Development: Against the cowpie attitude

"Flowers in cowpie"

My chief complaint about the development being contemplated so far by the Robinson-Briggs administration -- actually by the mayoral mentor, Assemblyman Jerry Green -- is that it is wimpy, insipid and second-rate.

The North Avenue Historic District proposal may challenge the 'wimpy' designation, but we don't know enough yet to tell if the project will be insipid or second-rate.

As for Glen Fishman and Dornoch's Senior Center/condo project, it is definitely second-rate when you compare it to other projects he has done.

From where I sit, part of Plainfield's problem is that it doesn't take itself seriously enough. We need to get over the idea that we are the last wallflower at the dance and have to take anything offered.

Compared to a similar-sized town like New Brunswick, Plainfield is as flat as a cowpie. And that ain't good for development, promotion or self-image.

We had a chance when the Park-Madison project was being developed. Well, sort of.

One of the big issues of that project was that we were going to lose four acres of land that had been inadvertently put on the state's roster of open space. A ball-busting campaign by Jeff Tittel of the Sierra Club was so successful that Assemblyman Green was forced to call in chits and get the Legislature to pass a special law tailored to Plainfield's needs in this particular situation.

The problem could have been eased if the County office building had had half the footprint and twice the height -- giving the downtown both an office skyline and more open space.

But such a thought was not in the cards with either the UCIA or the developer, AST.

Elsewhere, as the NY Times points out in a story today ("Building up, downtown"), towers are viewed as a key to redeveloping older downtowns.

Let the developers get as greedy as they want, but let them get greedy on terms that are BETTER for Plainfield when all is said and done.

Meanwhile, as Winston Churchill might say, "Up is a direction with which I will put."

-- Dan Damon

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