Can we rev the dev?
With one third of her term under her belt, Mayor Robinson-Briggs' development plans are moving at a snail's pace, if at all.
The only one that seems to be moving in anything like a timely fashion is the proposed Senior condos/center on East Front Street. I'll keep the 'seems' on hand until ground is actually broken.
The Planning Board will consider expansion of the North Avenue redevelopment area at 8 PM this evening, in City Hall Library.
All well and good. Expansion -- including a parking deck -- makes sense, since parking is a perennial issue near the station and you can hardly expect to put hundreds of condos (or will it be rental apartments?) up without beefing up the parking.
People are suspicious, though, of other aspects. Maria Pellum questioned designating the United National Bank (PNC) building as blighted.
Others worry that the designation would mean the death knell for Plainfield's first great UEZ success story -- Appliance-arama.
But what's going on with AST's supermarket project on West Front Street across from the Drake House. Shouldn't this have been a slam dunk?
And the Capodagli project for the jerry-built East Third/Richmond 'redevelopment' area? Now that the reinstatement date for the 'non-involved' principal is past, will this project get going? Or are market conditions making it unlikely?
With all the players -- Planning Board, Council, and Administration -- in astrological alignment, why is it that redevelopment plans seem as fraught as in the 1980s, when all was bickering and maneuvering?
If the Administration can't rev the dev, will we soon be hearing the old Paul Simon song?
She said it grieves me so to see you in such pain
I wish there was something I could do to make you smile again
I said I appreciate that and would you please explain
About the fifty ways to leave your lover...
...You just slip out the back, Jack
Make a new plan, Stan
You don't need to be coy, Roy
Just get yourself free
Hop on the bus, Gus
You don't need to discuss much
Just drop off the key, Lee
And get yourself free...
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1 comments:
There are two fundamental problems with redevelopment plans. One is that using them where nobody wanted to build in the first place will not magically create any such demand. It doesn't help that you have to label the area as blighted ("in need of redevelopment"), which is like calling out loudly that you have a loathsome disease.
The other problem is that these plans get tarnished by politics, because an adopted plan supersedes regular local zoning and other ordinances. Therefore, any interested builder is bidding for the right to build without the normal planning board review that protects the public interest. In the right places, and with the right players, some redevelopment plans are good. Unfortunately, not one of Plainfield's redevelopment plans has ever borne even a little bit of fruit.
I think we should just forget about redevelopment plans until and unless at least one of the old ones turns into something, and I won't be holding my breath about that. I applaud the Mayor for trying to do good, but the effort would be better spent addressing the underlying reasons for our failures, and they go back many years. When I wrote the City's Master Plan, Land Use Ordinance and Zoning Map in 1998-99, my plan was to strengthen the other 90% of Plainfield, and then maybe take another look at doing something flashy in the business and industrial districts. I haven't been proven wrong.
William H. Michelson, Esq.
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