UPDATE: “Due to a contractor delay, paving on… Front Street has been rescheduled for Monday, August 10, 2026, from 7:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., weather permitting…”
In the past, our Council tried to increase the property tax base by selling surplus, tax-exempt, Borough-owned land, including the vacant, 0.62-acre parcel just south of the train tracks at 39 Front Street:
https://www.tapinto.net/towns/chatham/articles/chatham-borough-officials-take-steps-to-unload-pr
Today 39 Front Street remains Borough-owned, tax-exempt, and only about a block from the train station, as shown on the Borough’s official tax map:
https://chathamborough.org/forms-documents/forms/maps/1262-chatham-borough-tax-map-atlas/file
Though 39 Front Street remains vacant and tax-exempt, and ideally situated for a residence, the Mayor & Council steered clear of that site, now dubbed “rear of 16 Walnut St,” or “16 Walnut Street, rear” in 2025, when they were inventorying vacant parcels for the Borough’s state-mandated affordable housing plan:
The Mayor did not even bother to justify overlooking 39 Front Street until May 2026, when residents demanded an explanation for the Council’s plan to pave 80% of the green, taxpayer-owned lot at 58 North Passaic Avenue, right next to our Memorial Park behind the public library.
Screenshot of Google aerial image, marked to show the wooded, taxpayer-owned parcel at 58 North Passaic, which the Mayor aims to pave over to build the apartment project and parking lot shown above.
Only when the public outcry reached a certain pitch did the Mayor claim that 39 Front Street was not suitable for that project because it was “inaccessible.”
How can a parcel with a 50′ frontage on a downtown public street be called “inaccessible”?
Is the trouble that that end of Front Street isn’t paved?
If so, that will soon be remedied. A few days ago the Mayor’s Department of Public Works announced its plans to pave the dead end of Front Street:
Does paving the west end of Front Street make the parcel at 39 Front Street accessible?
Does paving it make 39 Front Street a suitable alternative site for the 100% affordable project that will otherwise obliterate the green, taxpayer-owned parcel at 58 North Passaic Avenue, right next to Memorial Park?
Ask your Mayor & Council using these email addresses:
jstrickland@chathamborough.org
kkoronkiewicz@chathamborough.org
mayorcouncil@chathamborough.org
Visit the next Council meeting, set for Monday, August 10, 2026 at 7:30 pm, either:
- in-person, Borough Hall, 54 Fairmount Avenue, or
- virtually, using details to follow at chathamborough.org.