Hoboken / Manhattan Real Estate Blog

The big political battle in Secaucus may pit the newly installed Joe Doria, who is now commissioner of the state Department of Community Affairs, against Secaucus Mayor Dennis Elwell over prospects for affordable housing.

Under state mandates, any new development must include on affordable housing unit for every eight-market rate residential units constructed.

In Secaucus and the entire Meadowlands region, where numerous new developments are under construction, there are debates over where affordable housing can go, and how much. But state law is very specific about how much has to be constructed as a result of each approved projects.

Affordable housing means different things to different people.

Some residents mistakenly equate affordable with subsidized or poverty housing, thus making the assumption that affordable units will turn their neighborhoods into housing projects.

In truth, some “affordable” housing is designed to keep the units that are sold within a community affordable to residents who already live and work in the region, so that the children of a local tradesman can find housing that’s not priced solely for Wall Street stockbrokers.

Since many of the new units being developed in Hudson County are luxury housing, developers hate the idea of providing affordable housing since it lessens the potential profits.

While public officials in Secaucus gear up for a fight to keep down the number of affordable housing units, they may soon also find that they are forcing out many of the same residents they seek to protect. They may soon find the children of older residents leaving Secaucus simply because they can’t afford to purchase homes there.

For example…

Hoboken Mayor Dave Roberts might well testify to the impact of luxury development in his community. He recently went on the offensive against the police for supposedly not cracking down on homeless people in his city, after a report came out about rising crime in the city. But how did they become homeless?

Hoboken suffered two major shifts in housing during its transformation from a working class community to a bedroom community for Manhattan professionals. The closing of single room occupancy hotels in the late 1980s put many marginal people out onto the streets.

More recently, federally subsidies for housing began to expire, putting once-affordable units back at market rates.

Rumors galore in Jersey City

Reports of Jersey City’s Eliu Rivera’s impending retirement as a freeholder are grossly exaggerated. He said he will, in fact, be running in the next June’s Democratic primary.

This may be a sore disappointment to others who wanted to move him out of his office early.

Also in the wishful thinking category are rumors that Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy will not seek re-election in 2009.

With a $1 million war chest towards his re-election, Healy will most likely run, especially when the field of candidates is likely to fracture any coalition designed to oppose him.

Opponents, however, do have some serious issues to use against him, including increasing taxes, his own conviction on charges raised in his Bradley Beach brawl, his refusal to curb problems with construction by increasing the number of inspectors, and his tendency to be disconnected from local issues such as a recent brouhaha concerning bus transportation in the Heights section.

Of course, Healy does have some good points - including his singing ability and frequent songfests at the local tavern.

Meanwhile, Jersey City Council President Mariano Vega is already on the campaign trail in an expected primary challenge next June against incumbent Rep. Albio Sires. Vega recently raised $35,000 to pad his own war chest.

Race for mayor already started in Bayonne

In Bayonne, where Council President Vincent Lo Re just took over as interim mayor after Doria took on his new post with the state, the campaign for the November, 2008 mayoral election has already begun.

The City Council still needs to vote on who will serve as acting mayor - Lo Re sits as mayor until they vote. And the first of candidates for the election are emerging. Mary Jane Desmond, a former councilperson, has not yet declared her intention to run. But she did open a civic association headquarters in the Bergen Point section, and got a good crowd for her opening event.

Probably-soon-to-be state Senator/Union City Mayor Brian Stack could not attend the grand opening, but he sent his loyal aide, Libero Marotta - who is a close friend of Bayonne’s own Leonard Kantor (another possible candidate for mayor).

Sires also sent a representative. A few spies from the opposing Hudson County Democratic Organization (HCDO) also appear to have been in the crowd, scoping out possible levels of support.

Neck and neck in Hoboken’s 4th Ward

The bitter re-done campaign for 4th Ward council seat has gone into high gear with less than a month left before Nov. 6. Voters will decide between Dawn Zimmer and Chris Campos. This will be the third election these two candidates have undergone this year.

Proponents for both sides express confidence in their candidate’s chances to win the seat.

Zimmer’s election hopes rest on two significant factors. First, she did better in the June runoff election than she did in the May municipal election, suggesting that her camp knows how to get the vote out when needed.

Zimmer is also closely aligned with the open space referendum being held on that date, so she could benefit from a positive referendum vote.

The Campos camp appears to be bolstered by the fact that Campos managed to get a special election at all after losing to Zimmer in June. His legal challenge of absentee ballots prompted Zimmer to agree to the re-do election. In addition, Campos’s people claim the referendum will backfire on Zimmer, since it is an additional tax. While this would be for open space, the referendum is being touted by the Campos team as just one more tax people must pay.

Interestingly, the full council originally voted for a version of this tax, but it is now only Zimmer’s allies who are being struck with the cries of “tax increase” from her opponents.

And by the way…

In a somewhat related matter, Matty Amato, a columnist for the Hudson Reporter, says he has been besieged by people asking if he is related to former 4th Ward Councilman Andrew Amato.

“There is no relationship,” Matty said.

By PAUL THARP

September 8, 2007 — The fire sale of the century is now under way in the real estate sector, with the prices of thousands of unsold new homes being slashed as much as $100,000 from typical $500,000 prices.

Homebuilders across the nation are scrambling to raise cash as their once-booming industry slides deeper into recession, leaving behind the ruins of scores of bankrupt firms.

One major homebuilder in the New York area, Hovnanian Homes, is fighting back the threat of ruin with a brave counterattack.

Hovnanian, the nation’s sixth-largest builder, said yesterday it’s launching its first-ever national ad campaign to promote a three-day sales blitz next weekend aimed at unloading dozens of unsold homes with as much as 17 percent markdowns.

A one-bedroom condo with a pool and spectacular Manhattan views - nestled on the New Jersey side of the Hudson River near Hoboken - will be reduced by $44,000 from its $500,000 price, enough savings to pay for a trendy Audi A6 or BMW.

A beachfront condo in North Wildwood, N.J., had its $500,000 price slashed by $106,000. And a $1.6 million estate in Morris County, N.J., got lowered by nearly $100,000.

“People are waiting for a big deal from this crisis, and we’re going to give them the deal of the century,” said Michael Skea, vice president of sales at Hovnanian, based in Red Bank, N.J.

Analysts said the 72-hour sale, which takes place Sept. 14-16 and can be conducted and financed online through Hovnanian’s lending arm, is a last-ditch effort to improve cash flows after the fourth-straight quarter of losses.

Other struggling homebuilders are also setting up desperate fire sales later this fall. One of the latest companies in crisis is Atlanta-based Beazer Homes, which yesterday got a formal notice of default on $1.38 billion in loans. Beazer said the notice is invalid.

Meanwhile, auctioneers are staging sales almost every weekend in major cities to unload vacant homes that have been foreclosed by banks.

One of the nation’s biggest home auctioneers, Hudson & Marshall, is putting 700 homes on the block for a mega-auction next weekend in Detroit. Properties range from $5,000 for small bungalows and fixer-uppers to $600,000 four-bedroom custom homes.

“Banks are very anxious to find buyers, so the properties are going to auction below their list prices,” said auctioneer Dave Webb.

“It’s good news for buyers who got priced out of the home market in the past few years,” said Webb, who’s auctioned 40,000 foreclosed homes this year. “Now they have a chance to grab great deals.”

Morning Rush: Wednesday, Aug. 15
by Craig
Wednesday August 15, 2007, 8:02 AM

The saga of trying to get a public entrance created at a public park takes another twist; and, in other park news, the “turf war” at Church Square Park continues; and local experts weigh in on how the subprime loan mess will affect the real estate market.

The strange story of the public park at Maxwell Place keeps getting stranger. Hoboken411 has video of workers delivering cinderblocks to the site, presumably to seal up the public entrance that was created just a couple weeks ago.

If you haven’t been keeping up, here’s the story in a nutshell. Mayor David Roberts says when Toll Brothers built this development, they promised to include a public park. And they did — only without a street-side public entrance. Most people walking by probably assume that the triangular-shaped lawn next to Maxwell Place (and surrounded by a low concrete wall and topped with an iron fence) is for the pleasure of the well-heeled residents of the development, not the hoi polloi. At the end of July, workers removed a big section of the concrete wall and fence for a street-side entrance, and then a few days later Roberts and Toll Brothers held a press conference to announce it. The very next day, Construction Code Official Al Arezzo ordered Toll Brothers to put up massive concrete blocks at the new entrance, saying they didn’t have a permit to do the work. Then, Toll Brothers replaced the blocks with trees in planters. Earlier this week, Roberts says, Arezzo threatened Toll Brothers again, saying he would issue a stop work order for the entire Maxwell Place project unless they sealed up the entrance. Yesterday, workers brought a big stack of cinderblocks and left them at the entrance.

Hoboken Now and The Jersey Journal have repeatedly tried to get Arezzo’s side of the story, but he’s always either “out of the office” or “on vacation.” We’ll try again today, as usual.

Some questions you may be asking: Why is a construction code official more powerful than the mayor? Why is Arezzo so concerned with keeping a public park away from the public? What is the City Council doing about this? We’ll keep trying to get the answers, but in the meantime, remember — that is a public park. If you feel like using it, go ahead!

Meanwhile, at Church Square Park, residents continue to complain about the synthetic lawn installed in the northeast corner of the park. In today’s Jersey Journal, residents again said they’re unhappy that the artificial turf was installed without consulting the community first.

“In the future, we will not touch a public park without a forum or putting a bulletin board up,” Mayor Roberts told the newspaper. “There will be no changes made to any public park inHoboken without public involvement.”

Finally, Jarrett Renshaw has a column today about how the subprime lending market collapse will affect the real estate market. Renshaw reports as many as 1 in 5 people who were given adjustable-rate mortgages with low introductory rates will eventually wind up in foreclosure as the rates go up. That will not only put more properties on themarket, but there also will be less buyers — since mortgage brokers are now being a lot more cautious about loaning money.

So what does this mean for Hoboken? Maybe not much. Renshaw reports there weren’t many subprime loans issued to Hoboken buyers over the last few years, relative to what was happening elsewhere in the state. Of course, Hoboken residents looking to one day move out to a three-bedroom in the ‘burbs will certainly want to keep an eye on the state’s overallhousing market.

Residents rejoice as Hoboken Housing Authority receives over $8 million in renovations

Michael D. Mullins
Reporter staff writer

Broken windows, deteriorating community rooms, and urine-stained hallways have been a few of the many complaints made by residents at the Hoboken Housing Authority (HHA), who for years have largely been neglected by their federally-funded overseers, until now.

After over a year of construction, the HHA is nearing completion on an approximately $8.4 million renovation project made possible through a federal leveraging fund program that allowed the Authority to acquire a $10 million loan in one year by borrowing against the capital funds it receive annually.

In return, the HHA must now pay the federal government back 30 percent of its annual $2.3 million capital for the next 20 years, according to HHA Interim Executive Director Robert DiVincent, who also oversees the housing authorities of West New York and Weehawken.

The $10 million influx allowed the HHA to complete an array of projects, installing new equipment while making large-scale repairs and improvements.

“By investing in these buildings for the long run, something we couldn’t have done with the traditional capital works, residents can appreciate the effort we’re making and see the changes in a relatively short amount of time,” said DiVincent, who took over in February of 2004 from former Executive Director Troy Washington who left a deficit of $3.62 million. “It’s important that the people of the Housing Authority realize that everyone has an investment here, it’s their home and they have to take care of it. You see that when you walk through here now. There’s a new, fresh feeling, a different atmosphere.”

Housing Authority residents will also be receiving a newly lit baseball diamond, courtesy of the URSA Tarragon Development Group, one of Hoboken’s most established development firms, which donated $130,000 worth of stadium lights to the “Mamma Johnson’s Ball Field” located between Fourth and Fifth streets on Jackson Street. The field was lit for the first time this past weekend, allowing local kids and adults to play into the night.

Hope for future despite some graffiti

Although a small amount of graffiti persists in some areas, the general consensus amongst custodians Wednesday was that the majority of residents were taking more responsibility for their surroundings, cleaning up their particular areas and making sure others did the same.

“I love the windows, the halls, they’re all very clean, there’s a lot of good improvement. I’m very impressed,” said resident Linda Walker, a former HHA commissioner for five years. “Trust me, if I didn’t like what I saw, [the Authority] would have heard it. But I’ve got no complaints, the process is moving faster than I expected.” Resident Lorraine Dapron agreed with Walker, saying, “I think it’s great,” in regards to the recent improvements. “Everything was dirty, you didn’t want to walk through the hallways. Now it’s beautiful. I love the colors [of the freshly painted walls], I love everything.”

One of the most outspoken resident advocates HHA Commissioner Perry Belfiore said, “I would liked to have seen it done quicker, but I don’t think it could have been done better.” Belfiore added, “Residents should not have to feel like they’re second and third class citizens. Those buildings should be as good as anywhere else in Hoboken. The residents have] been overlooked for years and they deserve everything that’s coming to them.” In regards to the limited graffiti, DiVincent said that whenever it is found it is removed as soon as possible, plus the Authority is working with police to find those responsible.

During a walk through Andrew Jackson Gardens in the area of Third and Jackson streets, DiVincent stumbled upon a spray painted sign on a Housing Authority wall that read, “Don’t piss in area,” in response to the location being used by some in the past to urinate in. The sign caused the director to laugh and retort, “That’s positive graffiti.”

DiVincent has, in the past six months, created a central work-order station to ensure that apartments throughout the Authority receive the repairs they require in a timely fashion, from within 48 hours for safety issues to two weeks for quality of life issues.

DiVincent has also set up a number for residents to call, which is (201) 239-2157, to place work orders for repairs. In the past it was a common practice to reach out directly to a maintenance worker for assistance rather than going through the main office.

The Authority and its improvements

Consisting of 1,353 residential units, primarily in the southwest area of town, the HHA is a federally funded entity that oversees Hoboken’s subsidized public housing “projects” for low-income residents, and is comprised of three family complexes of 903 units and three senior buildings of 450 units.

The HHA, which is funded through the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), is managed by a paid executive director and seven unpaid volunteers that make up the Board of Commissioners. To date, 85 percent of HHA buildings have had their interior public areas repainted, plus retiled hallways and completely renovated entryways that included the installation of fire doors, security entry systems, and canopies costing slightly under $2.5 million.

In addition, all 35 HHA buildings have had new heating systems and new piping installed as well. The family complexes, which spread from Second to Sixth streets on Jackson Street back to Hoboken’s border with Jersey City along Marshall Drive, have seen some of the most substantial structural improvements over the past year, with recreational additions of seven new barbeque areas with approximately 15 grills and picnic tables, plus six new playground areas.

All damaged sidewalks around the family buildings have been repaired, according to DiVincent, while the retaining walls, which previously surrounded patches of grass in front of buildings and became a place for youths to congregate at, have been removed.

Also, new windows have been installed at the Harrison Gardens complex and repaired throughout the Authority. The HHA also had approximately $120,000 worth of landscaping work done. Trees were trimmed or removed, in cases of decay or if they had prevented authorities from viewing certain areas in which illegal activity was going on. To balance the removal of some trees, over 60 new trees will soon be replanted throughout the Authority, particularly in the areas that surround the new playgrounds to provide shade for children and their parents.

Before the end of the summer new mechanical gates will be installed to restrict access to the currently open parking lots scattered throughout the Authority. For years the facility had been used illegally by non-residents in which to park their cars and dump them, until recently when the Hoboken Parking Utility offered to remove the cars at no cost to the HHA and take them to scrap yards in the area so to free up the space.

To prevent future violations, residents will receive cards to gain access to the gated areas.

In the senior complexes all windows have been either replaced or repaired, balconies have been restored, and new heaters were installed. Also, the senior’s community rooms have been either renovated or will be renovated within the coming months. Community rooms are one of the most appreciated amenities amongst seniors, who not only use the facilities for resident parties and Bingo nights, but also as a place of worship and a meeting area throughout the week, as some residents are unable to travel from their buildings for social visits. The total price tag of the renovations to the community room is approximately $380,000.

If you light it, they will play

One of the most celebrated new features is the stadium lighting funded by the URSA Tarragon giveback, which was installed around the Mama Johnson Ball Field. The new six bright lights supply local kids and adults with an area at which to play into the night.

“This was a long time coming,” said 4th ward Councilman and HHA Commissioner Christopher Campos, who co- sponsored the first night softball game and barbeque this past weekend along with city Director Carmelo Garcia. “The girls on the softball team are superb athletes. This is a great opportunity not only for them, but for the entire community.”

Although the local youth softball team will use the field, it will be made available for athletes of all ages, including adult sports teams, added Garcia.

HHA Commission Chairman Angel Alicea, who was also excited about the possibilities awaiting HHA residents, expressed his gratitude to URSA Tarragon for making such a large donation.

“I’ve been on the board since 1989 and this is the first time big business has given this much for the kids of the Housing Authority. I’m thrilled by the benevolence of the developer,” said Alicea.

Next Saturday June 9, the ball field will host the second annual community health fair, providing health screenings for the entire family and information on social services for residents of the HHA, as well as food, entertainment, and various family activities.

By Evelyn Lee - 5/7/2007

HOBOKEN - With the highest per-capita income and population density in the nation, New Jersey has become a magnet for retailers and retail brokers seeking to expand their presence in the state. But both retailers and brokerage firms have been beset with challenges as the state’s retail market becomes increasingly competitive.

“There is certainly a desire among the leading retailers in the nation to either establish or expand their presence in New Jersey,” says Gary Saulson, director of corporate real estate for Pittsburgh-based PNC Financial Services Group, which has 300 branch locations in New Jersey. PNC opened 20 new branches in the state last year and expects to open more branches at the same pace in 2007 and 2008.

New Jersey had an overall retail vacancy rate last year of 3.95 percent for more than 72 million square feet of retail space, according to The Goldstein Group, a Glen Rock-based retail real estate brokerage firm. This rate, which has remained about level during the past three years, shows a tighter retail market for New Jersey when compared with other states, says Chuck Lanyard, principal and director of brokerage services at the firm. “Other regions in the country have considerably higher retail vacancy rates—in the 7 to 9 percent range,” he says.

“For every store that goes out of business, there’s stores that are just waiting to get into the marketplace to fill them,” says Ronald Fotiu, vice president of NAI James E. Hanson, a commercial real estate brokerage firm in Hackensack. The retail absorption rate, which is the length of time it takes for a vacated property to be leased, can be as quickly as 30 to 60 days in the state, according to Fotiu. He says that in the mid-1990s, the absorption rate for retail was about six months. The office market, meanwhile, has a double-digit vacancy rate and an absorption rate of at least three to nine months, he says.

New Jersey’s wealthy communities make the state a highly sought-after location for retailers. “There’s a lot of money for retailers to be made in the suburbs,” says James Aug, senior vice president of CB Richard Ellis (CBRE) in Hoboken, where the commercial real estate firm opened its first retail office in the state in March. Retailers can earn higher profit margins in New Jersey than in Manhattan, Aug says, because they can pay lower rents here and New Jersey locations often generate higher sales volumes.

A shortage of supply has resulted in retailers vying for the same sites. “It’s been a very competitive environment,” says Saulson. “Not only are we competing with other financial institutions for sites, but we’re competing against a number of other retailers.” Such competition has driven up real estate prices, which include construction costs and building rents, by as much as 40 to 50 percent in the past two years.

“I would definitely say that New Jersey is one of the tougher spots for availability,” concurs Ron Hornbaker, senior vice president of sales and operations at Golf Galaxy, a Minneapolis-based golf equipment retailer that opened two stores in New Jersey last year, with plans for three or four additional locations in the state. Golf Galaxy has 75 locations nationwide and plans to add 250 more stores at a rate of 18 to 20 openings per year.

Hornbaker says the timing for store openings largely depends on finding a site with high visibility and 15,000 to 16,000 square feet of space. But many retailers are looking for the same type of real estate. “It’s kind of a horse race as to who can get to those sites first,” he says. “Many times, you find out about a site before it goes up for lease.”

The competition among real estate companies has also heated up in the state, as brokerages expand to accommodate the needs of growing retailers. “Not only has the market become more competitive for retailers, it’s become more competitive for brokers as well,” says Aug.

The brokerage has hired eight new retail executives in the past nine months, three of whom will be based in the new Hoboken retail office, says Alison Lewis, senior managing director of CB Richard Ellis’ New York Tri-State Retail Services Group in New York City. Lewis expects to add more mid-level retail brokers, associates and researchers to the firm’s five New Jersey offices by the end of the year; the retail office alone is expected to be staffed with a dozen retail brokers within 12 months.

“For the last two years, people have said that we really need to expand into the suburbs,” says Lewis. “We were really missing an opportunity here.” With the expansion, she notes, the firm will now have retail brokers covering the entire state. “We anticipate to get even more business because of our reach,” she says.

At the same time, she says, the retail market is more difficult to navigate than the office market. “There’s so many different forms of retail,” from strip centers to malls to mixed-use developments, she says. Office buildings, by contrast, are easier to track because they are listed on databases such as Costar and have a more uniform payment structure, whereas retail rents can be paid on a per-square-foot basis, on a percentage basis or as a flat fee, Lewis says.

Other firms are building up their retail teams and services to stay competitive. “There are brokerage firms that were not in our marketplace that have recently come aboard,” says Fotiu, naming The Staubach Co., whose New Jersey operations are based in Murray Hill, and Grubb & Ellis, which has offices in Fairfield and Edison, as new rivals for retail clients in the northern New Jersey market.

NAI James E. Hanson has hired a number of new retail brokers in the state, as well as five or six more retail support staffers to compile consumer-trend reports, aerial photos of sites, demographic studies and maps that indicate where competitors are located within a certain area. Fotiu says his firm and its rivals are also attending more shopping-center conventions to better reach retailers.

Aug says New Jersey’s highly competitive retail market offers numerous opportunities for brokerage firms. “Retail leasing is a growth vehicle for pretty much any big company these days,” he says. Large real estate services firms like CB Richard Ellis “have always specialized in office leasing … [but] they have not tapped the retail brokerage market to its fullest.”

Friday, April 13, 2007
By COTTON DELO
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

Though McGinley Square is removed from the more established niches of development and gentrification in Downtown Jersey City, lifelong resident Stephen Cunniff senses his neighborhood is ready to pop.

“Sometimes you’ve got to be the first kid on the block,” said Cunniff, 43, whose second Imago Beauty Group - a high-end salon stocked exclusively with chic Aveda hair care products - will open for business on Monday at 673 Bergen Ave, near Fairview Avenue. A grand opening celebration will be held on Sunday from 4 to 7 p.m.

Having opened his flagship salon in Hoboken 10 years ago, Cunniff was contemplating flashy locations like Jersey City’s upcoming Trump Plaza near the waterfront for his second shop.

In September, his friend Billy Santomauro persuaded him to open a salon in The Basilico - a 100-year-old brick building Santomauro had renovated and outfitted with 19 condos and two street-level commercial spaces.

Cunniff was swayed by the prospect of contributing to a renaissance in his own neighborhood - which had experienced the ravages of the local drug trade.

“‘If you want to attract young, cool, hip people to live here, we’ve got to do something big,’” he recalled Santomauro - who also lives a short walk from The Basilico - saying.

Cunniff expects the salon to become a destination for out-of-towners in the mold of its Hoboken forerunner. He’s also purchased the studio apartment above the salon and plans to eventually convert it into a space for massages.

“If you put the name ‘Aveda’ on the door, people will come,” he said.

While Cunniff’s love for the neighborhood reinforced his sense that a business would flourish there, newcomers are also seeing its potential.

Helen O’Brien-Parker, 30, moved to her Basilico condo in December and subsequently convinced her business partner, Kristin Reisinger, that the area would support the coffee shop they’d been scouting locations for Downtown. Pura Vida - a health conscious café serving salads, wraps and smoothies - opened on Tuesday.

Though some advisors warned her against setting up shop in an area that’s experienced little gentrification to date, she believes the neighborhood is poised for an infusion of new people and businesses.

“Downtown was like this when my brother and sister opened up The Merchant five years ago,” she said - referring to her siblings’ wildly successful bar and restaurant on Grove Street. “I guess we’re the pioneers.”

Montgomery Gardens residents’ fear: There goes the neighborhood
Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Residents’ concerns that Montgomery Gardens will not survive the massive conversion of the old Jersey City Medical Center into a high-end residential development seem to have some merit - though perhaps not for the reasons they suspect.

City sources tell me that talks on demolishing Montgomery Gardens have nothing to do with the millions of dollars being pumped into the neighboring Beacon. True or not, very few in the city will buy it, including this columnist.

Instead, city officials say that public housing budgets across the county are under siege, making it financially impossible to operate the 1960s version of public housing under anybody’s definition of acceptable living standards.

At some point, federal support may reach such low levels - given the needs of an aging building - that the quality of life in Montgomery Gardens may reach a breaking point, opening the door for the eventual demolition.

Meanwhile, watch as city officials embrace more inclusionary affordable housing developments, a political philosophy that has long been lacking in the city’s swanky Downtown developments.

City officials will start tinkering with the definition of affordable housing, challenging the conventional theory that only the city’s middle-to low-income residents should qualify, focusing on city police and firefighters.

So, perhaps the residents of Montgomery Gardens will finally get their wish - more police officers. They just didn’t think it meant them living in their apartments.

The Jersey City Medical Center will conduct health screenings next week to help determine whether or not the controversial Reliable Wood Products facility is causing any respiratory damage to neighborhood residents.

The long-delayed tests come on the heels of a column here that highlighted the lack of city oversight of the mulch-making facility, which has neighboring Bergen-Lafayette residents suffering from poor air quality and screaming for help.

I called on city officials to investigate possible zoning violations, since the company expanded its facility to include mulch-making, despite the fact that the Morris Canal Redevelopment Plan bars outdoor recycling.

Previously, city officials repeatedly told me I was wrong, and that they have no jurisdiction over recycling centers. But yesterday, they must have changed their minds - or perhaps finally did some work - and issued long-standing zoning violations.

I am proud to announce that Hoboken resident Traci Kuther is finally getting some much needed attention from city officials. It’s just sad that it took a newspaper column to shame well-paid public officials to spring into action.

My column last week chronicling Kuther’s troubles with neighboring Garden Street landlord and property owner Esmat Zaklama - and the city’s apparent lack of support - sparked a nearly hourlong debate at last week’s City Council meeting.

The day after the City Council meeting, fire inspectors visited her neighbor’s home and prepared a report. Today, a city health inspector is expected to visit the home.

Meanwhile, Mayor David Roberts held a meeting Monday with all department heads to “get to the bottom of the story.” This wasn’t the first meeting where Roberts demanded action, but perhaps this time he means business.

City attorney Joe Sherman, who was one of the players in this saga, was asked to resign at the meeting. Sherman refused, but he was a no-show at work yesterday.

Sorry, We’re Booked. But Just Across the River …
By ALISON GREGOR

VISITORS to the New York area may not readily think of Long Island City, Queens, when looking for luxury accommodations.

Besides having mostly limited-service or budget hotels, the area has pockets that remain gritty and industrial. And one of the last times any Long Island City hotel was in the news was last summer, when the alternative rock band Dinosaur Jr. reported that its gear had been stolen from a trailer outside a hotel where members had stayed.

But the neighborhood — just a short subway ride from Manhattan — is changing, and so is the hotel market there. A decades-long vision of urban planners to turn Long Island City into a business center is becoming a reality after a major rezoning about six years ago. Included in the mix of residential and commercial projects are several new hotels, including two upscale boutique properties on the East River waterfront as well as more moderately priced hotels.

The 23-room Q-Plaza Motel — the site of a 2002 protest against what demonstrators called prostitution in the area — is being converted and expanded into an upscale boutique hotel. To be called the Ravel Hotel, it is scheduled to open this spring with 78 rooms.

The architect Steven Kratchman has designed the expanded building so that all the rooms will have views of Manhattan, many through bay windows; some rooms will open onto French balconies or terraces. The three-level rooftop will be used for a bar and lounge area, along with a spot for local artists to display their work, according to Ravi Patel, who bought the property in 2005.

Mr. Patel said he chose Long Island City largely because Manhattan was too expensive. The total cost of redeveloping the former Q-Plaza will be about $4 million, he said, adding that he expects to attract an overflow of visitors from Manhattan. Rates will start at around $350 a night.

“A lot of hotels are going condo in Manhattan, so the supply of hotel rooms has been slowly diminishing in the city, and there was, and still is, huge demand,” he said.

Mr. Patel says he was first met with resistance from the local community. “It was very hard to convince people that we weren’t putting up a huge brothel here,” he said. “But we’re actually putting up something nice.”

Nearby, another boutique hotel is in the works. Developers plan to break ground this spring on the Z Hotel. Designed by the architect Andre Kikoski, who created Suba, a restaurant on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, the hotel will have 11 stories with 100 rooms. Like the Ravel Hotel, the Z will have rooms facing Manhattan, along with colorful light-emitting diodes on a facade designed to evoke the United Nations building.

Henry Zilberman, the hotel’s developer, says he believes that there is a strong market for travelers seeking an alternative to Manhattan, where rates are often steep because of rising development costs.

“Today a room in a hotel in Manhattan costs easily $1 million if you want to build,” he said.

Mr. Zilberman, who also owns several limousine businesses in Long Island City, said he plans to provide myriad amenities. His limousine service, for instance, will transport hotel guests free to places like the theater district or Bloomingdale’s in Manhattan, every hour on the hour.

Rooms will be around $200 a night, or roughly half the rate of comparable hotels in Manhattan.

“There’s no reason that Hoboken would do better than Long Island City,” he said. “I never got it. We have much better transportation, much better proximity to Midtown.”

Some hotel developers, however, expressed concern that there may be too much development planned for a rather concentrated area of Queens.

“We’re going to see a couple thousand hotel rooms in Long Island City in the next three to four years,” said Sam Chang, one of largest hotel builders in New York City, who in 1999 constructed a Holiday Inn Express in Long Island City. “That’s just going to be too many.”

Mr. Chang says he now has more than 20 hotels under construction in New York City and no plans to develop additional hotel sites in Long Island City, although he is finishing a 75-room Days Inn there that is set to open in April.

His former business partner, John Lam, another active New York City hotel developer, is building a 150-room Fairfield Inn by Marriott nearby.

Still, hotel consultants say that the hotel market in Long Island City may prove to be robust because of demand from business travelers and not only because of an overflow of tourists from Manhattan.

Substantial commercial projects are springing up throughout Long Island City, with more planned over the next few years.

Completed last year was Court Square Place, a 16-story, 275,000-square-foot building owned and operated by the United Nations Federal Credit Union. Tishman Speyer Properties, which developed that building, is also constructing a 486,000-square-foot office tower for Citigroup, near that company’s 48-story tower that was, for years, Long Island City’s sole skyscraper. Tishman Speyer also has plans to redevelop the substantial Queens Plaza Garage site, located in the neighborhood.

And then there is Silvercup West, a planned 2.2 million-square-foot mixed-use development by Silvercup Studios along the East River. It will include 650,000 square feet of office space, 270,000 square feet of studio space and 150,000 square feet of retail space, along with about 1,000 apartments and parking for 1,400 vehicles. The company plans to break ground in about a year, according to Stuart Match Suna, the president of Silvercup.

Nolan Hecht, the director of the hospitality transactions group at Cushman & Wakefield, a commercial real estate brokerage firm, said, “The silver lining here in Long Island City is now you can take advantage of the strong hotel market in New York City and feed off of that, and then five years from now you’ll probably see an influx of commercial demand that will fill a hotel.”

Ankur Shah, the general manager of the Comfort Inn in Long Island City, which his company bought in 2005, is cautiously optimistic about the neighborhood’s hotel market as well.

“I would not say that every hotel in Long Island City is going to make money in operations,” he said. “There are people investing who are anticipating a boom in the real estate pricing around this area. They’re expecting it to be the next Hoboken or something.”

By Ricardo Kaulessar

A week ago Friday, representatives from government, business and non-profit sectors in Hudson County gathered at the steps of St. Lucy’s homeless shelter on Grove Street in Jersey City.

“We’re not declaring war on homelessness today in Hudson County,” said Dan Altilio, the president of the United Way of Hudson County. “We are announcing that we are ending homelessness in Hudson County.”

The various groups have been involved in drawing up a plan for the federal department of Housing and Urban Development to end homelessness in the county within 10 years.

Based on a count done this past April, there are 2,973 homeless people (considered an undercount) and 552 available beds in permanent, transitional and emergency facilities in Hudson County.

The county has three main homeless shelters: St. Lucy’s in Jersey City, the Hoboken Homeless Shelter in Hoboken, and the PERC shelter in Union City.

The 10-year plan calls for transitioning chronically homeless persons into permanent housing and providing the necessary services to ensure that they maintain housing.

Former homeless individuals speak

The event was organized by the Hudson County Alliance to End Homelessness, a coalition created by the United Way of Hudson County, based in Jersey City.

Also involved with the Alliance are members of The Jersey City Hudson Continuum of Care, an umbrella organization that does an annual homeless count in Hudson County to make sure that local organizations receive adequate funding from the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

Some of the funding has gone into putting together the 10-year plan.

Among the officials who spoke at the event are Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy, Hudson County Executive Tom DeGise, Bishop Thomas Robinson of the Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance, and several former and currently homeless individuals.

Healy, DeGise, Robinson, and Altilio are all co-chairs of the Hudson County Alliance.

What the plan addresses

The 10-year plan, entitled, “Keys to Ending Homelessness in Hudson County” is intended to show that the Jersey City Hudson Continuum of Care is committed to addressing homelessness in Hudson County.

The plan will address such contributors to homelessness as domestic violence, lack of affordable housing, and high healthcare costs.

Atilio said last week that the 10-year plan for the county has already met with approval with several HUD officials, which he says can be attributed to the plan being “realistic.”

“We are trying to bring not just government muscle, but also corporate muscle and non-profit muscle all together to tackle a serious problem,” said Atilio. “We can’t take of the entire nation, but we can take care of the people less fortunate in our county.”

The plan is currently being put together, and a draft is expected to be completed for review by December and completed for presentation on Jan. 25.

On that date, Hudson County will do its next homeless count, known as a Point in Time (PIT) Count.

The numbers behind the plan

The Hudson County Alliance to End Homelessness conducted research in composing their plan. What the Alliance found was the following:

· Based on the Point in Time count done this past April, there are 2,973 homeless people (considered an undercount) and 552 available beds in permanent, transitional and emergency facility.
· 65 percent of those counted in this year’s PIT Count either received or needed mental health and substance abuse services.
· The number of families below the poverty level in Hudson County has increased from 9.2 percent in 2000 to 10.2 percent in 2005.
· A minimum wage worker in Hudson County would have to work 139.2 hours of the 168 hours in a week to afford a one-bedroom apartment at 30 percent of his or her total income.

By JAN BARRY
STAFF WRITER

WANAQUE — State housing watchdogs want to know if the borough is doing enough to encourage more housing for those of modest means.

The state Council on Affordable Housing, acting on a complaint by a developer, is investigating Wanaque’s plan for providing low- and moderate-income housing units as mandated statewide under court rulings.

A COAH task force is meeting in Trenton on Tuesday to review Wanaque’s response to a list of agency questions. The task force may recommend possible action at the council’s Sept. 13 regular meeting, a COAH spokesman said Thursday.

At issue is whether Wanaque changed its fair-housing plan without state approval and whether the borough is doing enough to encourage development that includes fair-housing units. Those are units priced to fit an index of low- and moderate incomes in the area and are sold by lottery to those meeting income levels.

At stake is potential loss of state certification of Wanaque’s housing plan, which could leave the borough vulnerable to lawsuits by developers demanding local approval to build a number of market-rate housing units for each fair-housing unit.

Ironically, COAH rejected an initial complaint by RSK Development, which wanted the agency to order Wanaque to fight a state environmental ruling. That ruling by the state Department of Environmental Protection said RSK’s proposed building site on Mountain Avenue is not exempt from strict Highlands Act regulations applying to parts of Wanaque near water supply streams.

As a result of the DEP decision, RSK cannot get state permits to build 19 housing units for which it has borough approvals. It is appealing the DEP decision before the state Office of Administrative Law.

COAH staff said that in reviewing the RSK complaint, they saw reason to question other actions by Wanaque.

As a result, the staff accused Wanaque of substituting its own plans for rehabilitating some older houses in town for a previously approved plan for additional fair-housing units to be built as part of new developments. Wanaque is required to encourage construction of 275 more fair-housing units. RSK’s development would provide four of those units.

COAH staff also questioned whether Wanaque was working “proactively” and “collaboratively” with developers, including RSK.

In the borough’s defense, special attorney Jeffrey Kantowitz sent a letter to COAH and appeared before the agency at its Aug. 9 meeting. Kantowitz argued that Wanaque has worked with developers to create a mix of new fair-housing units and a fund to pay for such development in urban communities such as Hoboken and provide grants for residents with low to moderate incomes to upgrade their homes.

He noted, for instance, that Wanaque worked with Pulte Homes, which is building a 755-unit, age-restricted condominium community in a former sand and gravel pit, to provide 10 new fair-housing units, fund another 30 units in another town and fund 20 rehabilitation projects in Wanaque.

Kantowitz said borough officials have offered to allow developers to increase the currently zoned density for housing on a wooded tract on Federal Hill, in return for a 20 percent set-aside for fair-housing units. That parcel is currently zoned for multifamily housing development for 96 units.

Meanwhile, an environmental group, Wanaque REACH, is questioning why COAH would approve such a development on steep slopes near water supply streams. The tract is just across Union Avenue from the restrictive Highlands preservation area.

“The issue of providing a realistic affordable-housing opportunity must be addressed within already-approved developments and through rehabilitation, rather than forcing even more over-development on steeply sloped inappropriate parcels of land,” Sandy Lawson of Wanaque REACH said in a letter to COAH in August.

All such questions and issues are to be reviewed by the COAH task force.