table? the plan, he?d like to ?put this on the fast track.?

With that, the council voted 8-0 to table the legislation. (Gaughan had left the meeting by the time of the vote.)

Public Housing Problems

For the second time in the past few months, the state of the city?s public housing complexes came under fire during the public comment portion of the City Council meeting.

Housing advocate Telissa Dowling, holding up a copy of this Wednesday?s Jersey Journal with a cover story on the holdouts at the A. Harry Moore towers on Duncan Avenue, said the situation described in that story ? 23 families living in public housing without on-site security and a building manager ? didn?t have to happen. She said she?d been warning the council about the management of the properties by Jersey City Housing Authority (JCHA) executive director Maria Maio for some time.

?It?s not Ms. Maio?s fault,? Brennan said of the tenants remaining at A. Harry Moore. But Dowling called for Maio to come to a council meeting and defend her policies, which made business administrator Brian O?Reilly?s ears perk up.

?I?m not dragging directors [of agencies] down here to be cross-examined,? he said, noting that any concerns with Maio or the Housing Authority could be dealt with by forming a council committee or direct talks.

Dowling also lamented the vacancy rate in JCHA properties.

?There?s no reason for us to have a six percent vacancy rate,? she said.

Ethel Jones, who lives in the Booker T. Washington homes near the former Jersey City Medical Center site, said that the maintenance staff at that 260-unit complex had been reduced to two employees. She claimed that might have led to them failing a federal Housing and Urban Development (HUD) inspection.

?We are in desperate need of help,? Jones said. ?The board [of the JCHA] is not working for us.?

The Fire Department?s $46,000 Cell Phone Bill

Among Wednesday?s resolutions, which didn?t get voted on until around 10:15 pm, only one raised any discussion amongst the council. It was the approval of a $46,000 payment to Sprint/Nextel for providing BlackBerries to the JC Fire Department (JCFD) and Office of Emergency Management (OEM) between February 2006 and January 2009 without a contract.

Ward B Councilwoman Mary Spinello quickly voted against the resolution, as did Fulop. Richardson said there were questions that needed to be answered, for one, ?Why do they need those phones??

Vega said he?d spoken to JCFD fire director Armando Roman, who?d assured him that the number of cell phones given to personnel had been reduced and that the bill from Sprint/Nextel was indeed accurate. Vega turned to 9/11 to explain away the problem, saying that after the attacks, everything was ?push, push, push.?

Not everyone was convinced by Vega?s reasoning, however.

?No one from the [fire] department had the decency to come and explain this,? Richardson said. Fulop suggested that Roman come to a Council Caucus meeting and explain what happened.

Ultimately, despite her reservations, Richardson joined the rest of her colleagues in voting for the resolution, passing it by a 6-2 vote.

First Reads

Eight ordinances were introduced by a 9-0 vote on Wednesday. You can read them here.

* Ordinance 09-020 transfers city-owned property at 509 Martin Luther King Drive to the Jersey City Redevelopment Agency, as it falls in the Martin Luther King Drive Redevelopment Area.

* Ordinance 09-021 applies the ?parking prohibited at all times? designation to the west side of Warren Street between Stueben Street and Columbus Drive.

* At the behest of the Golden Door Charter School, Ordinance 09-022 will close 9th Street between Manila Avenue and Marin Boulevard between 7:15-8:15 am and 3-4 pm on school days. Fulop said that the Fire Department, which is headquartered only two blocks away, had concerns about access relating to this ordinance, but that he thought it should be introduced and then the details could be hammered out.

* Another street-naming ordinance is on the table. Ordinance 09-023 would also name the intersection of Montrose Avenue and Lake Street near Pershing Field ?Huels? Way,? after neighborhood activists and brothers Anthony and Herbert Huels.

* Like to play a sport on a ?table surrounding by a ledge or cushion with or without pockets in which billiards balls are propelled by a stick or cue?? Like to play that sport in the morning? Well, if Ordinance 09-024 goes through, you?re out of luck. The ordinance amends the chapter of the city code that governs ?pool rooms.? No longer will pool rooms be allowed to operate between 6 am-12 pm on every day but Sunday (the law previously allowed pool only from 12 pm-2 am on Sunday). Now on Sunday-Thursday, pool rooms will be allowed to operate from 12 pm-2 am; on Saturdays, the city is giving you pool sharks an extra hour ? pool rooms will be allowed to operate from 12 pm-3 am.

* Ordinances 09-025 and 09-026 take measures to legalize two traffic signals that are already in place ? one at Marin Boulevard and Morgan Street and the other at Montgomery Street and Merseles Street/Center Street (under the Turnpike extension). The ordinances are apparently necessary to obtain final approval from the state Department of Transportation for the signals.

* Ordinance 09-027 creates a dedicated handicapped parking space in front of 193 Congress St.

Second Reads

After the Journal Square Plan, the remaining seven second-read ordinances were all approved unanimously. You can read them here.

* Under state law, the council is required to approve by ordinance a year-on-year increase of more than 2.5 percent in the municipal budget. If it does, the city is limited to a maximum increase of 3.5 percent. That?s where Ordinance 09-011A comes in. It allows the city to exceed that 2.5 percent limit if need be.

* Ordinance 09-106 would extend the city?s lease of a portion of 361 Montgomery St. with building owner Essex Plaza Management. The city pays Essex $1/year and provides senior services at the address.

* Under Ordinances 09-014 and 09-015, the city would transfer a vacant lot it owns on Bishop Street and a parcel of land it owns at 167-169 Monticello Ave. to the JCRA. The Bishop Street lot is in the Morris Canal Redevelopment Area and the Monticello property is in the Monticello Avenue Redevelopment Area, both of which the JCRA is in charge of developing. You may remember the Monticello Avenue address ? it is going to be the site of the seven new affordable condos we reported on two weeks ago.

* Ordinance 09-017 would create a ?no parking? zone on one side of Nelson Street north of JFK Boulevard during school days from 7:30 am-4 pm. The ordinance comes after a request by the principal of Saint Anne?s School, who says that cars are double and triple parked in the area where parents and buses drop off and pick up students, which ?makes for a very hazardous situation.?

* Ordinances 09-018 and 09-189 would approve two separate 30-year tax abatements to Whiton Street Associates for a project at the intersection of Monticello and Fairmount Avenues. The project calls for 120 housing units, a parking garage, and 17,256 square feet of retail space. Ninety-six of the housing units will be market rate, and 24 will be reserved for moderate income tenants. There are two abatements because one covers the residential portion of the development, and the other covers the commercial portion.

Whiton will pay the city an estimated total of $281,870 in lieu of taxes on the property, and the project will generate an estimated 20 construction jobs and 12 new permanent jobs.

City Council gadfly Yvonne Balcer questioned the council on the wisdom of this abatement, saying ?30 years is a lot of money.? But the council quickly rebuffed Balcer?s criticisms.

?The area really needs this infusion right now,? Richardson noted. The development falls in her ward. ?It?s the first development in god knows how many years.? Brennan, Spinello, Vega and Ward A Councilman Michael Sottolano all agreed and spoke in favor of the abatements.

Odds and Ends

* As public testimony continued on the Journal Square Redevelopment Plan and the clock crept closer to 8 pm, I began to wonder: When was the clerk?s transcriber going to scream out in agony with debilitating hand cramps? She never did, but she did have to change her reporting tape twice during the meeting.

* The city approved the purchase of $385,000 worth of new equipment through the state?s Homeland Security Grant Program. What does that amount buy a city these days, you ask? A $210,000 WMD and Hazardous Materials Quick Response Vehicle and 20 re-breather machines, which are ?self contained breathing apparatus? primarily used for search and rescue operations in tunnels.

* What else did the city agree to buy on Wednesday? $464,668.70 worth of automobile tires, $65,266 worth of chair and table rentals for Cultural Affairs events, $32,522.00 worth of beds and mattresses for the Fire Department, and a $26,606.00 2009 Ford F350 for the Fire Department, among other items.

* The Jersey City branch of Ready Willing and Able, a homeless shelter and work program aimed at former prisoners recovering from substance abuse, is closing today, in what is a great loss to the fabric of our city. The street-cleaning duties that Ready Willing and Able provided will be taken over at least temporarily by the Jersey City Incinerator Authority, city business administrator Brian O?Reilly said.

* Lastly, what would a City Council meeting be without at least one asinine idea that has no basis in reality? The award this week goes to Yvonne Balcer, who, on her fifth turn at the lectern, said she had the solution to the city?s crime problem: Force all businesses to close at 9 pm. Apparently, Balcer believes that all crime is a result of people having the ability to buy stuff. We can only assume that she brought this idea before the City Council with good faith and honestly believes that if this were put in place, everyone would return to their homes at the stroke of 9 each evening, not to exit until the morning dawn.

http://www.jerseycityindependent.com/ ... redevelopment-takes-over/

are they still talking about this? its not like its actually happening anyways.

Square plan tabled skeptics most vocal

Thursday, February 26, 2009
By AMY SARA CLARK
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

The Jersey City City Council invited the public to speak on the Greater Journal Square Redevelopment Plan last night, and 20 residents answered the call, the vast majority of them against it.

The council then voted 8-0 to table the plan. Councilman Bill Gaughan was absent.

Residents were most concerned about the potential use of eminent domain, the heights of the buildings, whether there would be affordable housing and whether there would be enough schools and other city services to provide for the estimated 20,000 to 40,000 new residents the plan could bring.

The plan covers 244 acres around the Journal Square Transportation Center, anchored by a mixed-use two-tower development adjacent to the transit hub.

It also includes several acres of new parks, thousands of square feet of retail space, more than 10,000 new residential units, a narrow-gauge trolley from Route 139 to McGinley Square and a Light Rail spur to Journal Square.

But the vision would also allow for skyscrapers 80 to 100 stories high. And residents wondered how they could be built without the use of eminent domain.

"I've never seen anything like this ever going up without it gobbling up the surrounding area and everyone being displaced," said Paul DiBranco, who lives two blocks from Journal Square.

"The only thing I can think of as analogous, is that woman that had eight babies and she had six in the house," said community activist Yvonne Balcer. "Here's our city, we have six wards, we can't afford the six we have and we're bringing in 45,000 more people without the proper services."

Jersey City Planning Director Robert Cotter said that because the area is an area in need of rehabilitation rather than an area in need of redevelopment it is not legal for the city to use eminent domain.

But tucked within the overwhelming cries of skepticism about the plan were a few words of support.

Jonathan Leifer, who works in real estate, praised the plan.

"This project clearly is a fantastic example of transit-oriented development," he said, adding that it "could be a national model of urban planning."

Journal Square Councilman Steve Lipski said he planned to vote on it, and City Council President Mariano Vega Jr. also praised the plan.

"I look at this project as the essence of New Urbanism," he said. "This plan contains smart growth. It contains transit villages. It ushers in a new way for us to think about a new city."

There is no vision. There is no plan. This desolate wasteland known as Journal Square soon to be without its namesake is a pitiful testament of do nothing government.

This is at least the 10th incarnation of yet another JOURNAL SQUARE REVITALIZATION plan over the last 40 years.
Each time a few more derelict buildings are demolished and the project STOPS.
The "projects" are usually proposed right at the tail end of a boom cycle and are discarded immediately upon entering the BUST.

(Last time weren't we getting 2 world class skyscrapers housing mixed use retail condo and rental units? (And maybe a mockup of the Eiffel Tower and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon? )

The net effect is that the city periodically pays somebody's brother-in law a few million to draw up some preposterous plan and make a cheap model.

This current silliness seems even less grounded in reality than usual...and that's saying a lot.

No money? Ok. Let's remember this the next time the Council has a historic landmark application behind it. We know now that they can't say "you haven't raised the money" as an excuse to deny it.

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We will see this vision after we get a Whole Foods, Atomic Wings, Trader Joes, footbridge connecting the Hoboken waterfront, rents come down, dogs get leashed, crime vacated and Healy serving 16 concurrent life sentences.

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"no money". And that's where this 'vision' will stop.

Seriously, I've been in JC since 1988 and this is like the 4th version of an idea for Journal Square.

It's all BS.

Square vision plan is introduced, 8-0
Unanimous vote for Square vision plan

Friday, February 13, 2009
By AMY SARA CLARK
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

In an 8-0 vote, the Jersey City City Council introduced an ordinance Wednesday that provides a sweeping vision for Journal Square.

The Greater Journal Square Redevelopment Plan covers 244 acres around the Journal Square Transportation Center, anchored by a mixed-use two-tower development adjacent to the transit hub.

The plan also includes several acres of new parks, thousands of square feet of retail space, more than 10,000 new residential units - even a narrow-gauge trolley from Route 139 to McGinley Square and a Light Rail spur to Journal Square.

This concept comes with no money, but provides a blueprint for creating a pedestrian-friendly city center.

Journal Square Councilman Steve Lipski was absent for the vote on the ordinance, which will be up for final adoption on Feb. 25.

Councilmembers Michael Sottolano and Viola Richardson expressed concerns about a provision in the ordinance that would allow developers to build taller buildings if they contribute to a district improvement fund.

Mayoral candidate Dan Levin told the council the option to build tall structures would make it hard to keep projects "on a human scale."

Becky Hoffman, president of the Riverside Neighborhood Association, worried the plan would result in the use of eminent domain to force people from their homes.

"We continually hear that there is going to be no eminent domain, but there are certain things (in the plan), such as the widening of Tonnelle Avenue, where I wonder how it can be done without eminent domain," she said.