Public gets left out in rush to seal deal
Monday, January 14, 2008
New development along the Newark Bay side of Jersey City is always welcome. The tentative settlement with Honeywell International Inc. is expected to spur construction of housing, office buildings and shops on about 80 acres and provide more open space on nearly 20 acres.
This newspaper has editorialized that on the surface it appears to be a good deal.
What sends up a small red flag is the speed at which this settlement and major development project was rammed through the City Council, whose members hardly asked a question but nevertheless unanimously approved the agreement.
This deal was supposedly negotiated over the course of a year. Yet, the public announcement about the proposed development and the agreements between the city and Honeywell, and then the council's vote, all took place in less than one week.
The question here is when will there be any time for any substantial public input? Will it be during Planning Board sessions when Honeywell sells property to potential builders - after the financial considerations in the agreement are completed?
Honeywell is expected to buy the 41 acres of city land currently occupied by the DPW, the Municipal Utilities Authority and the Incinerator Authority, and then sell - after a chromium clean-up - this land and roughly 60 acres the company already owns, to builders who agree to follow redevelopment plans drawn up by the city.
Members of the public did not have enough time to question this deal. Where are the DPW, MUA and Incinerator Authority being moved? Apparently there is no plan for such a move, because Ward B Councilwoman Mary Spinello objected to plans to move these government facilities to the Marion section of the city. Now the MUA will stay where it is, but it will be rebuilt as a streamlined facility. The other two have yet to find new homes.
Perhaps the reason city officials want to expedite the agreement is that there is a hole in the city budget that has to be closed. Quarterly tax bills have gone out and there are some angry homeowners. The Healy administration wants to repair the damage, and this deal will do it.
Honeywell has agreed to upfront payments of $15 million this year and $10 million next year, money that would come out of the city's 40 percent share on the land sales to developers.
Development on the west side can only help this city, but the administration should have given its citizens time to digest what is being offered.
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