Word is that our planners will adjust the numbers shown in that report to allow for the scarcity of vacant land in Chatham Borough, and then try to persuade the State to accept its adjusted numbers as the quotas.
That analysis will probably be similar to that used in 2022, as shown on page 5 of the current Housing Elements, linked here:
The State says the Borough Council has until the end of this January 2025 to negotiate the final quota, and to adopt a binding resolution accepting it.https://www.njlm.org/civicalerts.aspx?aid=2924
Now we know that the Mayor & certain members of the Borough Council are aiming to partner with for-profit developers to build 500 MORE rental apartments on River Road, right next to the 245-unit Ivy project that went up last year.https://chathamchoice.org/2024/09/wait-another-big-project-on-river-road/
They claim that in return for the chance to collect big rents on the new complex, the developer will throw in some “free” goodies for the Borough, including a lovely riverside park.
Of course, in reality nothing is free.
To get the riverside park and other “free” goodies, the Council would have to agree to excuse the property taxes on the new project for 30 years.
That means instead of picking up part of the Borough’s ever growing expenses, automatically reducing your tax bill, the developer would pay smaller amounts known as PILOT payments.
Why would Council members even consider that? Because unlike tax money, which is subject to certain limits, the Council could spend the PILOT money on frills, gifts, or whatever else, and go right on raising your property taxes to pay for the “free” riverside park and other goodies.
In other words, you would pay for the “free” goodies for the next 30 years.
Why would the Council take on that long term burden – and put more than a thousand more people and hundreds more cars on River Road forever – when it could pay less for whatever the Borough needs and wantson its own?
Ask the Council’s financial advisor on Tuesday, October 15, 7:30 pm, Borough Hall, 54 Fairmount Avenue. Use the side door. Take the elevator to the upper level. Or Zoom here:
Jocelyn Mathiasen is running for a third term on the Borough Council, trying to position herself as a mainstream opponent of overdevelopment, just as she did In 2018, when she first ran for Council using the slogan “Keep Chatham Chatham.”
Ms Mathiasen’s anti-overdevelopment posture is totally inconsistent with her six-year tenure on the Council.
During that time, she has never opposed, or even failed to promote and vote for, any step toward every overdevelopment scheme that has ever come along, including at Post Office Plaza and River Road.
At its Monday, September 23 meeting, the Borough Council will ok using your money to pay a planner to draft a redevelopment plan for yet another huge project on River Road – a 500-unit apartment project – twice as big as the Ivy at the corner of Watchung Avenue.
ChatGPT must be a real estate shark! Despite repeated demands, Chat GPT refused to generate an image of a four story building, but only a taller building like this.
While you were relaxing on LBI, our walkable little Borough was changing into to a less attractive place, with motor bikes on crowded sidewalks and higher property taxesfor all.
“Higher taxes?” you may wonder. “How could the Council raise our taxes in the middle of the summer? Did they do that to pay for the new fire trucks we so desperately need?”
Nope. The. Council used a taxpayer asset to make an outright gift, depriving Borough taxpayers of an automatic tax break, and the chance to choose to use those funds for some urgent municipal need, like new fire trucks.
It was not consensual. How did that happen? Here’s how:
Given certain caps on local taxes and spending, the Borough Council’s annual budget is only about $17 million. All other things being equal, a new, taxable development automatically triggers a little more revenue to the Borough, along with lower property taxes for all of us, unless residents vote to spend more instead.
But the Council can take away our right to that tax break, and free up far more spending money for itself, far above the normal limits, simply by designating the new development exempt from property taxes, and allowing the developer to pay smaller, negotiated amounts known as PILOTs.
PILOT payments aren’t subject to the normal spending limits, and the Borough Council isn’t required to share the PILOT money with residents in the form of lower taxes. The Council doesn’t even need to ask voters before spending the PILOT money.
WIth a PILOT, the Council can simply plunge ahead and spend 95% of the revenue however the Council members please. They can spend it on urgent necessities like fire trucks. They can spend it on luxurious pet projects like the Stanley church. They can even spend all the PILOT money on outright gifts, and still go right on increasing the Borough budget and raising our taxes every year.
That’s exactly what the Council did at its August 12 meeting. The Council voted to give part of the Ivy PILOT payments to the Joint School District of the Chathams, a separate entity with its own $90 million budget and its own sources of funds, to cover expenses that would otherwise be shared with Chatham Township. That’s a gift.
That gift would be acceptable if the Borough Council had made it with the informed consent of Borough residents, for instance if residents had voted for it. But in this case, the Council approved the gift on the spot, the same night the public learned about it.
Why would the Council make such a gift when the Borough is in desperate need of at least two fire trucks, according to the experts the Council paid $18 thousand to evaluate the situation? Ask the Council members.
In fact, the effect of that gift is to raise the school tax burden on the Borough, because it’s on top of the Borough’s fair share of the cost of running the schools as determined by a longstanding formula.
Isn’t the Township also kicking in more money to the School District? No.
Most of the members of the Township Committee are too smart to throw away assets as the Borough Council has, done, if only for fear of getting voted out of office. Instead of giving more than its fair share to the School District, the Township Committee is buying TWO new fire trucks right away, to save money.
You’ve heard what the politicians always like to say:
To get any control over what gets built at River Road, we need a redevelopment plan, they insist.
Unless we have a redevelopment plan, the developers can build whatever they want, they wail, evoking the specter of towering , tacky, monstrosities.
But is that true? No.
Absent a redevelopment plan, any new, private development is subject to many federal, state, and local requirements, including plenty of Borough building, affordable housing, and zoning regulations that apply all over town, and some that apply to the Gateway Overlay Districts of River Road in particular.
For a new, private project at River Road, those requirements include the following detailed rules that set strict standards for almost every aspect of a development:
Keep that in mind next time someone tries to tell you that – unless we adopt a redevelopment plan – the developer “can build whatever he wants” or that adopting another plan is “the only way to control what happens at River Road.”
At their August 12 meeting, the Mayor & Council invited a Borough tax lawyer to address a mystery:
Why had the lawyer called off a property tax proposal, claiming in writing that “the Borough Council has decided not to proceed with the request this year,” when, in fact, the Council would not even vote on the matter for another week?
The lawyer must have had some reason for saying that. Instead of revealing the reason, he seemed determined to fall on his sword, claiming full responsibility for the debacle. “It is my fault,” he insisted. “I just should have said that the Governing Body has not yet given me that authorization.”
So, whydidn’t the tax lawyer say that? Why did he tell the Tax Board otherwise? The Mayor & Council never asked that key question, and the lawyer never volunteered an explanation.
When will the Mayor & Borough Council get to the bottom of this situation and reveal what prompted the lawyer to notify the Tax Board that the Council had decided something, when in fact it had not?
When will the Mayor & Council tell us what they’re doing to make sure nothing of the sort ever happens again?
“It was not a sham vote,” insisted Chatham Mayor Carolyn Dempsey at the July 8th Council meeting.
That was the Mayor’s reaction to proof that the Council had voted on a property tax proposal one week after a Borough lawyer notified the Tax Board that the Council had decided not to pursue that proposal.https://chathamchoice.org/2024/07/who-did-this/
Curious how that happened? Want to support your Mayor & Council? Just like to be in-the-know?
Come to the next Council meeting, which is set for Monday August 12, 7:30 pm, at Borough Hall, 54 Fairmount Avenue. Use the side door and take the elevator to the upper level.
“It was not a sham vote,” insisted the Mayor, saying she wasn’t aware of the discrepancy until two weeks later, when Bob Weber showed proof at the 7/8 Council meeting.
Now the Mayor needs to find out who made that call behind her back and let us residents know.
UPDATE: Does the employee’s explanation make any sense at all?
What’s up with the so-called “visioning workshop” the Mayor & Council have set for next Thursday, June 27, from 7 to 9 pm, at Borough Hall, 54 Fairmount Avenue?
They’re testing public support for a plan to build ASAP 500 more apartments on River Road, near the 245-apartment Ivy project at the corner of River and Watchung.
To achieve that, they would offer developers a 30-year property tax break, prompting them to build even if the market is weak, and forcing us taxpayers to assume the risk that the rents won’t keep up with rising municipal costs.
The alternative is for the Borough Council to wait and see if the River Road property owners choose to build more apartments without a tax break. Under current zoning, they could conceivably build 700 new flats there tomorrow.
Risky? No. Left to their own devices the property owners won’t build any more apartments on River Road anytime soon. Not unless, until, and to the extent they (and their lenders) think they can get rents high enough to pay regular property taxes and still make a nice profit.
That probably won’t happen for many years – if ever – given current interest rates and the growing glut of luxury apartment buildings in the Chatham area.
(Either way, any new apartments will be at least 15% -20% affordable, and – contrary to what overdevelopment advocates would have you believe – the developer certainly won’t give the Borough a riverside park – or anything else – for “free.”)
With the 245-unit Ivy project sitting half empty next door and big apartment buildings going up all over the state, should the Borough plunge ahead with a scheme to build a 500-apartment project that may or may not produce enough revenue to cover Borough costs?
Or might it be wiser to wait and see how many more apartments the market can support at River Road?
