Demolishing Homes In Maplewood

mrmaplewood said:

I just scanned the Tapinto article and I am really confused by the numbers.

It is said that the PILOT is a financial incentive to the developers (read a tax reduction) for the 46 units. It says that it is projected to produce $7 million for the town and county. (County gets 5%.) But it is also stated that conventional taxes would have been only $3.9 million. That's NOT a tax incentive! I'm not a CPA, but something is smelling very wrong with the $3.9 million figure.

The $3.9 million is the projected township revenue from its portion of the normal property tax. Remember, a large chunk of property taxes goes to the schools. None of the PILOT money does.

I don’t know the breakdown of Maplewood’s property tax, but let’s say 60% is for schools, 25% is for the township and 15% is for Essex County. (Those were the percentages given for South Orange in an MOL thread a few years ago.) If Maplewood’s share is $3.9 million, that means the property’s total taxes over 30 years would exceed $15 million. So, yes, the $7 million in PILOT payments — a break of more than 50% — is a financial incentive for development.

The township’s numbers are in a press release attached to this Village Green article:

https://villagegreennj.com/development/maplewood-tc-introduces-ordinance-for-30-year-tax-abatement-at-7-parker-west/

DanDietrich said:

I truly hate it when they do that.  No power lines, either.  Somewhere there is going to be a big pile of transformers.  The renderings should be accurate where possible, but they never are.  I'm for development, but it's easier to buy into when you don't feel like you are at a car dealership getting slimed.

Yep they removed from the rendering the power lines (and solar panel) that are currently right in front, along with the fire hydrant, signs, and a train trestle height warning thingy.

DavidSchmidt

Village Green inaccessible due to paywall.  Our township committee should be ashamed of the way they handle public communication.  I feel as if they do it purposefully to hide or mislead.

mrmaplewood said:

I just scanned the Tapinto article and I am really confused by the numbers.  

It is said that the PILOT is a financial incentive to the developers (read a tax reduction) for the 46 units.  It says that it is projected to produce $7 million for the town and county.  (County gets 5%.)  But it is also stated that conventional taxes would have been only $3.9 million.  That's NOT a tax incentive!  I'm not a CPA, but something is smelling very wrong with the $3.9 million figure.

And working the figures, the annual per unit taxes over the 30 years is $5072 with the PILOT, but would have been only $2826 without the PILOT.  Something is wrong here.  Maybe Tapinto got their figures reversed.

I know we are dealing with new apartment units here, but I think even $5072 tax per year is sounding enticing to me as a tenet.  $2826 sounds insanely low.  By any chance is $2826 the price of the PILOT that has been approved?

The piece you are missing is that the property owner will not be paying any money towards the school district and will be paying a reduced amount to the County.  Under the terms of the PILOT, the town will get more in municipal taxes than they otherwise would.  Since the bulk of our real property taxes goes to the school district, the savings for the property owner can be considerable.

sprout said:

DanDietrich said:

I truly hate it when they do that.  No power lines, either.  Somewhere there is going to be a big pile of transformers.  The renderings should be accurate where possible, but they never are.  I'm for development, but it's easier to buy into when you don't feel like you are at a car dealership getting slimed.

Yep they removed from the rendering the power lines (and solar panel) that are currently right in front, along with the fire hydrant, signs, and a train trestle height warning thingy.

irs not that one piddly pole that I'm thinking of.  That building will need a few thousand amps of power.  Look at Third and Valley. They set a series of poles and transformers on Valley right out front of the place that are ridiculously ugly instead of moving the wires underground and putting in a vault, which is much more expensive.  

mrmaplewood said:

DavidSchmidt

Village Green inaccessible due to paywall.  Our township committee should be ashamed of the way they handle public communication.  I feel as if they do it purposefully to hide or mislead.

To this point, does anyone know where to find press releases on the Township website?  I couldn’t find a central repository.  

mrincredible said:

To this point, does anyone know where to find press releases on the Township website?  I couldn’t find a central repository.  

The home page includes a "news" section with press releases and there are email blasts you can subscribe to.  

joan_crystal said:

mrincredible said:

To this point, does anyone know where to find press releases on the Township website? I couldn’t find a central repository.

The home page includes a "news" section with press releases and there are email blasts you can subscribe to.

As much as I would like to prove useful again to mrmaplewood and relieve his agita, I couldn’t find this press release on the township’s website. You’d think that a news release would be easy enough to post there.

joan_crystal said:

Since the bulk of our real property taxes goes to the school district, the savings for the property owner can be considerable.

An extra line like this in the news release, though nettlesome for the TC, would have been informative.

Over the 30-year period, the PILOT will generate over* $7 million for the Township and County, as compared to the $3.9 million that would be collected under conventional taxes and the $1.7 million that the current property would pay in conventional taxes without the redevelopment. Under that status quo, the school district would have received approximately $1 million from the taxes over 30 years, which the PILOT will eliminate.

* $40,000 over

DaveSchmidt said:

As much as I would like to prove useful again to mrmaplewood and relieve his agita, I couldn’t find this press release on the township’s website. You’d think that a news release would be easy enough to post there.

I learned about PILOTs during my time serving on the Citizens Budget Advisory Committee not from a press release. 

The information you refer was NOT contained in any press release I know about.  The Village Green has a representative attend the TC meetings and other major public meetings and events and report on what happens of note.  This is one of the reasons why I subscribe and support their efforts.  

The news section on the town website has included such things as the revaluation, major changes in recycling, opportunities to contribute to the master plan development, and major public meetings and events.  Less major announcements are contained in a weekly email blast that is sent to subscribers.  Anyone can subscribe to this and other email blasts by going to the town website.  

joan_crystal said:

The home page includes a "news" section with press releases and there are email blasts you can subscribe to.  

Thanks. As Dave pointed out the “news” section did not include this press release. 

sprout said:

The sketch of the proposed new building takes a lot of liberties with the area around it. 

• Where the river actually is, it's drawn to look like grassy greenspace with trees. 
• Where the YMCA parking lot is across the street, it is also made to look like grassy greenspace, with a grassy berm (IRL there is no berm for much of that sidewalk). 

In reality, it will look like a totally paved over area. It's like they put it through a 'face-tune' filter for outdoor areas that adds grassy highlights and tree contouring.

They could build a culvert and cover the river there with grassy space. Then build a huge flood tunnel under the building like they have in Tokyo. 

I know it seems like a silly pipe (no pun intended) dream. But this is the kind of engineering solution that could be useful to mitigating floods in developed areas like ours. They capture millions of gallons of water during a storm then slowly pump the water back into the stream or river when the storm is over. 

It would be cool if that water could then be used for municipal water supply but probably would be too difficult to treat.  But being able to pump reserve water back into a river during dry periods would have benefits, methinks. 

Ironically many of the downstream flooding problems on that river have been caused by engineering.  Channeling the river to prevent flooding upstream pushes more water into Millburn, etc.  The golf course I think is one of the few actual detention areas around.  

mrincredible said:

sprout said:

The sketch of the proposed new building takes a lot of liberties with the area around it. 

• Where the river actually is, it's drawn to look like grassy greenspace with trees. 
• Where the YMCA parking lot is across the street, it is also made to look like grassy greenspace, with a grassy berm (IRL there is no berm for much of that sidewalk). 

In reality, it will look like a totally paved over area. It's like they put it through a 'face-tune' filter for outdoor areas that adds grassy highlights and tree contouring.

They could build a culvert and cover the river there with grassy space. Then build a huge flood tunnel under the building like they have in Tokyo. 

I know it seems like a silly pipe (no pun intended) dream. But this is the kind of engineering solution that could be useful to mitigating floods in developed areas like ours. They capture millions of gallons of water during a storm then slowly pump the water back into the stream or river when the storm is over. 

It would be cool if that water could then be used for municipal water supply but probably would be too difficult to treat.  But being able to pump reserve water back into a river during dry periods would have benefits, methinks. 

Or we could not build in flood plains.

Side question:  What will happen to the CHS parking lot across the street from Gleason's (or is it already gone?)?  Used for Thanksgiving Day frisbee game....

PILOTs - my take

PILOTS are by design, a financial benefit that is granted: Not to tenants, but to the developers. And taxpayers should question exactly how this giveaway is arrived at. In the case of the current Gleason development there is confusing and sparse information that the township has released. Any half-aware politician should know that transparency is crucial, and that they should avoid any conflict of interest, or even the appearance of one.

With the millions of dollars being granted to developers, a taxpayer should question how and why these payments are being made. I'm not sure that I really want to know exactly how the sausage is made, but in the back of my mind it repeatedly occurs to me that it is possible that some of the sausage meat may have fallen on the floor. I make no accusations, but I am quite aware that the sausage making process is not public knowledge.

And I question why these developers need so many of my tax dollars added to their bank accounts. What is the all-important reason that our township needs to participate in the monetary process of building a development? Repeating what I said previously, we should not be caving-in to a developer's financial sob story. If it is too expensive to build their project, then they should not be building it. I am fed up with my tax dollars being bestowed on unnecessary projects. I recommend that we halt this addiction.

And I hope the township committee is reading this. I am a voter.

mrmaplewood said:

PILOTs - my take

And I hope the township committee is reading this. I am a voter.

Don’t count on it being read here. Especially since you are posting here anonymously. “I am a voter” tells them nothing. I am a voter.  It not in Maplewood. 

I’m glad you spent the time to write your thoughts.  If you think opining here will get any results you might as well write them on toilet paper and flush them.  This is not the forum to air your thoughts in the hopes they’ll have a significant impact.

Take what you just typed, copy it into an email, put your name and address on it and send it to each member of the Township Committee. They might actually respond to someone that they can confirm is an actual resident of town.  It will take you five minutes. 

Excellent idea.  If anyone else agrees, feel free to do the same yourself.  Your help would be appreciated.

Your point about transparency is good.  I'm confident that the Pilots Sheena negotiates in South Orange are pretty good. I think that's why developers backed her opponent in the last election.  Can't speak for Maplewood.  Sometimes there are good reasons for these things.  In this case if the residents of our towns hadn't been so fixated on cheap dry cleaning for the last 50 years maybe the site would not need remediation.  I think getting a site next to a river cleaned up is worth a tax break 

tjohn said:

Or we could not build in flood plains.

I generally agree with this. But in this case we’re not talking about new development. The space is currently developed and there could be an opportunity with redevelopment to incorporate some significant flood mitigation elements. 

It would be great if someone would buy the property, demolish the building, remove the harmful chemicals and then restore the area to a natural state so we could act as a small buffer for flood waters. I just don’t see that ever happening, either with private or public funds. There’s no financial return for someone to do that, privately, unless they were able to do it as a philanthropic gesture. And I wish we lived in a society that was willing to spend money on things like wetlands reclamation. unfortunately, right now that stretch of the river is locked in with residential and commercial buildings for miles in either direction. With the exception of the golf course. 

So yeah, we built ourselves into this predicament. When there’s a lot of rain, there’s no good place for the water to go when it overflows the river. So we have a choice between a massive project to tear down whole bunch of existing structures and restore, river banks and wetlands, or try to figure out some other place to store the water safely. I wish I knew the best answer. 

mrincredible said:

Take what you just typed, copy it into an email, put your name and address on it and send it to each member of the Township Committee. They might actually respond to someone that they can confirm is an actual resident of town.  It will take you five minutes. 

Better yet attend the next TC meeting and take the up to three minutes allotted to each member of the public during the public comment period to tell them exactly how you feel about this issue.  Since the budget will be an agenda item at that meeting you could speak during the first public comment period rather than wait until the end of the meeting.

mrincredible said:

tjohn said:

Or we could not build in flood plains.

I generally agree with this. But in this case we’re not talking about new development. The space is currently developed and there could be an opportunity with redevelopment to incorporate some significant flood mitigation elements. 

It would be great if someone would buy the property, demolish the building, remove the harmful chemicals and then restore the area to a natural state so we could act as a small buffer for flood waters. I just don’t see that ever happening, either with private or public funds. There’s no financial return for someone to do that, privately, unless they were able to do it as a philanthropic gesture. And I wish we lived in a society that was willing to spend money on things like wetlands reclamation. unfortunately, right now that stretch of the river is locked in with residential and commercial buildings for miles in either direction. With the exception of the golf course. 

So yeah, we built ourselves into this predicament. When there’s a lot of rain, there’s no good place for the water to go when it overflows the river. So we have a choice between a massive project to tear down whole bunch of existing structures and restore, river banks and wetlands, or try to figure out some other place to store the water safely. I wish I knew the best answer. 

I don't know the highwater mark at the Gleason's location during Ida, but I hope the new building assumes heavy ground floor flooding will occur at least once every 10 years.

tjohn said:

I don't know the highwater mark at the Gleason's location during Ida, but I hope the new building assumes heavy ground floor flooding will occur at least once every 10 years.

As more building takes place, upstream, it will not be once every 10 years.

Formerlyjerseyjack said:

As more building takes place, upstream, it will not be once every 10 years.

To be fair, regardless of development, climate change will increase the frequency.  

With all the parking spaces proposed, I assume ground level will be mostly parking lot.

They need to heed warnings better than NJT did during Sandy! Pretty easy.

I heard people talking about a house on Prospect that's a bit out of character - whereabouts is this?

On Prospect between Sommer and Harvard

jamie said:

I heard people talking about a house on Prospect that's a bit out of character - whereabouts is this?

Supposedly the house is set too far back on the lot for neighbors who claim it is intruding on their enjoyment of their backyards.  I haven't walked by to check it out for myself.

joan_crystal said:

Supposedly the house is set too far back on the lot for neighbors who claim it is intruding on their enjoyment of their backyards.  I haven't walked by to check it out for myself.

unbelievable that all these years that house has been there somebody is complaining that it disturbs them.