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Two city-owned lots, eyed by both the Housing Authority of Plainfield and more recently by developer Frank Cretella, will be up for City Council discussion Monday on whether they should be conveyed to the Housing Authority.
The meeting is 7:30 p.m. in Municipal Court, 325 Watchung Ave., unless rescheduled due to the predicted snowstorm.
The larger parcel on the map above, Block 247, lot 7 on the tax maps, is Municipal Parking Lot 9 at present. It spans the block from the corner of Central Avenue and West Second north to West Front Street. The smaller lot, at the corner of West Second and Madison Avenue, is a vacant parcel where twelve condos were once proposed but never built.
A team including the Housing Authority unveiled a conceptual proposal back in October to put 86 apartments on the two lots, but the group was advised to deal with the city first before returning to the Planning Board with an actual application. In December, developer Frank Cretella made public his plans for a brew pub, artisanal distillery and a green market including a "food incubator" with restaurant and kitchen space for development of food products to supply nearby restaurants. (See post here.) Cretella's firm seeks the two parcels plus two existing buildings between them.
The discussion Monday is on an ordinance conveying the two city-owned properties to the Housing Authority. Like Dr. Yood, I hope to visit the Plainfield Public Library to view the packet for details, if available. For example, an appraisal was mentioned at the October meeting, so does the Housing Authority or the development team intend to pay for the land? The team included Cecil Sanders
One hopes the discussion will be concise, as there are two other discussion items. One is appointments to the Citizens Budget Advisory Committee and the other, dear readers, is Legal Shield.
--Bernice
City Council should pass a resolution declaring the month of April as "Free For All Month" during which it will entertain any and all conflicts-of-interest for the express purpose of giving away the whole store. How would it work? Each proposal would be ranked by the number of lies and falsehoods it contained, how many officials stood to profit, how much information was being withheld from the public, and how much time the City Council had already wasted on the subject. The proposals would be prioritized on this basis, with the highest scoring ones winning out with their own resolution appearing on May's Consent Agenda. Supplemental points could be earned based on any prior experience participating in illegal contracts with the City, or filing documents containing material misstatements.
ReplyDeleteIsn't this why a master plan exists? So when conflicts arise between competing uses you can determine which tracks closer to the agreed upon direction of growth rather than get involved with spur of the moment opportunism whether it be public or private?
ReplyDeleteDo we have a master plan? What does it say about development in this area? That's the only presentation that should be before the council.
This is hardly 'spur of the moment opportunism'. Sanders and Dunn have been sniffing around for this lot since at least 2009. (I have a letter addressed to Jennifer Wenson Maier, the former Director of Public Works and Urban Development, attesting to this.) The architectural firm that prepared CHS's design plan is Johnson Jones Architects, and for some reason Malcolm Dunn shows up in the State Treasury Department's business portal as a principal, officer, or director of this firm.
DeleteAs for the Master Plan, a brief inspection of the document indicates that two of the four corners bounding this property are among the least safe in the City. Finally, both Sanders and Dunn are appointed public officials who are prohibited by the City's ethics and conflict of interest ordinances from engaging in this sort of activity, or shopping it around to any public body in the city. Thus far they've already peddled their idea to the Housing Authority, the Planning Board, and the City Council. According to HAP Executive Director Randall Wood, the plan came to the Authority from the developers, not the other way around.
It seems that the City and HAP, by keeping the door open to this profiteering, continues its tradition of bestowing special privileges and advantages to the connected few, in violation, of course, of NJ's Local Government Ethics Law. It's so blatant as to be humorous, if it weren't also so detrimental to the city in the long-run.
HAP should concentrate on doing something productive with Elmwood Gardens, just a few blocks away, and the City should wise up to the freebooting that goes on under its nose.
Assuming that the lots can be sold.... They should be sold to the highest bidder and uses should provide the city with a constant taxable use..... not one that continues to keep the property off the tax rolls.
ReplyDeleteI've been reading all this stuff about "gentrification" in Plainfield. I agree with the person who said "bring it on." I am confused by what seems to be equating an increase in the Spanig-speaking population with "gentrification." Spike Lee was talking about Brooklyn brownstones owned for generations by black families which white professionals want to pay $1 million for. As someone else said, and I echo, "bring it on." Residents at Fourth and Plainfield getting $1 million for their homes? Seems good to me.
ReplyDeleteBut,I digress.
I am not an interloper. My Mom was born here.My Grandmother was born here. I would have been born here, but I was difficult, from the very start, and my Mom had to go to NYC.
Let me wax poetic, when Front Street was the shopping center for Central Jersey.
A brew pub and local distillery? A restaurant incubator? or HOUSING in the business district.,
I say brew pub and restaurant uncubator.
To celebrate my 69th birthday last weekend, we drove to Westfield. We want and need good restaurants in Plainfield, which draw customers from the City and surrounding communities.
Please no housing downtown
Thank you Alan. And please replace "spur of the moment opportunism" with "whatever scheme is getting pitched this month".
ReplyDeleteRe: Mr. Dunn.....There are innumerable ways to be involved without being involved,
ReplyDelete