Hoboken council unanimously approves $75k contract for Rebuild by Design study

The Hoboken City Council unanimously approved (9-0) a $75,000 engineering contract to perform a feasibility study related to Rebuild by Design, specifically the Jersey City easements, at last night’s meeting.

By John Heinis/Hudson County View

The resolution, which was carried at the previous meeting, awarded a contract to Greenman-Pederson Inc. between February 21st and May 21st, also noting that the expense will be covered via remaining American Rescue Plan dollars.

On Friday, 1st Ward Councilman Paul Presinzano and 4th Ward Councilman Ruben Ramos wrote a letter to Mayor Ravi Bhalla asking for a few specific things in writing before they could commit to supporting the measure.

“Per our discussions at the February 28, 2024 Climate Action + Innovation City Council Subcommittee and again at the Administration + Finance City Council Subcommittee on March 5, 2024, the administration can offer the following clarification without disputing or confirming any of the statements and/or assumptions made in your March 1 letter,” Assistant Business Administrator/Chief Resiliency Officer Caleb Stratton replied yesterday.

“The purpose of the engineering study is to provide an opinion on how to address the impacts of Rebuild by Design on future transportation improvements in Jersey City. The study will attempt to define whether there are certain indirect costs associated with the design, construction, operation, or maintenance of the elevated light rail station, as it relates to the implementation of Rebuild by Design, and what if any design interventions can be taken at this stage given the uncertainty of future redevelopment.”

With Stratton confirming the study’s goal, the councilmen also wanted the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJ DEP) to indicate that this will help resolve the matter between Lincoln Equities, the developer who owns the land where the easements would go, and Jersey City.

“The NJDEP agrees that the study proposed by the City of Hoboken’s Administration to evaluate the potential impacts of the RBDH southern alignment may help inform the ongoing discussions between the State and Jersey City regarding the public easement needs within Jersey City,” Assistant Project Manager Jonathan Miller wrote in an email to Stratton.

“The NJDEP has also reviewed the methodology and scope of work proposed by the Administration and believes it to be a fair and reasonable approach to this task.”

While Presinzano and Ramos also wanted “written assurances” from Gov. Phil Murphy’s (D) office that says the state would cover additional light rail costs, they voted for the resolution without receiving any.

Prior to the vote, they both thanked the administration for going the extra mile to make them feel comfortable about the expense and the subsequent discussion was very brief.

“We’ve been working on Rebuild by Design for a decade or more, Director Stratton’s been working very hard on it, we have an excellent working relationship as we work with the state DEP on these issues,” began 5th Ward Councilman Phil Cohen.

“And at our committee meeting when we were talking about getting it in writing or not, it was the same day that Director Stratton and our Business Administrator, Jason Freeman, were in Trenton having discussions that day about these issues that are being taken extremely seriously about the long-term resiliency of our community.”

Council President Jen Giattino said she left the committee meeting with the impression that the state would not be providing anything in writing and was curious about what changed.

“There are a number of people who work on these things, so the people that we ask, they’re not always comfortable giving an answer that they’re not privy to give. So in that moment, we were down there, we spoke about this, the answer was no,” Freeman recalled.

“We had further conversations today as we continued to try and delve into this, understanding the dynamic of the requests of the city council, requests of people not in this room, and understanding what we needed move this forward and they put it in an email.”

In his February 7th appearance on Hudson County View Live & Uncut, Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop said that while he wanted to be a good partner in the project, his city would not be paying for a feasibility study regarding a planned light rail station in the vicinity of the easements.