Affordable housing grant up for vote tonight

The proposed affordable housing would replace
Appliance-a-Rama and PNC parking lot.

Plainfield Mayor Sharon Robinson-Briggs has called a SPECIAL MEETING of the City Council for 8:00 PM this evening to vote on the proposed application for federal stimulus monies (ARRA) to develop affordable housing on the space currently occupied by Appliance-a-Rama and PNC's parking lot on West 2nd Street, just off Park Avenue.

There are two issues here: one of SUBSTANCE, one of PROCESS.

As to SUBSTANCE, I posted last Wednesday on the questions this funding avenue raises for the future of market rate development of condos in Plainfield (see here).

This is serious business and presents the Council with quite a challenge. How do we encourage transit-oriented residential-retail projects in a challenging economic climate? What will putting another affordable housing rental project a stone's throw from the train station do to the prospects of any market-rate condo development downtown? Are there any other viable strategies? How is Mayor Robinson-Briggs justifying THIS Census Tract, which is the LEAST-IMPACTED by foreclosures in the entire City (see my analysis here)?

Additionally, comments by readers have raised other serious questions (see links at the end of this post).

Will the Council back President Burney's stance in support of balanced development for the downtown that would put Plainfield on a par with national averages of rental v. condos? How the Council handles this difficult decision will be a window into the possibilities of serious policy making and transparency in regard to other upcoming redevelopment proposals.

The PROCESS issue is just plain annoying. Nearing the end of her first term and with the prospect of another four years staring Plainfielders in the face, Mayor Sharon Robinson-Briggs still cannot -- or is it will not -- get the public notice thingie right.

The notice about the $15M grant application was put up on the City's website last Tuesday evening, as I noted the next morning. Yet the notice for the Special Meeting Mayor Robinson-Briggs called is dated Friday, July 10, as you an see from the scan Councilor Burney put up on Scribd (see here). So, what was Robinson-Briggs & Co. doing between Tuesday and Friday?

Is the Robinson-Briggs administration still just bumbling or is this a conscious technique of giving the public the finger?

The notice is correct on a technicality (if it's posted on the Clerk's bulletin board 48 hours before a meeting, it is 'publicly noticed'), but certainly does not meet what common folks would consider fair notice by publication in the papers. Imagine what the Robinson-Briggs administration could do if there just weren't all these pesky blogs keeping an eye on things.

Oh, and did I say that the regular agenda session was jam-packed with important items? See Bernice's post today outlining important personnel proposals and more from the Robinson-Briggs administration (here) as well as links to Councilor Burney's scans of the agenda items (here).

What was that about the 'lazy, hazy days of summer'?

Hazy, maybe. Lazy? Fuggedaboutit.

Come on out tonight!

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City Council
Tonight
7:30 - Agenda Meeting
8:00 - Special Meeting
At City Hall Library, 515 Watchung Avenue
(Parking and entry at the rear of the building)

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• The Grant Proposal: "Stimulus Surprise for Plainfield? (1)"
• Reader comments relevant to the affordable housing proposal are here --
• "Plainfield as a Transit Village: The worst of times is the best of times" (7 comments)
  
• "Stimulus Surprise for Plainfield? (1)" (2 comments)
  
• "Stimulus Money revitalizing the neighborhood of developer's bank account" (2 comments)
  
• Plaintalker on the Agenda Session: "New CFO, Finance Director on tap"
• Councilor Burney: "Agenda Items" | "Notice of Special Meeting"

-- Dan Damon

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