The Hoboken City Council voted 4-4 to extend loading zone times in the city at last night’s meeting, which means the legislative effort failed due to the deadlocked vote.
By John Heinis/Hudson County View
The ordinance, which cleared first reading by a 5-3 vote at the council’s October 8th meeting, would extend those times until 7 p.m. where Washington Street intersects with Newark (which would start at 8 a.m. instead of 6 a.m.) and First Streets.
The sponsor of the measure is Councilwoman-at-Large Emily Jabbour.
“We talked about, in the parking subcommittee is Ruben [Ramos], Emily [Jabbour], and I, this came expanding the loading zones probably two months ago. The original conversation was they wanted to expand them to 9 o’clock and I think all of us paused, not even paused, we all said ‘no, we’re not doing it until 9,'” recalled 2nd Ward Councilwoman Tiffanie Fisher.
“And it was very specifically about residents in the area, it was like starting at 6 and going to 9, it was just not considering any of the residents in the area at all. So the conversation then said that we would potentially consider going to an earlier time and what we never talked about was them going on the weekends.”
She further explained that there is currently striping for the loading zones on Washington Street, which are typically operate between 6 a.m. and 2 p.m. during the week and are used as regular parking spots on the weekends.
Fisher said she would not support removing weekend parking spaces for the public, especially in the advent of the Camera-based License plate Enforcement for Access & Response times (CLEAR) program, which she called “predatory.”
1st Ward Councilman Paul Presinzano, who represents the city’s commercial district, said business owners are livid about CLEAR, asserting that “there’s no traffic on Washington Street” ever since the crackdown on illegal parking via automated cameras began.
“I’m telling you what I’m seeing: There used to be five, six, seven cars deep at stoplights, there’s none of that. I ask people is there an issue, the economy’s bad, this, that, and the other thing, and it’s like ‘no, it’s that people just don’t want to come here now because they feel that they’re gonna get a ticket or some warnings have hit and people aren’t coming,” he claimed.
“Now the one key thing is that we rolled out this CLEAR program … the administration didn’t do their homework. I live right across from Garage D, that thing is packed, by 8:45 to 9 in the morning they don’t take anybody else. Nobody else, done, no place to park.”
Emphasizing that parking spots seem to have “disappeared” across the ward, the downtown councilman said it comes down to whether the city wants a vibrant Washington Street filled with booming businesses or they want to cash in on parking tickets.
5th Ward Councilman Phil Cohen stressed that the ordinance didn’t materialize out of thin air: Business owners said that with enforcement of illegal parking, loading zones have a greater importance for them.
” … By extending the hours of the loading zone, your allowing businesses, who are now claiming – and rightfully so – that the illegal double parking that they relied on for deliveries is now not as easily done because you have a truck pull up to the store for more than three minutes or so they are at risk of getting a ticket,” he explained.
“So what does this do? We give an extra two hours, Monday through Friday, from 6 in the morning until 8 in the morning – a time when people are not typically looking for residential parking spots – but where deliveries can be made and loading zones can be done for 20-minute periods.”
4th Ward Councilman Ruben Ramos reiterated that he was the only council member to vote against the CLEAR program when it first hit an agenda last year, adding that he is against the latest proposal for loading zones because Washington Street residents will have to move their cars at 6 a.m.
“Washington Street, like I’ve said, is a 24/7, living, breathing organism. People live on Washington Street, from Newark all the way to 15th. It’s a vital artery, but residents live there and this is important to them just to sustain some quality of life with their vehicles,” he declared.
” … We agreed last council meeting that the rollout of this program was poor. We agreed to that, the business owners agreed to that, so the council agreed to that. So now we’re just doubling down to the poor rollout of a program. That’s what we’re doing: No education to the business owners, no outreach to the business owners …”
Additionally, Russo said, like Cohen, that he heard some business owners requested an amendment to the loading zone hours, but said given the issues that have come up, he’d be fine with delaying the vote on second reading to give the parking subcommittee a chance to fine tune the ordinance.
” … My goal is to help the businesses along Washington Street. If we can do that by shifting something different, fine, but ultimately, I do think we have to solve for that. And that’s an issue for me as far as loading and unloading for the business, not necessarily for the consumer.”
On the topic of consumers, he suggested exploring the possibility of options such as five-minute parking spaces for customers who are simply picking up items quickly.
Jabbour then asked Jesse McGowan, the deputy director of transportation and parking, to explain the city’s engagement with businesses in this instance.
“Before the CLEAR program was announced, we began engaging with the Hoboken Business Alliance. The Hoboken Business Alliance has also done a survey of their members. We’ve engaged them in meetings that involved members of their staff and board as part of this program, [now former] Director Weber went door-to-door to businesses,” McGowan said.
“To talk about the CLEAR program and also to hear from businesses about what would help them and feedback we consistently heard was that there needed to be more opportunities for deliveries, as well as these short pick-ups if they’re doing take out food or things like that. Also, we are currently doing the curb reimagine plan that included extensive community engagement …”
The measure ultimately failed 4-4, with Presinzano, Fisher, Russo, and Ramos voting no, while Jabbour, Cohen, Councilman-at-Large Joe Quintero, and Council President Jim Doyle vote yes. Russo previously voted yes on first reading.
The important thing here is not the failed vote but that Emily Jabbour got $1,000 from the CLEAR vendor right at the time of her vote to approve the Big Brother camera ticketing system.
Way to be a true, non-transparent Ravi-lout, Emily1
Hopefully our next Mayor will actually enforce the laws that are passed vs the selective enforcement that is currently going on. In July a law was passed that said commercial properties needed to keep their garbage at their location, yet Pier 13 is STILL moving their garbage 5+ blocks to Shipyard lane, which is all residential buildings, the garage fills 10 or more dumpsters are filled 5 to six days a week. Everyone who lives in a building on Shipyard suffers from the significant noise and rat issues and has for years. The new law was supposed to fix this. But it is being selectively enforeced – anyone want to guess why? Applied, iron state, Barry Brothers