City Introduces Western Edge Redevelopment Plan

Tuesday evening at the Jubilee Center, Mayor Dawn Zimmer held a public meeting to introduce a new Western Edge Redevelopment Plan that would add about 400,000 square feet of office space in addition to a community center, small parks, retail space, and apartment buildings. Roughly 50 residents were on hand including several developers and property owners who own land in the redevelopment area.

The 61-page plan has been available for viewing on the city's website for about a week now, but redevelopment attorney Brent Carney and Janice Talley, the planner hired by the city to develop the plan, walked residents through highlights of the concept. (Slides from the presentation accompany this story).

Carney informed residents that in 2007, the area, which is currently zoned for industrial use, was designated by the city as a section of town that needed redevelopment. The following year, the city held two workshops and a public hearing on a redevelopment plan, but it was ultimately rejected in late 2008 because residents opposed plans to construct buildings up to 160 feet tall, and said the concept lacked plans for adequate open space and a community center.

"This plan would supersede existing zoning laws and would act as new zoning ordinance," if it were adopted, Carney told the audience. In order to be adopted, the plan would have to be reviewed by the City Council, sent to the Planning Board for review and then back to the Council for a favorable vote.

Talley described the 11-acre area as "Hoboken's final frontier, one of the last vestiges of its industrial past," before delving into some of the elements that guided the current draft of the plan. According to Talley, the west side of Hoboken has experienced significant growth in population and jobs since 2000. She pointed to increased ridership at the 9th Street light rail station in Hoboken, according to statistics she obtained from New Jersey Transit, as evidence that many more people live in the area now than just a few years ago.

Talley said that after reviewing feedback from residents on the last plan, she learned that creating buildings that provide 3-bedroom apartments was a priority along with planning for structures that preserve views of the Palisades. Talley said she came up with a concept that would allow for a mixed-use, transit-oriented community, featuring buildings with a maximum height of 12 stories.

She outlined plans for 353,000 square feet of office space to go along with almost another 50,000 square feet of what she described as "incubator space." Incubator space would essentially be rent-controlled office space for small companies that aim to do innovative or entrepreneurial work. She also said that the plan calls for a few passive and active parks that would add to the so-called Green Circuit, a network of parks outlined in Hoboken's Master Plan.

Talley also added that developers would be required to construct "green buildings" with the intent of garnering LEED certification.

A handful of residents spoke out in favor of the plan, but the majority of people who spoke raised several concerns typical to Hoboken after Talley's presentation, such as flooding implications and potential parking problems caused by the proposed redevelopment. Some residents, like Ed Kolling and David Liebler, expressed concerns that the plan called for too much office space and pointed to the abundance of office space currently vacant at the Hoboken Business Center and the Monroe Center.

Talley responded that the plan is conceived to address a Hoboken that exists in a robust economy rather than present-day Hoboken, which is impacted by the national recession.

A frequent speaker at public government meetings, Lane Bajardi read a prepared statement that was nothing short of a withering rebuke of Talley's redevelopment draft and Zimmer's work as mayor and as a councilwoman.

Bajardi called Talley's statistics on increased light rail ridership at the Ninth Street stop "a faulty use of data" and contended that the increase has been due to people taking the elevator down from Jersey City to pick up the light rail train, not increased population in west Hoboken.

Bajardi said he was a critic of the plan presented by Mayor Dave Roberts's administration and added that he thought the new plan is worse than the previous one.

"Absolutely no progress has been made by Mayor Zimmer with regards to the park she pledged to fight for when she ran for council in 2007," Bajardi said. Bajardi added he was stunned that the new plan calls for less open space than the Roberts plan did. 

"The Green Circuit does not exist," Bajardi said. "This is the worst of both worlds."

Perhaps the main conflict brewing is one between the city and the developers who own properties in the redevelopment area. John Curley, an attorney for the Ursa Development Group, said developers would not build in the area and according to the plan because doing so simply wouldn't be profitable.

Curley, Jersey City's redevelopment attorney for over 30 years, suggested that the city is issuing an onerous plan in the hopes that the property owners and developers will balk and the city can resort to the use of eminent domain to acquire the properties and do with them what it pleases. Curley also said the city wasn't fairly assessing property values in the redevelopment area.

Curley said in an interview that he has locked horns with Bajardi several times in the past over development issues, but this time around he actually agrees with Bajardi's position. 

Bijou Properties managing partner Larry Bijou told Talley he thought the requirements for green building weren't practical because constructing green buildings is such an expensive undertaking. He suggested the city include incentives in the plan to entice developers to construct green buildings rather than force them to do so.

Bijou Properties recently acquired an empty plot of land in the redevelopment area known as 900 Monroe for $5.5 million from real estate giant Tarragon Corp., which was in bankruptcy. In the deal, Bijou Properties obtained a design for a 12-story, 112-unit condo building with retail space on the first floor and the zoning variances to allow for the construction of a non-industrial building.

According to Managing Director of Bijou Properties David Gaber, ground could be broken on this plan tomorrow, but the developer wants to work with the city to come up with a design that would benefit everyone as best as possible.

Bijou, who took a much more diplomatic tone than Bajardi and Curley when addressing Talley and Director of Community Development Brandy Forbes, also was critical of the proposed residential density, or lack of density as he sees it. He thought the proposed number of residences would support neither the proposed office space nor the proposed retail space.

"You need people to make a community," Bijou said.