UPDATE:There’s ONE more Council meeting before the political bosses steamroll our Planning Board into approving the sacrifice of the vacant, green, Borough-owned lot at 58 N. Passaic! ONE last chance to talk the Council off this ledge! That chance is TUESDAY, May 27, 2025, 7:30 pm, Borough Hall, 54 Main Street, upper level. (It’s set to start at 6:30 pm, but probably will be open to the public at approx. 7:30 pm.)
Great turnout at the May 12th Borough Council meeting. People showed up to hear and talk about the proposal to sacrifice this precious, Borough-owned, open, green lot at 58 North Passaic (just north of Memorial Field) to build an apartment project.
But who came up with this whole scheme? Who chose these particular sites? What else did they consider?
Why would they choose to develop this green, vacant, Borough-owned lot, right next to Memorial Field?
Why not put that apartment project at a better location, preferably on a lot that’s already developed?
Why didn’t we have a chance to weigh in on the decision? Why can’t we see the actual proposal until June 6? Why didn’t we even hear about it until May 4, more than a year after the new law kicked in?
Unless you can talk some sense into our leaders WELL BEFORE JUNE 18, they will do away with that little green space on North Passaic forever.
Last good chance to make a difference is the Council meeting on May 27th, 7:30 pm, at Borough Hall, 54 Fairmount Avenue.
But WHAT “Redevelopment Contract” are they talking about?
Are they looking to renegotiate the Borough’s longstanding deal with the Ivy? Or the 15-unit project they agreed to build at Post Office Plaza back in 2022?
On Monday night, the Chatham Borough Council unanimously deemed “excessive” and “unrealistic” the 181-unit affordable housing obligation the State has assigned to the Borough, but then the Council unanimously resolved to accept that number anyway. https://chathamborough.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=1&clip_id=332 Minute 1:33:44
Also on Monday night, the Mayor was vague about the funds available to fulfill the Borough’s obligation to build a 15-unit, 100% affordable apartment house at Post Office Plaza, when in reality the numbers were readily available, showing that Borough taxpayers must pay more than $1 million to build the project.
To fill that quota with inclusionary rental housing, Chatham Borough would be forced to make space for more than 1,200 additional families, putting at least 2,000 additional cars on our busy streets.
Why haven’t the Mayor & Council demanded an adjustment for the lack of vacant land in the Borough?
If they go ahead and accept the number, will they have another opportunity to demand an adjustment?
When will they make that demand? What are the chances they’’ll get it?
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.
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.”
“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?
