Jersey Journal, February 9, 2004

Dear Editor:

At the Jan. 27 hearing on the draft Master Plan, Hoboken citizens raised many concerns. After reading the document, I became alarmed by the failure to address a number of fundamental problems facing Hoboken. On parking, the draft Master Plan maintains the status quo. Concerning the waterfront, the high standards our community has aspired to have been seriously diminished. Property owners and developers seeking windfall gains through changes to the zoning have been accommodated in several instances. The document also fails to provide strong language required to protect residents of modest means, small businesses, light industry and artists from further displacement.

Hopefully, the planners and Planning Board have heard these concerns and will make the necessary changes. But an even larger problem looms. What if our local government, catering to special interests and the politically connected, simply ignores all the good things that will be part of this important document. What happened at the last City Council meeting could be a harbinger of things to come.

A developer's hired gun, the Hudson County political operative Kay LiCausi, and city Director Fred Bado got the City Council to pass a measure that will start the process of superseding the zoning for 1600 Park Ave. This new redevelopment plan will likely permit a large residential project in the area that currently prohibits residential land uses. The draft Master Plan also limits development in this zoning district to nonresidential uses appropriate for this part of town next to the Lincoln Tunnel and sewerage treatment plant. So, the city has already begun to undermine its own new Master Plan.

The draft Master Plan stresses the importance of strict enforcement of Hoboken's zoning ordinance. Over the years, Planning and Zoning boards' decisions have reshaped our town by ignoring the ordinance through the generous granting of variances. This will change only when our government treats the zoning regulations with the utmost respect. But the fact that the Zoning Board is now taking seriously an application by Stevens Institute for a massive waterfront parking garage that requires more than 15 variances does not bode well. If influence can be exerted to bypass the zoning ordinance, the considerable investment that Hoboken residents have made in developing this new Master Plan will be for naught.

The final hearing on the Stevens parking garage will be on Monday evening, Feb. 23. Please log on to betterwaterfront.org for more information.

Ron Hine, FBW