Gold in them thar buildings

By all accounts, a lot of manure was shoveled at the Planning Board last night.

Seems that George Stevenson, of the engineering firm Remington & Vernick, is turning out to be chief shoveler (See Bernice Paglia's report "Redevelopment Caveats Aired").

A lot of folks around town -- Planning Board members included -- are questioning whether the City is getting good value for dollars paid for Mr. Stevenson's 'services'.

I suppose it would be snarky to point out that the City only hired the Haddonfield (that's South Jersey) based firm after Camden County Dems 'wheeled' wheelbarrows of cash to help out with Mayor Robinson-Brigg's campaign in 2005. Or that the firm's in-house counsel is Assemblyman Louis Greenwald, Camden County Democrat, whose name you may recall in connection with her campaign.

Or that the firm is identified by a Pennsylvania resident complaining of pay-to-play tactics as having been fined nearly $63,000 by ELEC (archived by PT here) for past illegal campaign contributions.

Leaving all this aside, what concerns me is that so far there has not been any discussion of the 'gold' in downtown buildings -- the hundreds of subpar or vacant apartments and offices above the street-level retail operations. Ready and waiting for renovation.

The handsome Romanesque-Revival block on Madison Avenue shown above is a prime example.

It's perfectly understandable the consultant is going say what the client wants to hear. (You do know the 'client' is not the Planning Board, right?)

It's also perfectly understandable that outside developers have their priorities -- get in, make out, get out.

What is not understandable is why the City is not talking about repurposing its available physical resources in the quest to improve Plainfield.

Especially since improved buildings would be reassessed and generate more ratables for a cash-strapped town.

What's not to like about that?

-- Dan Damon

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ARCHIVED POSTS OF PLAINFIELD TODAY FROM 11/03/2005 THROUGH 12/31/2006 ARE AT
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