Jersey Journal, January 28, 2005

Dear Editor:

Last spring, a coalition of Hoboken and Jersey City organizations fought the City of Hoboken/Dean Geibel proposal for 14-story, 300-foot long building blocking the Palisades at 800 Jackson Street. After several dramatic demonstrations opposing the project, Mayor Roberts promised to secure the site as open space as called for in Hoboken's Master Plan. He also promised to work with these groups to help make this happen. But instead, the Mayor kept us all in the dark for many months, working behind closed doors and then announcing recently that 800 Jackson would not be open space, it would be the residential development originally proposed.

Now the Mayor would like us all to believe that he has a plan to create 20 acres of new public open space. Much of the land he has included in his plan, however, was secured as park space in spite of the Mayor. As Councilman he supported 500,000 square feet of residential development at Pier C, not a park. As Mayor he opposed, up until the 11th hour, the Maxwell House project that included a 5-acre public waterfront park. In addition, the land at the Weehawken Cove and the 16th Street Pier have been City-owned for many years prior to Roberts becoming Mayor and thus cannot be considered new open space.

The only new public open space in the Mayor's plan is at 1600 Park Avenue and 14th-16th Streets south of the sewerage treatment plant. Supposedly, the City is negotiating to purchase these parcels. But the City does not have the cash and is dependent on a questionable sale of the Municipal Garage on Observer Highway for $25 million. This is further complicated by the fact that the City intends to take a portion of the proceeds to plug a $12 million budget deficit. Also, the Mayor's developer-friendly policy of promoting high-rise development at the perimeter of town is driving up the price of land, thus making much of it unaffordable to purchase as parkland.

The Mayor's open space plan from 9th to 11th Streets west of Monroe, in truth, is a developer-promoted scheme to build a series of high-rises. The plans have the name Ursa Development on them, not the City of Hoboken. Ursa's landscape design creates the appearance of much green. But the green rooftops are not accessible to the public and the narrow strip of green sandwiched between high-rise towers and the Palisades Cliffs are designed to benefit the developer, not the public. Ursa is the leading contributor to Mayor Roberts political organizations, having donated $38,150 over the past three and a half years.

In short, the Mayor's open space plan is not credible. If the Mayor had made open space a top priority in his administration, he would have concrete progress to show for it by now. Instead, he now has many pretty pictures to show us as he embarks on his reelection campaign for Mayor. Upon close scrutiny, however, most of these park plans are questionable.

Ron Hine
Hoboken