Please sign our petition and/or send emails to the Mayor, Councilman Gaughan and other City officials to get them to enforce a developer’s agreement that requires that the developer of  The Cliffs  build the “100 Steps.” The following is the suggested text of the letter, but please feel free to write your own !

Send to:

Mayor Healy
201-547-5200
MayorHealy@jcnj.org

Councilman (Ward D) Bill Gaughan
201-547-5485
bgaughan@hcnj.us

Council President Brennan
201-547-5319
brennanp@jcnj.org

Carl Czaplicki, Director, HEDC
201-547-5070
czaplicki@jcnj.org

The Cliffs (Manhattan Realty/Agent)
201-656-0314

Dear Mayor, Council, HEDC Director…

I am writing to ask you to insist that the City enforce its agreements with Developers.  In  exchange for granting the zoning board variances that allowed The Cliffs apartments at 100 Paterson Avenue to be built, its developer, Brass Works Urban Renewal, LLC, agreed to build the “100 steps”.  The  “100 steps” will connect Ogden Avenue to the base of Mountain Road, and make the pedestrian trip between the Heights and the Light Rail and Hoboken safer and easier.

A written developer’s agreement was entered into between Brass Works and the City of Jersey City on August 11, 2005 and the zoning board resolution stipulated that the Steps are to be built at the “sole cost and expense” of the Developer.  While the luxury rentals at The Cliffs are fully occupied, the promised benefit to the community has not been constructed.

The benefits of the 100 Steps include the following:

* Easier access to those living above the cliffs to New Jersey Transit’s 2nd Street Light Rail station
* A clear, well lit, and safe option to walk to Hoboken or the Heights during night time hours
* Provide individuals living below the Palisade Cliff’s better access to businesses and parks in the Heights

Five years have passed, the developer occupies the building with only a temporary certificate of occupancy, but there is no penalty for not having constructed the Steps or foregoing a Final Certificate of Occupancy. The City needs to enforce its agreements. Instead, it held a ground breaking ceremony right before the 2009 Mayoral and Council election promising completion by the end of 2009 but construction has not begun.

I demand the City take immediate action to enforce this agreement so the benefits of the 100 Steps are realized by the local community!

After decades of neglect, Journal Square is to be “improved.” Mayor Jerramiah Healy and the Redevelopment Agency are expecting the City Council to approve a redevelopment plan for the area. The plan encompasses 244 acres with the Square as its hub. While no one who has traveled through the Square can argue that improvements need to be made, the Journal Square Redevelopment Plan will benefit a few developers at the expense of the majority of Jersey City’s residents.

It is easy to overlook any drawbacks when the words and pictures presented by the city at its “visioning meetings” sound so right: transit-oriented, pedestrian-friendly, sustainable, green with “signature” buildings and a new PATH station. So what is the problem? The plan includes buildings that are out of scale for the neighborhood. As envisioned, the area can include buildings up to 100 stories. This is just shy of the former World Trade Center’s 110 stories, and over 32 stories taller than the recently approved “Harwood” project at the former Hotel on the Square site.
Many of the neighborhoods within the 244 acres consist of two-families and small, multi-unit dwellings. Do we really need buildings this tall and development this dense that will place much of the surrounding area in shadows, add significantly to our population, and overburden our already taxed roadways and schools?

The transit-oriented components of the plan require huge investments by the Port Authority and New Jersey Transit, yet there is no commitment or buy-in from these entities other than more studies. Without that commitment, these elements are a pipe dream.

More importantly, the city has signaled that it will create, for the first time in Jersey City and only the second time in New Jersey, a Revenue Allocation District (RAD). This is a complex funding mechanism that can only be used in an “area in need of rehabilitation,” assuming the state makes legislative changes in zoning law.

In a RAD, the incremental increases in revenue generated from the development will be used to fund infrastructure improvements only in the RAD area. While there are plenty of infrastructure improvements that need to be funded in Journal Square (open space, roadways, water/sewer, etc.), RADs have many unintended consequences.

Assuming property values and other revenue streams in the district increase as a result of the new development, much of the increase in revenues would not go into the general funds of the city. Instead, they can only be used within the Journal Square Redevelopment Plan area. This means that the rest of us are left to fight over fewer and fewer funds for our infrastructure needs or be hit with a tax increase (to which those in the RAD will be exempt). These new residents and businesses will require fire, police and other services, yet their contribution to the general funds will be fixed for years to come at today’s property valuation.
But those in Journal Square will not get a free ride. Properties in the 244-acre Journal Square area will, in all likelihood, need to be revalued for tax purposes periodically (or the tax rate increased) in order to capture the incremental increase in revenues needed to fund the improvements. In other areas where RADs are used, regular property re-evaluations are standard. In Jersey City, the last one was in 1987. The city needs to explain how they will capture the forecasted increase in revenues and whether it will lead to increased property taxes for those residing in the 244-acre area.

Any incremental increase in revenue from the new developments will only minimally contribute to the school system or county coffers. The new residents could require up to three schools (according to the Redevelopment Agency and their consultant, A. Nelessen Associates), yet they will not be contributing to them. It will be left to those few of us paying conventional property taxes to make up the difference.
The funding for the development will be dependent on Revenue Bonds that are paid back using the incremental improvement in revenues (property taxes, PILOTs, hotel taxes, etc.) While not all revenue bonds need to be guaranteed by the municipality, in this economic environment it is likely. If the revenue projections are wrong and there is a default on these bonds, the city would have to pay higher interest rates on future municipal bonds at the expense of all taxpayers.

Let’s be real: most people would like to see positive changes in Journal Square. But both the Journal Square Redevelopment Plan and the funding mechanisms proposed for it need careful scrutiny by the affected public – and that means ALL of Jersey City’s residents.

We suggest that all concerned residents and businesses review the Redevelopment Plan (at http://www.thejcra.org/) and let your views be known to the mayor and City Council immediately. As of this writing, the City Council has tabled voting on this plan to give them an opportunity to revisit it.

Jersey City has a Steep Slope ordinance that protects the Palisade Cliffs from development (an ordinance that was drafted and pushed for by RNA). We support those in North Bergen who are seeking to protect the Palisades from a development that will remove 700,000 cubic yards of the Palisades to make way for a Walgreens, Starbucks and Bank of America. Please sign their online petition and attend the Hudson County Planning Board hearing on this application that has been rescheduled for June 17th at 6PM at 567 Pavonia Avenue, 3rd Floor, Jersey City. For more information, email the Coalition to Preserve the Palisades Cliffs at PreservetheCliffs@gmail.com.