Tag Archives: Thad Kobylarz

Priorities & accountability

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UPDATE: Turned out Captain Penn was 100% right about the Borough’s emergency need for new fire vehicles, according to the November. 2023 report by the experts the Council paid to study the issue. On July 8, 2024, the Council voted to spend $1.2 million on a new truck, some 40% more than it would have cost if they’d acted when first alerted to the issue.

Why would our Chatham Borough Council even consider gifting our River Road PILOT money to anyone when we’re in such desperate need of fire trucks and other necessities?

That was the elephant in the room at the Monday, 3/13 meeting of our Borough Council.

River Road

The elephant got loose during a presentation by a principal of BNE, the developer of the massive, stick-built apartment project going up at the corner of Watchung Avenue and River Road.

Asked if our volunteer fire department has the equipment, the manpower, and the training necessary to fight a real fire at River Road, the presenter, a principal with the developer, BNE Real Estate Group, said, “Yes, currently Chatham Borough has what they need to fight a fire in that building.” See the video linked below starting about 1:18:00.

https://chathamborough.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=1&clip_id=119

Is that true? No.

Brave, dedicated, and skilled as they are, our volunteer firefighters need more personnel, more training, and far newer fire trucks than Chatham Borough has – or can provide anytime soon, according to longtime, respected Borough resident Robert Penn, a former captain in the Bloomfield Fire Department who worked in the fire service for 44 years and has taught classes in Building Construction and Advanced Firefighting Tactics and Strategy. (Go to minute 37:46 in the following video:0)

https://chathamborough.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=1&clip_id=106

Chatham’s fire trucks are so old and obsolete that they pose a risk to the safety of residents and fire fighters alike, says Penn.

https://patch.com/new-jersey/chatham/fire-safety-concerns-prompt-chatham-resident-call-new-equipment

In the event of a real fire at the River Road development, our volunteers would have to wait for help from surrounding towns.

The problem isn’t new or partisan. It dates back at least a decade, when the other political party controlled the Council. It will take years to get the necessary equipment.

https://www.tapinto.net/towns/chatham/articles/a-firefighter-s-response-to-mathiasen-s-letter-on-post-office-plaza

https://www.newjerseyhills.com/robert-penn-requests-chatham-look-into-replacing-outdated-apparatus/image_f38c5cac-6f49-5c16-acb2-4ced7f6655ba.html

https://www.newjerseyhills.com/chatham_courier/news/chatham-to-hire-consultant-to-help-craft-fire-apparatus-replacement-plan/article_1bbc2229-7f63-521e-a17a-a33703f740d9.html

Popular Borough Council Member Len Resto is working on getting the fire trucks we need. It will cost a bundle. The Council should use our PILOT money for tax relief and fire trucks, not for gifts. Certainly not without the informed consent of Chatham residents.

That the Council would even consider giving away our PILOT money without our consent is mind boggling. It’s a great example of what can happen when we don’t hold our elected representatives accountable for their decisions.

If the Council explains the situation, and residents vote to give away our PILOT money anyway, that’s their choice. But residents are entitled to know what’s at stake before any decisions are made.

Check out this letter:

https://www.tapinto.net/towns/chatham/articles/it-s-our-money-use-borough-pilot-revenues-to-reduce-property-taxes-and-cover-necessities

For more information, click here:

https://www.tapinto.net/towns/chatham/articles/chatham-borough-council-do-the-right-thing-concerning-pilot-not-merely-what-s-legally-permissible-or-expedient

Too little, too late!

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Our Mayor promises he’ll soon hold a special public meeting to lay out five options for Post Office Plaza – which the Council will then vote on at one of its regular Monday night meetings. (Start at minute 6:24.) https://chathamborough.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=1&clip_id=75

That isn’t good enough. Now is the time to fix it.

Go to https://chathamborough.org/government/mayor.

E-mail the Mayor and Council:

  1. We need to see those five options well before that special public meeting, so we’ll have a chance to evaluate them.
  2. We need to know that among the options presented will be the one that’s best for Chatham: Satisfy our POP affordable housing quota by subsidizing 15 existing apartments. Make POP more attractive by landscaping and resurfacing the parking lot, and NOT selling, gifting, leasing, or otherwise disposing of any Borough land; or reducing the amount of free, open air, surface public parking; or building any kind of parking garage; or granting a PILOT tax break – or any other kind of corporate welfare. Why? https://chathamchoice.org/2022/02/our-little-town/
  3. With the future of Chatham at stake, we need more than one such special public meeting, something our Mayor explicitly promised on 27 January 2020. (Start at minute 13:00.) https://vimeo.com/387823706?embedded=true&source=video_title&owner=40797229


Our Little Town

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Can we count on Chatham Borough Mayor Thad Kobylarz to protect us from over development that would destroy our little town?

Find out at the Monday Feb 28 Borough Council meeting, where the Mayor says he hopes to have news on Post Office Plaza. https://patch.com/new-jersey/chatham/post-office-plaza-redevelopment-update-expected-chatham.

(The meeting is 7:30 pm at Borough Hall, 54 Fairmount Avenue, upper level, or you can attend virtually here: https://www.chathamborough.org/component/dpcalendar/event/2386)

Given the settlement our Mayor and Council approved on June 14, 2021, https://chathamchoice.org/2021/09/, it appears that we have only two real options:

  1. Cave-in, and build a big commercial housing project – smaller perhaps, but similar to the Kushners’ 4-story, 118-rental-unit block that would increase density, choke our streets, rob us of our public parking lot, burden our schools, diminish our quality of life – and probably cost Chatham a bundle, while providing a mere 15 affordable units. https://chathamchoice.org/2022/01/is-this-what-you-want-for-chatham/ OR
  2. Stand firm, and persuade Fair Share Housing to let us preserve our public parking lot and small town quality of life, while satisfying our POP affordable housing quota by subsidizing 15 existing apartments scattered around town. https://chathamchoice.org/2021/10/

Of course, the second option is far better for Chatham and for the newcomers. If we make this choice, they won’t be set aside, crammed between the Post Office and the railroad tracks. They’ll be our next-door-neighbors and an integral part of our community.

In return, we’ll be able satisfy our affordable housing obligations for POP, and gain a bit of diversity, without increasing our population, density, traffic congestion, or air pollution.

As such, if we choose the second option, we won’t need to worry about higher costs for police, schooling, fire fighting, public works, etc. We’ll pay only the difference between the market rent and the affordable rent set by law for those few units – a knowable amount – instead of gambling our future on a big housing complex, whose effect on our net revenues Chatham has never even tried to estimate! 

Best of all, by choosing the second option, we’ll preserve our free public parking lot, and our chance to landscape it and add a park, a popular proposal suggested by community leader Fran Drew https://chathamchoice.org/2021/07/dont-sacrifice-chatham-to-the-big-developer/, instead of getting stuck with a White Elephant complex we won’t need as affordable housing law evolves. 

How can you help insure that Chatham makes the right choice?

Before the Feb 28 Council meeting, email the Mayor and Borough Council https://chathamborough.org/government/mayor.

Tell them that:

  • Before we take even one more step with Post Office Plaza, we need to know the costs and implications of each option, as our Mayor first promised in January 2020. (Minute 13)  https://vimeo.com/387823706
  • We’d rather trim the Borough budget a bit – or even increase taxes a little – to subsidize existing apartments, than play Russian roulette with Chatham’s future.   
  • We’re 100% behind the Mayor negotiating to subsidize existing apartments rather than building a new apartment project that will destroy our quality of life, and we are counting on the Council to support that, too.
  • When they come up for re-election, we will vote accordingly.

Would you like to see Chatham Borough turned into another Hoboken?

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Check out this video about the big, 4-story, 118-unit, commercial rental complex the Kushner partnership is eager to cram into the plot behind our Main Street businesses:

Hit this link and scroll down to the video: https://www.tapinto.net/towns/chatham/articles/it-s-time-for-smart-downtown-development-to-move-forward-in-chatham-borough-developers-post-office-plaza-design-update

Could a fire truck get close enough to fight a fire on the south side of the building? Photo credit: TapintoChatham

That video doesn’t show exactly what the project would look like, but what it does reveal is troubling to say the least.

The Kushner design sacrifices the free, public, surface parking lot we treasure, substituting fewer public spaces – mostly in a hulking, 4-story parking garage along the railroad tracks.

With no service road along those tracks, it appears the only way to get to that garage by car is via narrow, dead-end Bowers Lane, which is also the future site of a 34-plus-unit assisted living facility. And the only way out of that garage is a right turn from Bowers Lane onto our already clogged-up Main Street.

Worse yet, on foot, the only way shown into – or out of – that garage is in a secluded spot up against the railroad tracks, at the end of a narrow alley. (Would you have your mother use that door?)

The Kushner design also appears to encroach upon the property of some adjacent landowners, who were not even consulted.

Building it would require tearing down one of the most interesting historic sites in Chatham:

https://chathamchoice.org/2021/10/miss-dickinsons-garage/

Once built, this new Kushner project would justify replacing other Chatham properties with 4-story buildings, inevitably robbing Chatham of the low-rise charm that drew many of us here in the first place.

Would this project at least provide plenty of affordable housing? No. It would yield a mere15 of the 320 affordable units envisioned in the settlement the Mayor signed on June 14, 2021.

Let’s face it: This Kushner proposal isn’t good for anyone except the rich developers.

But it’s pretty much what you can expect to see in Post Office Plaza unless our Mayor can persuade Fair Share Housing to accept a better solution – for instance, letting us subsidize 15 or so existing apartments – instead of building a big commercial project nobody wants.

What do you think of this latest Kushner scheme for Chatham? Email: [email protected]

Also, be sure to share your opinions with our Mayor before Jan 24, 2022, when the Borough Council must decide whether to renew the Kushner partnership’s exclusive status as redeveloper, or cut them loose.

Help the Mayor resist the pressure to sacrifice Chatham to the big developers. Remind him of what he said back in 2016:

https://chathamchoice.org/2021/10/

Encourage the Mayor to honor the promises he made to voters, and to approach Fair Share Housing with an alternative solution.

Email: [email protected]

Mr. Mayor, we’re counting on you to do your best for Chatham. Remember what you wrote in 2016:

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… should a multistory garage and transit village (with four-story, multi-unit buildings) be built in this area, an additional downside could certainly materialize… namely a diminution in property values.

Many Chatham homeowners first moved here because of the borough’s arboreal character and wide-open spaces…

… the last thing a recent arrival from, say, Queens, New York, Jersey City, or South Orange might want to see are the aforementioned urban or quasi-urban communities following them to quiet and leafy suburban Chatham Borough.

An important factor in the valuation of so many residential properties here is precisely this quiet, leafy character of our charming suburban community. If this were to change in as dramatic a fashion… this pillar of the borough’s high property values might quickly dissolve…

… borough residents will now have to be vigilant on a case-by-case basis that such “visions and goals” do not indeed become fact.

Equally problematic are the potential tax increase implications accompanying all of the newly permitted construction. In particular, multistory parking garages are expensive to build and Chatham Borough taxpayers would ultimately foot the bill, regardless of the manner in which this project is financed…

These potential changes represent the worst sort of overdevelopment, one that would decidedly transform our charming little arboreal hamlet into something more nearly resembling the less suburban places from whence many of us first came to Chatham Borough…

…the new master plan creates the conceptual and legal room for a creeping urbanization in Chatham Borough. It portends the arrival of deep-pocketed developers who care nothing for the investment, financial or otherwise, so many of its residents have made in the purchase and maintenance of their homes, and the living of their lives, in this picturesque small New Jersey town.

…when these developers do arrive, they will be accompanied by their teams of highly-paid lawyers as they seek the Borough Council’s approval for their proposed redevelopment projects.

This will be a fundamentally asymmetric situation in terms of available resources to fight these projects, since individual Chatham homeowners will be hard-pressed to match the developers in terms of required legal fees. It will, in other words, be a David versus Goliath-like proposition for many Borough residents…

… the Planning Board’s vote in favor of the new master plan… has let the proverbial genie out of the bottle… it provides a policy foundation and framework for the borough’s land use laws and building regulations…

https://www.newjerseyhills.com/chatham_courier/opinion/letters_to_the_editor/letter-new-chatham-watchdog-group-will-monitor-respond-to-master/article_d3b97fd9-5075-5180-948d-04cd4ded3836.html

Heard about the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow?

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It doesn’t exist. Not even in Post Office Plaza. The sooner we realize that the better off we’ll be.

Check out this piece by a neighbor who knows what he’s talking about:

https://www.tapinto.net/towns/chatham/articles/misdirection-and-opacity-from-council-member-mathiasen-about-fiscal-responsibility

Time for our Mayor to do the right thing!

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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.

(See for yourself in Sec. 8.b.iii, 12. & 13 of that agreement, shown in the Sept. 18 post at www.chathamchoice.org; and discussed at https://chathamborough.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=1&clip_id=55, 34:22 through 35:38)

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.

(See for yourself at https://chathamborough.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=1&clip_id=56, 1:44:00 through 1:44:26. In theory, they could substitute 75 for-sale units, but that’s out, as it’s less profitable for the developer.)

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.

(See Sec. 4.4.3 of the 2019 Redevelopment Plan, http://www.zumu.com/zumu/chatham/Post%20Office%20Plaza%20Redevelopment%20%20Plan%204%209%2019.pdf).

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.

Sec. 4.4.2, http://www.zumu.com/zumu/chatham/Post%20Office%20Plaza%20Redevelopment%20%20Plan%204%209%2019.pdf)

The developer will be eligible for taxpayer help financing the project and a 30 year break from paying normal property taxes!

(See Sec. 5.11 of the 2019 Redevelopment Plan, http://www.zumu.com/zumu/chatham/Post%20Office%20Plaza%20Redevelopment%20%20Plan%204%209%2019.pdf).

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.

E-mail the Mayor & Borough Council:

[email protected] [email protected]

Link to more contact information:

https://www.chathamborough.org/chatham/Government/Mayor%20%26%20Council/

Would you like to see even more traffic in Chatham Borough?

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How about a dangerous, hulking parking garage?

less open, public parking?

More empty storefronts?

More crowded schools?

Rising taxes for police, firefighters, water, sewer, etc?

Lower property values?

That’s exactly what you can expect

if our borough Council lets the Kushner real estate developers

build a corporate welfare, commercial apartment/retail project

behind our Main Street Post Office.

Get the facts before it’s too late!

Come to the next Borough Council meeting:

7:30 pm

Chatham Borough Hall, 3d floor

54 Fairmount Avenue

Sharks Circling Chatham!

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  • 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.