In an editorial, Better Blocks NJ Co-Founder Eric Allen Conner stakes his claim that Jersey City Birds is misleading the public regarding the costs and impact of a bird-safe glass ordinance before the City Council.
Ever since the bird-safe glass ordinance was introduced in 2025, Better Blocks New Jersey has worked hard to make it a better, more targeted ordinance.
Our goal is to reduce bird strikes in high-risk areas without worsening the housing affordability crisis by adding costly regulations on all new construction, additions, and rehabilitations on residential and commercial buildings citywide.
We have offered proactive solutions based on currently enacted legislation recommended by the American Bird Conservancy (“ABC”).
At the same time, we have diligently pointed out very real and well-researched costs. Despite these efforts, JC Birds, led by Lorraine Freeney, has decided to rebuff any efforts to make a better ordinance that would achieve both our groups’ goals.
This is not a simple misunderstanding; JC Birds is actively misleading the public on the costs and tradeoffs of this ordinance as written.
There is an inherent contradiction at the heart of Ms. Freeney’s claims about Better Blocks and our work to make this ordinance better. If there are no costs and no impact on development, why (falsely) accuse us of protecting developers?
First, there is no doubt that bird-safe glass is more expensive than regular glass.
We spoke to ABC Birds-approved vendors, affordable housing developers, and glass suppliers to gather our estimates. Even ABC Birds’ own website has articles addressing the issue of costs [ABC Birds]!
All reliable evidence points to the same reality: compliance has costs, adding hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars to projects depending on building size.
Exterior stickers cost $5-$12 per square foot. UV films cost $30-$40 per running foot.
Fritted glass (visible dots on the windows) costs $15 per square foot more and UV glass (visible to birds but invisible to humans) can cost a staggering $30 per square foot more.
Human beings, it turns out, like natural light. Even brick buildings must have windows and those windows will cost more under this ordinance.
While we agree Jersey City has a good Planning Division, they did not take into account that there are more tradeoffs between opaque brick façades and window curtainwall beyond just material costs.
For high-rises and mid-rise construction, an extensive use of brick often comes at the expense of increased labor costs, lengthened construction time, and complex changes in the financing and valuation of projects.
Planning relied solely on a faulty analysis provided by JC Birds and did not solicit cost information from actual construction and design professionals.
This oversight was likely due to the rushed reintroduction of the ordinance, leaving planning with little time to prepare.
Ms. Freeney tries to make the argument that bird glass legislation has not impeded development in New York City, ignoring that It is notoriously expensive and difficult to build there.
New York has some of the highest housing costs in the country, so much so that a large segment of Jersey City’s population has moved here for cheaper housing. Making Jersey City more expensive like New York is not an appealing argument.
The second major issue stems from several false assumptions about what qualifies as a bird-safe material according to the ordinance.
Planning assumed interior curtains and blinds would satisfy compliance; if this were the case, then we would be satisfied. Unfortunately, the ordinance does not allow for that.
As a result, the easiest compliance measures are not a part of this ordinance.
When we reached out to City Council members to have the ordinance include curtains and blinds, Council members confirmed to us that ABC and JC Birds have lobbied against including curtains and blinds.
Finally, Ms. Freeney claims no jurisdiction has ever repealed or modified their bird-safe materials legislation. This is not true.
Just this year, Toronto’s ordinance was preempted by the Ontario provincial government to help reduce housing construction costs and address Canada’s own deep housing crisis.
Similarly, Winnipeg heavily modified their ordinance due to costs, lowering the height to be commensurate with nearby tree canopies and giving home builders greater flexibility in material choices.
In the United States, meanwhile, many jurisdictions reached compromises before enacting legislation. New York has many exceptions not found in Jersey City’s ordinance. Washington, D.C., exempts affordable housing from its ordinance.
Others, like Oakland, limit the ordinance to buildings near waterfronts and parks over one acre. Almost all have a much lower height threshold of 40 to 60 feet.
Perhaps JC Birds is willing to mislead the public about the costs of their proposals because they are ambivalent about whether high prices slowed our city’s growth out of a misguided sense that cities are not environmentally friendly.
Maybe they do genuinely believe that only greedy developers or wealthy “transplants” will bear these costs. Such unfounded beliefs would explain Ms. Freeney’s inability to acknowledge the very real costs of this ordinance.
JC Birds is about to make things more expensive for current and new residents, whether they intend for it to or not.
I’ll pick birds every time over these bootlicking bozos.
This costs money and makes building housing more expensive. I don’t know why anyone is bending over backwards to support some version of the ordinance because it looks like the Bird watchers groups don’t want to budge and have resorted to name calling because their claims don’t make sense. The Bird activists clearly don’t care their pet project might hurt other people. The whole thing is NIMBY slop to stop development. They hate transplants, new buildings, and any pushback.
Whatever Eric
When I have something to say, I put my name to it.
It doesn’t look like you have the same conviction.
Yeah. Why would anyone care about affordable housing in the middle of a housing crisis? Only developer shills!
We are still waiting for proof of millions of dead birds fallen during migrations (twice a year). Because that is when risk occurs. So far, there are no snow plows roaming JC 24/7 pushing these poor creatures off Kennedy Blvd. Think recent blizzard size. Streets should be full of carcasses if Ms Freeney’s estimates are anywhere near actual numbers.
Then, it gets better: how a bird would know at which height it is safer to fly? Ordinance distinguishes heights for specific protections.
Ms Freeney has brilliant ideas, but at some point she may run out of other peoples money.