The Fire Division responded Tuesday evening to falling debris.
An 1886 commercial building in Plainfield's North Avenue Historic District, directly opposite the city's main train station, will start to come down today. If Bill Hetfield were here, I am sure he would be hopping mad.
The photo above was taken Tuesday evening on my way to the Board of Ed meeting. The Fire Division had responded to calls that debris was falling from the boarded-up building at 187-191 North Avenue. The division's 92-foot extension ladder was used to examine the building's facade and remove loose brickwork from the top left roofline of the brick building.
Coming by on Wednesday after blogging, the Police Division's mobile command unit was parked across the street and police, inspection, construction and emergency management officials were consulting about the demolition of the building. Oliver Brown, of Oveter Construction, was on the scene and told me that he expected his crews would get under way with demolition late Wednesday or early today, depending on crews getting the gas and electric connections shut down. (I noticed that they were busy in the front, but that at the rear of the properties there was a mare's nest of power, phone and cable lines to the various buildings, all with occupied apartments except for the one to be torn down.)
The Star-Ledger reporter was prowling about, as was the Courier photographer. I got some snaps of the front of the building and the rear, which is accessed off an alleyway across from the Post Office.
My photo of 4/22/2009, after falling debris caused the area to be cordoned off.
Just eleven months ago, last April, I photographed the building's exterior after authorities put up yellow 'Do Not Cross' tape and sawhorses to keep anyone from walking or parking directly in front of the building. At that time, as this past Tuesday, there had been falling debris from the building posing a danger to passersby. The building has been vacant for years and police have told me they have had to chase squatters out on numerous occasions.
Is there criminal neglect in this matter? And if so, whose neglect is criminal?
Based on an inspection made April 17, 2009, Plainfield construction official Joe Minarovich issued a 'Notice of Imminent Hazard' by certified mail to the owner, Solngu Enterprises LLC of Piscataway (whose phone number is listed as 908 756 912, thus incomplete), on April 20, which stated --
Failure to render the structure temporarily safe and secure and/or demolish the structure in accordance with this ORDER will result in this matter being forwarded to legal counsel for prosecution, and assessment of penalties up to $2,000.00 per week per violation.The document could have been confusing to the owner (if they accepted the certified letter), because it contained TWO MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE ORDERS: 1) Immediately correct the above noticed imminent hazards so as to render the structure temporarily safe and secure, and 2) Demolish the above structure by 4/20/2009. Both boxes were checked. (Keep in mind that the report was dated April 20, and the required demolition date was the same date. Kafkaesque?)
On May 1st, the Historic Preservation Commission (HPC) contacted Minarovich, copying DPWUD Director Jennifer Wenson-Maier, as well as engineering, planning and inspections officials, concerning the Imminent Hazard Notice, which it had taken up at its April 28 meeting.
Besides concurring that the corbelled parapet needed to be removed, the HPC placed five conditions on the process of removal, including salvaging materials and updating the HPC.
Its first and most important condition was that --
...[t]he building needs to be assessed by a structural engineer and properly secured so as to avoid any further water or structural damage, including covering all holes in the roof and ensuring the that existing interior drains (if any) are functioning properly...The Commission went on to remind the recipients of the letter that --
187-191 North Avenue is significant not just as an individual property, but also as part of the cohesive historic fabric of the North Avenue Historic District. Our cooperative efforts in saving this building from further damage will help stabilize the North Avenue Historic District and support property values. (Emphasis added -- DD)Months went by, evidently with no further action by the Robinson-Briggs administration.
The yellow tape and sawhorses remained in front of the building. There is no record the owner ever appealed or was fined for noncompliance with the order.
Finally, on October 6, 2009, the chair of the Historic Preservation Commission once again wrote to Minarovich, copying Wenson-Maier and the others from the original letter, noting that the Commission had received no response from any party to its May 1 letter, that the parapet had not been removed, and inquired whether the public safety situation had been abated, asking for a response by October 30, 2009.
On November 30, 2009, Remington & Vernick, the city's outsourced engineering firm, reported to Wenson-Maier the conclusions from its inspection that 'the roof overhang' (the marquee suspended over the entry by chains from the facade) be removed; noted water penetration of the building and recommended a further inspection of the interior to determine required repairs or a recommendation of demolition of the building.
Gentle reader, keep in mind -- 1) we are now more than six months past the date of the previously ordered demolition, and 2) the engineers -- who get paid like a cabbie -- are suggesting they be called upon once again, for a further fee, to make the inspection and recommendation. (Did I forget to mention these are politically connected donors to the mayor's campaigns?)
The North Avenue Historic District, designated in 1983 under Plainfield's first African American mayor, and as a result of the efforts of activists such as Bill Hetfield (who owned a property at North and Park) and Jan and Henry Johnson (publishers of the Plainfield Today newspaper, who also owned property on North Avenue), languished until the late 1990s.
This plaque in the North Avenue sidewalk highlights
historic Plainfield sites, including the train station.
At that time, New Jersey Transit invested more than $12 million in restoring the eastbound main station building and razing and replacing the westbound building with a new passenger platform with an elevator, a reopened tunnel between the two buildings and a large plaza, where the plaque picture above is permanently mounted in the walkway.
With the demolition getting under way today, Plainfield will be left with a gap-toothed streetscape for riders on the Raritan Valley trains to peruse. Sort of like a Halloween jack-'o-lantern, but definitely not amusing.
The sad thing is that none of it needed to be this way. A couple of months ago, Frank Cretella, putative developer for several proposed projects in the downtown train station area, lamented to me personally that he really would have liked to do development of the North Avenue Victorian commercial properties (of which the demolishee is one), but that 'no one will talk to me'.
Has there been criminal neglect?
I suppose it depends on your definition of 'criminal'.
How could the owner, the mysterious Melva Solis, who paid $110,000 for the building in 2000 and converted it to the current LLC ownership by a quitclaim deed in 2006 (for $1), care so little about her investment? She is lucky that no one has been injured, for that would have been legal 'criminal neglect'. But I am concerned about the neglect of our downtown transit-oriented development that the Robinson-Briggs administration has engaged in from its inception.
(How ironic that the public is invited to an all-day workshop on Visioning a revitalized Plainfield along its rail corridor, to be held this Saturday -- see notice below.)
Under the McWilliams administration, a redevelopment plan was conceived for the North Avenue Historic District which elicited interest from a number of developers with track records in development and historic preservation.
All to naught.
The Council at the time declined to entertain serious negotiations. Assemblyman Green was not interested in pursuing matters.
Jennifer Wenson-Maier, Robinson-Briggs' hand-picked Director of Public Works and Urban Development in her first term, carried out an aggressive policy of hostility and disrespect toward Plainfield's strong historic preservation heritage and assets, one has to assume with the blessing of her boss the Mayor.
While my last official duty before retiring was to create for Wenson-Maier a photographic inventory of the North Avenue and East Second Street redevelopment areas, no further action was ever taken with regard to these projects.
Robinson-Briggs, instead, concerned herself with cockamamie schemes like the Capodagli proposal at West 3rd and Richmond (since vanished into thin air) and the 'no-cost-to-Plainfield' Monarch condos project on East Front Street (for which ground was broken at the precise moment the housing bubble burst, and is now floundering).
The neglect by the Robinson-Briggs administration of the possibilities of North Avenue development while the market was hot is the real crime.
With the demolition of 187-191 North Avenue due to her administration's inaction over the past year, Plainfield taxpayers will now suffer for it.
This historic North Avenue property, shown yesterday, will start to come down today,
a victim of the Robinson-Briggs' administration's neglect.
PLAINFIELD VISIONING WORKSHOP
Saturday - March 27
9 AM - 3 PM
Washington Community School
427 Darrow Avenue
(Parking available in the Spooner Avenue lot)
Residents and business owners are invited to join with local officials and
a team of Rutgers and NJIT faculty and students in re-imagining Plainfield's future
with a focus on the Main and Netherwood Stations and the Western rail corridor.
Lunch will be served. Free, but please confirm your attendance
with Jacques or Jeanette at (908) 226-2513.
Saturday - March 27
9 AM - 3 PM
Washington Community School
427 Darrow Avenue
(Parking available in the Spooner Avenue lot)
Residents and business owners are invited to join with local officials and
a team of Rutgers and NJIT faculty and students in re-imagining Plainfield's future
with a focus on the Main and Netherwood Stations and the Western rail corridor.
Lunch will be served. Free, but please confirm your attendance
with Jacques or Jeanette at (908) 226-2513.
-- Dan Damon [follow]
Posts
11 comments:
From Pat Turner Kavanaugh:
That North Avenue building was on the Historic Preservation Commission's agenda Tuesday night and David Brown was sitting with us when he had to rush off to the collapse. Believe me, the HPC has been desperate to save that building and that area. My personal fear is that Virginia Terrell's house will go next. Stay tuned.
Demolishing this building will have other impacts to the adjoining buildings. The sad part of all of this is that for the cost of the demolition the building most likely could be stabilized but for the current City administration's ingnorance it will be torn down.
This building is a sign of the city of Plainfield's future under this adminstration.....crumbling...
It seems suspicious to me that the choice is to demolish rather than stablize. Given the unknown impacts to the adjoining buildings (could cause them to be destablized, then needing demolition).
Maybe this is a sneaky way to start the demolition of the entire block and make way for a new development? Developers don't like to rehab .. only build new.
There's plenty of blame to go around. This building has been deteriorating for many years, not just since 2006 when Robinson-Briggs became mayor.
All thru the past administration nothing was done to North Avenue. To blame the current administraiton (only) and praise the adminsitration that you were a direct employee of, is a totally biased and false view.
The previsous administraiton sat on it's laurels also.
There is plenty of blame to go around.
But that is Plainfield fate. name change. The failures continue. The blame continues.
I agree with anonymoust at 12:56PM, BUT her administration was the one that sent out the letters stating fix it or else. And, as we have become quite accustomed to from ANY and ALL city government regarding zoning or safety issues with buildings or any part of the city, "or else" simply means...wait us out, you'll win.
All one has to do it drive around Plainfield and see the results of one word : INACTION.
Again, I have repeated this over and over and over. Zoning and safety administrators and staff are paid to take care of these things. So, we can say quite positively they are paid to do nothing.
- have the Connelley buildings been fixed? Have the issues with that eyesore on Franklin Place that Maria has fought an uphill battle over been resolved? what are the rest of the correspondences and issues revolving around this building prior to it's collapse? Are there satellite dishes in historic districts? Are there buildings with glass windows all broken out in downtown ?
---- SOLUTION: 2 WORDS, ZONING and ENFORCEMENT.
1) ZONING: You create the look and atmosphere you want your town/city/village to have.
2) ENFORCEMENT: Your town/city/village makes money off those who refuse to comply. That supposed $2000 a week fine would have caught the owners attention the minute it hit $10,000 trust me.
--- I cannot attend the meeting this Saturday, but I am emailing Cory Storch ( DAN ? You going ??? )to relay my comments regarding vision.
-- You cannot have a grand/new vision of Plainfield, when you can't or won't change what's right in front of you. If you refuse to teach a baby how to talk, do you really want to plan on them being in a debate 10 years from now??
forget it: I changed my plans, I am going.
@ 10:04 PM -- You must have been sleeping through the prior administration. Like I said above, there was a plan, but the Council declined to entertain discussions with the developer, and the Assembly was not interested. Under the current regime, there has been zero said or done about North Avenue development.
Rob -- As ever, you freshen the litter in the cat's box. I'm planning on being there Saturday. They talked about it a little at the Ward 2 Town Hall last night. We'll see.....
How is it that Oliver Brown and his new company name back in Plainfield? He is a convicted crook! How much money did he donate to the maoye GREEN/ROBINSON campaign? I can not get over the the fact that maybe Oliver wants the building to come down just so he can make money off our city that, he once cheated as well as others. SHAME ON OUR MAYOR for using him or his company
As a tax payer Oliver Brown is deserving of the opportunity to bid for work in the City of Plainfield. As a supporter of Green and Robinson he like other Blacks in this city has been used as a last resort on rare occasions to fill city contracts. There is a black majority city council and white out of town companies are given no bid contracts. There has been no comments on that. Oveters is the largest black contruction company with owner operated equipment in New Jersey and is fully capable of doing work in Plainfield. In fact Oveters is the only black company that has done any substantial work for the city. Bear in mind that many opportunities have also never been brought to Oliver Brown's attention.
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