The Hoboken officials gathered at the intersection of 7th and Jackson Streets yesterday to cut the ribbon on a new resiliency park that boasts a playground, gymnasium and infrastructure to capture over 450,000 gallons of rain water.
By John Heinis/Hudson County View
“The new resiliency park at 7th and Jackson is a model for the state in providing both open space amenities and also below ground infrastructure to help mitigate rainfall flooding,†Mayor Ravi Bhalla said in a statement.
“Residents, visitors, and local businesses will now have two acres of much needed park space to relax, take their kids to the park, and enjoy the outdoors. I thank the many stakeholders who have played a large role in making this project a reality, especially former Mayor Dawn Zimmer, Larry Bijou and the Council sub-committee.â€
The second phase of the park will include the buildout of the one-acre public plaza, which will feature step seating with a tilted lawn panel for relaxing and passive gatherings, play sculpture, and a large plaza area designed to accommodate vendors and seasonal markets.
Zimmer was also in attendance for the ribbon cutting and also applauded the progress of the project thus far.
“The 7th & Jackson Resiliency Park project will bring tremendous co-benefits for our community including green infrastructure to address flooding risks, a wonderful new park for everyone, and also support the local artists and businesses in the Monroe Center,†she added.
“I am extremely proud of our efforts to get this planned and then built through a collaborative process starting with my Administration and followed through by Mayor Bhalla and his Administration in partnership with the property owner, Larry Bijou. Congratulations to Mayor Bhalla and thank you to everyone that was involved in getting this project completed.â€
Additionally, 3rd Ward Councilman Michael Russo said the completion of phase one was a reason to celebrate, thanking everyone for their continued efforts to improve the third ward, Bhalla, Zimmer, Councilman-at-Large James Doyle, along with former Councilmen Dave Mello and Tim Occhipinti.
The park will also include a shade structure which will be transferred from the Northwest Pop-up Park when construction begins on the permanent park.
The city is currently working on acquiring, building out and upgrading over nine acres of open space and parks, including the five-acre Northwest Park, a one-acre Southwest Park expansion at Block 10, the new 7th and Jackson Park and the recently renovated Madison Street Park.
Sadly, this is a model for how private enterprise can jack the public. Get a $100 million dollar tax benefit PILOTed for you and your grandchildren by paying a few million up front for a park. Politicians show up to congratulate themselves for a ribbon cutting and the massive hit with traffic jams expanding from the west through all of Hoboken with pollution, car horns and accident at that Bijou monstrosity will follow in short order. People will realize the error and it will be far too late. All of Hoboken is screwed for a postage stamp park. Oh, and the developers pocket the $100 million.
It’s all permanent.
This was pretty much the same misleading story that Councilwoman Fisher tried shovel during one of her long drones in front of the City Council said she could do the math to make those allegations but years have passed and she never backed up her allegations. Yet at the ribbon cutting on Saturday Tiffani Fisher made sure she was in the picture.
Who ever is posting as Consequences is either as equally as misinformed, has a political agenda to and is not interested in the truth or has never been to the public space that was opened to public yesterday with even more to be completed and opened to the public soon.
The math didn’t change only the political need to misdirect from the very real numbers. Developer grandkids will be going to expensive private schools with the money handed over for fronting that little park. You don’t make any argument with financial figures because it’s dreadful.
Tell the public what this little park is actually costing the public. It was negotiated badly and the full costs will be borne by Hoboken residents in many tens of millions for decades! The environmental impact above ground will be a tragedy falling on Hoboken like a hammer. This is worse than the Suez deal Dawn Zimmer tried to paper over and is an example of how to put gloss lipstick on a pig.
Little park ? The part story states the part turned over on saturday was over an acre had a gymnasium and that another additional acre will be completed and opened to the public soon. A PILOT is a direct Payment In Lieu Of Taxes to the City which in means that the Hoboken does not have to hand over a lathe part of the property taxes to Hudson County.
It is regrettable that some people are so miserable in their own skin that they have to trash everything, even good things to make themselves feel better about themselves.
A one acre park for a $100 million dollar developer giveaway.
What a joke. Only one name for such a little park.
Councilwoman Fisher has never backed up her original claims about the the project. I think the reason for that is she can not.
Think the mayor’s office has to counter the factual information on the financial numbers. They haven’t and won’t because they can’t. Maybe try again?
Isn’t that Councilwoman Fisher and Councilwoman Giattino in the back of the photo?
They vehemently opposed this project and cast the only 2 votes against it, so seeing them there, even if it looks like they’re trying to hide in the back, is surprising.
I guess that means that they have come around to supporting the project, and now disagree with ‘Consequences” perspective. Perhaps they misunderstood the math before and now recognize that Mayor Zimmer and their colleagues on the Council subcommittee actually do know how to negotiate.
That must be the answer since certainly they aren’t hypocritical opportunists trying to share credit for s popular park and community center that the public has despite them, not because of them.
Success has a hundred fathers and failure is always an orphan.
It gets better… Jen Giattino campaigned on her “NO” vote against the Monroe Street Development project! (the person posting here as me, please stop. Thank you.)
https://grafixavenger.blogspot.com/2019/07/fisher-giattino-voted-no-on-7th-st-park.html
No one is going to your Ravi Bhalla paid political operative website Nancy. No one will talk to you either. Go and talk to yourself there. No one cares.
obviously YOU care. dweeb.
You seem to care, Roman. Thanks for spending 8 seconds with me.
https://grafixavenger.blogspot.com/2019/07/the-8-second-man.html
Is Dawn an energy consultant to Bijou?
The cost to Hoboken for a little park in Russo’s ward is going to be very high. Ravi Bhalla will be looking to raise taxes higher next year! The money that could have come from this gigantic project will be coming from us instead.
It is a large park. The entire project has the same number of units the the developer could have built under existing zoning but by stacking the units opened up space for the gym, park, plaza, flood prevention etc. Project will pay taxes via a PILOT which actually gives more money directly to Hoboken.
$100 million developer benefit is worth a few million toward a small little acred park? Nope.
Actually it’s 3 acres of public space including a gymnasium and over 40 units of affordable housing. The affordable housing is extraordinarily expensive since instead of adding it to the existing density, the number of market rate units already approved was reduced. It is the affordable housing done in that manner that caused the PILOT to be as large as it was.
Financially, that was not the best choice, but the mayor and council drew a red line at adding any density.
If you need to lie about the give-backs received by the city to make your case, then you don’t have much of a case.
Also don’t call it a “small little acred” park. The use of the words “small” and “little” is not permitted, nor are any other words connoting lack of sufficient size. I know this restriction make it difficult to communicate your thoughts, but it’s important to avoid the use of words that could be construed as bigoted.
Shut up Stan