Q: Is there any way to dissuade our Mayor & Council from building a big, 100+ commercial, rental apartment block behind our Main Street Post Office, clogging up our streets with hundreds more cars?
Come to the Council Meeting Tonight
Tuesday, Oct. 12, 7:30 pm,
Borough Hall, upper level, 54 Fairmount Avenue.
To attend virtually: see www.chathamborough.org. Scroll “News and Events” down to “Notice of Mayor & Council Meeting.” Click “more.”
Q: Discouraged by the Mayor’s 25-person limit on in-person attendance? Fed up with the technical difficulties that plague virtual participation?
Tell our Borough lawyers and experts to come up with ways to allow enough affordable housing – without destroying one of the last few open spaces in town.
Our elected representatives deny having plans to stick a 100+ apartment development behind our Main Street Post Office, clogging up already congested streets, displacing the popular Cottage Deli, and destroying our free, public, parking lot.
They claim that whatever they decide to build in Post Office Plaza will be small scale and low density.
Now we know that isn’t true. So stop wasting time. Tell our lawyers and experts to come up with alternatives.
Our Mayor & Council have already taken steps to facilitate swift construction of a 100+ unit, rental housing project in Post Office Plaza.
The proof is in an agreement the Mayor signed – and the Council approved – on June 14, 2021, agreeing to tight deadlines calculated to lead to a final deal with the developer by June 1, 2022.
Contrary to what you may have heard, that June 14 agreement does NOT limit the size of the project at Post Office Plaza. Just the opposite!
In effect, that agreement requires construction of at least 100 rental apartments at Post Office Plaza, as our professional planner Kendra Lelie conceded at the Sept. 27 Council meeting.
Only way we can avoid getting stuck with that eyesore is for the Mayor to step up, invoke the “or” clause in Sec. 8.b.iii, and persuade the powers-that-be to accept another way to get enough affordable housing.
A 100-unit rental development will bring in hundreds of new residents, driving at least 130 additional cars, plus many more carrying employees and patrons of the new retail shops and restaurants.
We’ll be forced to replace our free, convenient, public parking lot with a dangerous garage that’s sure to attract crime – in return for a mere 15 -17 affordable apartments – and with NO significant benefit for residents or taxpayers.
The actual size of the project could exceed 200 units, given the lax 2019 Redevelopment Plan.
There’s no need sacrifice Chatham. Our experts know many ways to allow affordable housing. Ms Lelie calls them “mechanisms.”
Some possible mechanisms include:
subsidizing existing apartments;
converting old office buildings to residential use, as resident Fran Drew has proposed;
building assisted living or senior housing, perhaps near the train station; or
some combination of the above.
Tell our Mayor & Council to have their experts show us Chatham residents and taxpayers some “mechanisms” that will preserve our free, convenient, public Post Office Plaza parking lot – and without condemning anyone’s property.
Now we have a great alternative for the 5 acres behind the Main Street Post Office!
It includes more surface parking and a pretty public green space.
Longtime Chatham businesswoman and civic leader Fran Drew conceived this idea as an alternative to the proposals offered by the big Kushner developers, who stand to profit by using corporate welfare PILOT tax breaks to build a project that will destroy our little Chatham Borough, with big expenses and even more traffic on Main Street.
Chatham residents are excited about this fresh idea, which is aimed at preserving and enhancing our community.
Are you tired of ever-worsening traffic on Main Street?
Make sure this idea gets a fair hearing before our Mayor and Borough Council.
Let our Mayor and Borough Council know what you think: mayor@chathamborough.org
Would you like to see hundreds more cars and trucks clogging up our streets, making it harder to get to work, school, MDs?
Would you like to park in a dangerous, windowless garage, where a police officer right outside couldn’t hear your screams?
Would you like to pay higher taxes – and lower the value of your house – to give a big developer a 30-year tax break?
Big real estate interests have ensnared Chatham Borough in an extreme, risky corporate welfare scheme. They plan to build a massive, multi-story, 200-unit rental apartment/retail complex behind our Post Office. It will transform our town into a bleak, high-tax, transit hub and, ultimately, a failed city.
Only your new Mayor and Borough Council can prevent that!
Come help your neighbors encourage them:
This Monday, January 6, 2020
at 7:30 PM
Borough Hall, 54 Fairmount Avenue, Chatham, NJ
Assure the new Mayor and Council that you will support them in doing what’s best for Chatham:
Let the Redeveloper’s designation expire;
Rescind the Redevelopment Plan for Post Office Plaza;
Consider moderate options that don’t involve:
worsening traffic;
sacrificing our open-air, public parking;
giving away corporate welfare tax breaks; or
shifting business risks to Chatham taxpayers; and
Conduct due diligence, and a valid survey of all households and businesses by U.S. Mail, with pros and cons of at least three such options.
