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International Theatre Festival Comes to Liberty State Park Oct. 16

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Jersey City Theater Center (JCTC) presents the second annual “Voices International Theatre Festival” from Friday October 16 to Sunday October 25. This year’s Festival is a unique hybrid of virtual and live events featuring the work of twenty-one groundbreaking theatre companies from Europe, Eastern Europe, South Asia, Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and the United States. The Festival is the largest of its kind in New Jersey

The festival’s opening ceremony on Sunday, October 18 is a specially designed, socially distanced live assembly gathering in Liberty State Park in Jersey City, combining both live and virtual elements, including classes during the afternoon and a performance-ceremony broadcast live at 6:00 p.m. EST. JCTC has obtained forty-eight hour licensing agreements with performers to make this event possible.

The 2020 “Voices International Theatre Festival” showcases daring and thematically provocative multi-disciplinary work that has been curated to offer festivalgoers a deeply stimulating cross-section of ethnic, racial, gender, and political perspectives.  Among the notable companies and artists participating are the internationally acclaimed Belarus Free Theater; Palesa Mazamisa (from South Africa); Ranan (from India; Roman Viktyuk Theatre (from Russia); RAAAM Theater Group of Estonia; Manuel Vignoulle (from France); Matara (from Israel); New York-based Sidra Bell Dance; Los Escultores del Aire (from Spain); and Haeboma (from South Korea).

“Many of the artists and groups we invited are acclaimed in their home countries as well as internationally,” says Olga Levina, the artistic director of the Jersey City Theater Center, who is originally from Belarus.  “Their work is a direct response to the state of our world and the need for greater equity and unity.  Their stories are eloquent, forceful, and often surprising, and their messages and testimony are riveting and shattering.  They deserve as wide an audience as we can give them.”

Several of the companies chosen would not otherwise be able to travel to the United States for a variety of reasons.  Because their performances will be staged and livestreamed from their home-base theatres, the companies will share not just the perspectives and rich performative content of their most mature work, but also the context in which they create their work. 2020  Voices is supported by the City of Jersey City (Mayor Steven M. Fulop), the Jersey City Municipal Council, the Jersey City Office of Cultural Affairs, the New Jersey Division of Travel and Tourism, Hudson County Cultural Affairs, businesses and organizations across the state as well as several neighborhood groups in Jersey City.

“We are very interested in sparking a far-reaching conversation with this festival,” says Levina.  “Of course, the voices of the different groups will interact and combine with one another, but it is crucial for the participants to
enter a conversation with the host city and the diverse local audience we nurture at JCTC.  That is why our partnerships with the city of Jersey City and with organizations throughout New Jersey and even on-the-ground neighborhood groups and individual artists are so important.  We want the conversations of 2020 Voices to be uniquely inclusive both locally and globally.” Levina also stressed the importance of the Festival’s “significant contribution to the reopening of theatre locally and globally.”

The festival is divided into three parts: “conversations,” performances, and classes and workshops.  The conversations section includes “Meet the Artists” (Friday Oct 16) and a “Festival Forum” about the work (Friday Oct 23).  Performances are scheduled throughout the ten-day festival and livestreamed in their entirety over two days (Saturdays Oct 17 and 24) with a special live performances section staged from Merseles Studios at JCTC on Saturday, Oct 24.  Classes and collaborative workshops take place on Sunday Oct 18 and on the festival’s closing day, on Sunday Oct 25.

The festival’s opening day ceremony will be staged live on Sunday, October 18, at 6:00 p.m., on Crescent Field in Liberty State Park. Several live, socially distant presentations and workshops will take place there from 12:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.

Co-hosted by the city itself, the opening ceremony reflects Jersey City’s status as the “golden gateway” of the United States, something Levina celebrates:

“America, of course, finds itself very conflicted right now,” Levina remarks.  “People like me who have come to America and found opportunity are so grateful for what we believe America stands for.  At the same time, many Americans—descended from immigrants ironically enough—are demanding that our borders get shut down, that we stop and even turn away people from around the world who are still yearning to breathe free.  A festival like Voices will no doubt capture this struggle, but hopefully it will give voice to those who love and respect the cultural diversity of the planet and who are ready to celebrate this no matter where they live!”

Included in the 2020 Voices International Theatre Festival are works about racial and social justice; gender equality; climate change; globalization; the tech revolution; personal freedom vs. totalitarianism; materialism and hedonism; war and terror; and traditional vs. modern culture.  Participating companies and the racially diverse participating artists are from Europe, Eastern Europe, South Asia, Asia, the Middle East, Africa, New York, and New Jersey. Three of the festival’s events have a Jersey City focus:  Jersey City resident Kyle Marshall’s “King on Saturday October 17;” the opening ceremony; and the  photo contest.

Tickets for the opening ceremony are $35 for the live event and $15 for the online.  For more information about Voices including tickets, the Voices Festival Pass, the photo contest, and the festival calendar, visit https://www.jctcenter.org/ or contact JCTC (339-345 Newark Avenue) at 201-795-5386.

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Jersey City One of the “Best Coffee Cities” in America

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Who knew? Jersey City is one of the top “coffee cities” in America, ranking higher than heavyweights like New York, Chicago and Philadelphia and coming in right behind uber-trendy Austin, Texas.  This, at least, is according to the financial website WalletHub whose interest in ranking “coffee cities” is hard to fathom but appreciated, no doubt, by java cognoscenti shopping for a mortgage.  Warning: this study was not, to our knowledge, peer reviewed.

Here’s how WalletHub describes their methodology:

“To determine the best cities for coffee lovers, WalletHub compared the 100 most populated U.S. cities across 12 key metrics, which are listed below with their corresponding weights. Each metric also was graded on a 100-point scale.”

They continued: “We then determined each city’s weighted average across all metrics to calculate its overall score and used the resulting scores to rank-order our sample. A total score of 100 represents the most favorable conditions for coffee lovers.

In collecting our sample, please note that we considered only the “city proper” in each case and excluded the cities in the surrounding metro area. For metrics marked with an asterisk (*), we used the square root of the population to calculate the population size in order to avoid overcompensating for minor differences across cities.”

  • Average Price per Pack of Coffee: Full Weight (~7.14 Points)
  • Average Price of a Cappuccino: Full Weight (~7.14 Points)
  • Average Spending on Coffee per Household: Full Weight (~7.14 Points)
  • Share of Adult Coffee Drinkers: Full Weight (~7.14 Points)
    Note: This metric measures the share of adults who reported drinking “ready-to-drink” coffee in the past six months. “Ready-to-drink” includes already prepared coffee found in the cold section of grocery stores.
  • Share of Households that Own Coffee Makers: Full Weight (~7.14 Points)
    Note: This metric includes households that own electric coffee grinders, coffee makers (single-cup/pod-brewing) and/or espresso/cappuccino makers.
  • Affordable Coffee Shops, Coffee Houses & Cafés Rated 4.5+ Stars per Capita*: Double Weight (~14.29 Points)
  • Coffee Shops, Coffee Houses & Cafés per Capita*: Double Weight (~14.29 Points)
  • Coffee & Tea Manufacturers per Capita*: Full Weight (~7.14 Points)
  • Coffee Shops with Free Wi-Fi per Capita*: Full Weight (~7.14 Points)
  • Donut Shops per Capita*: Full Weight (~7.14 Points)
  • Google Search Traffic for the Term “Coffee”: Full Weight (~7.14 Points)
    Note: Search traffic was measured as a share of the national average.
  • “Coffee Lovers” Meetups per Capita*: Full Weight (~7.14 Points)”

Jersey City appears to be in the middle of the pack on most measures, whereas our neighbor, Newark, comes in 96th in “spending on coffee per household” and dead last on “lowest percentage of households that own coffee makers.”  Newark need not despair, however. Overall, it comes in ahead of Boise, Idaho. Unsurprisingly, the Bay Area spends the most per household. (Blame the late night hackathons.)

WalletHub has left for future study a ranking of cities by use of cream, 1% milk, and almond milk.

Travas Clifton, owner of ModCup Coffee, was positively giddy upon learning that Jersey City had bested New York.  “It’s always fun to beat your big brother.”  In disappointing news for Mayor Fulop, Clifton advised against trying to up our ranking by growing coffee here in vertical farms.  “The best coffee comes from between the tropic of Capricorn and the tropic of Cancer.” However, according to Clifton, Solidarity and Mutual Aid Jersey City may want to spend more time at his shop. “The French Revolution came out of a coffee shop.”

If you want to dig deeper into this often overlooked subject, the full results can be read at https://wallethub.com/edu/best-cities-for-coffee-lovers/23739/#main-findings.

 

 

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Landlords’ Troubles Deepen as State Evictions Ban Protects Nonpaying Tenants

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Some renters are forced out anyway by owners desperate for income in pandemic

This story was written and produced by NJ Spotlight. It is being republished under a special NJ News Commons content-sharing agreement related to COVID-19 coverage. To read more, visit njspotlight.com.

Full story link – HERE.

By Jon Hurdle

In New Jersey’s pandemic-driven apartment housing crisis, there are no winners.

Tenants, unable to pay rent because they have lost their jobs or fallen ill with the virus, are accumulating thousands of dollars in unpaid rent that may eventually lead to their eviction; some are being evicted anyway by unscrupulous landlords who are ignoring the state’s moratorium on evictions during the statewide health emergency.

Landlords, deprived of income for months but unable to evict nonpaying tenants, are struggling to pay mortgages and property-tax bills, deferring maintenance on their buildings, and in some cases considering bankruptcy.

And state and local governments are faced with a major shortfall in income from rental properties that may force them to rely much more heavily on homeowners.

“It’s bad and it’s getting worse,” said Derek Reed, an attorney for the Property Owners Association of New Jersey, which represents mostly smaller landlords. “I get calls almost every day from small landlords that are renting out the other half of their duplex and the tenant has stopped paying rent which is 100 percent of their rental income, and they are wondering what they can do. I have to give them the bad news that there’s not much you can do right now.”

Reed estimated that larger landlords are seeing a reduction of up to 30% in their rental income and have no redress.

‘People’s bill’ would help tenants with rental arrears

He also criticized a bill now before the state Senate that would give tenants a lot more time to pay rent arrears.

The legislation, which supporters call the “people’s bill,” requires landlords to offer tenants who have missed rent payments during the pandemic a repayment plan that would give them six months to repay each month owed in back rent, with all arrears payable in 30 months.

Reed said the bill unfairly favors tenants at the expense of landlords. “It’s not the people’s bill, it’s the tenants’ bill because landlords are left out of the equation, to shoulder interest-free loans that may or may not be paid back over an extended period of time,” he said.

Since March, landlords of all sizes have been prevented from evicting nonpaying tenants by an executive order from Gov. Phil Murphy allowing renters to stay in their homes until two months after the official end of the health emergency.

Forcing renters out of their homes

Whenever that happens, tenants’ advocates predict a flood of evictions initiated by landlords who are desperate to find paying tenants and have been filing eviction orders with the courts during the pandemic even though the courts are unable to enforce them while the moratorium is in effect.

In July, a consultant’s report for housing advocates forecast that there could be 304,000 evictions over the following four months — a 600% increase over pre-pandemic levels — unless protective measures are taken. New Jersey courts received almost 35,000 eviction filings from March until the end of August, a number that housing advocates predict will increase sharply when the moratorium ends.

Some tenants are already facing “de facto” evictions by landlords who are trying to get rid of them by harassment, offering to forgive unpaid rent in return for immediate departure, or even locking them out of their homes.

La’Condria Burley, a single mother of two children, recently found herself locked out of her Jersey City apartment by a landlord who changed the combination on the doorway keypad while they were out  and left their belongings on the sidewalk.

Burley, 31, and her children, 4 and 6, spent two nights sleeping in a car that she had rented because her own had been repossessed after she failed to make payments. In March, Burley lost her job as a reimbursement specialist with a pharmaceutical company because of the pandemic, and she has been unable to pay rent since June.

She told the landlord that she had no money to pay, and at first, he sounded sympathetic but then locked them out without explanation, she said.

“He told me that he changed the locks, and my family’s items were outside of the house,” she said in an interview with NJ Spotlight News. “I knew why but he didn’t say why.”

After two days driving around and sleeping in the car, the family got back into their home thanks to a judge’s order obtained by Amy Albert, an attorney for The Waterfront Project, a nonprofit that provides advice and free legal representation for the poor in Hudson County.

“The judge was appalled and said that if the landlord did not allow her back into her home, he would be arrested,” Albert said.

County will likely step in to help

Now, there’s a good chance the rent of $1,850 a month will be paid by a Hudson County assistance program funded by the federal CARES Act, Albert said, but the family’s trauma could have been avoided if the landlord had recognized that support is available in such cases.

“Neither of them will end up without money; the issue is that there’s a process and her landlord was not respectful of the process,” she said.

Michael Pastacaldi, a lawyer for the landlord, did not return a phone call seeking comment.

That illegal lockout was not representative of the legitimate landlord community, and such actions should be quickly reported to the authorities, said David Brogan, executive director of the New Jersey Apartment Association, which represents mostly larger landlords.

“Any tenant who is being forcibly removed for nonpayment of rent should call local law enforcement,” he said. “The unfortunate reality is that you’ve got slumlords out there who are doing things that are illegal and unethical and painting the industry with one broad brush.”

Financial hardship on both sides

Still, Brogan called on tenants’ advocates to understand that the pandemic is causing significant financial hardship to landlords as well as to tenants, and said some smaller landlords are facing the prospect of bankruptcy.

“There has to be a recognition by landlords that tenants are facing problems, and there has to be a recognition by tenants that landlords are facing problems,” he said. “A lot of times, the tenant advocates create this adversarial relationship between landlords and tenants. The goal here isn’t to pick an enemy; the enemy is the virus.”

The only real solution, he said, is rental assistance from state or federal governments that would allow tenants to stay in their homes and restore landlords’ income.

Without that help, some landlords will go bankrupt, the supply of affordable housing will dwindle, and property-tax revenue will plummet because that’s assessed on the basis of a building’s operating income — which in some cases has simply stopped because of the pandemic, Brogan said.

He said he gets regular calls for help from smaller landlords whose properties represent nest eggs for retirement or college payments but whose income has been reduced to zero because tenants are unable to pay the rent.

“I get calls from people all the time that are literally in tears because their whole life savings went into a triplex or a small building that has six or 10 units and they’ve got 50 percent or more of the people not paying rent, and they are now not able to make their obligations,” he said.

Local government could forgive, defer property tax

A partial solution, he said, would be for local government to forgive or defer property-tax payments, at least until landlords’ income is restored.

“It’s completely unfair to tell a small landlord that we are putting policies in place that remove your revenue stream but at the same time, if you don’t provide payments in full and on time in property taxes, we are going to put a lien on your property,” he said.

Although Murphy’s order bans evictions during the pandemic, landlords can still file eviction orders with the courts, and many have been doing so in the hope that they can find paying tenants when the order is lifted, or that a court-brokered settlement can be reached before that happens.

One such order was filed in July against Mildred Ventura, who rents a three-bedroom apartment in Jersey City for herself and her two children and has been unable to pay rent since May when she became infected with COVID-19.

The virus forced her to leave her jobs as a cashier at two local supermarkets, reducing her $1,800 a month pretax income to zero and forcing her to try to reach an agreement with her landlord. But the landlord rejected Ventura’s appeals, and has now resorted to harassment in an attempt to force her out, she said.

“She has been very rude,” Ventura said. “She has stated that she doesn’t feel pity for me being sick, that she has bills herself to pay. It has been horrible the way she has been acting because she filed an eviction notice.”

Ventura said she told the landlord to use her security deposit to pay a month’s rent but the landlord said she had never cashed the security check, and it was no longer possible for her to use the money.

“She didn’t want any agreement,” Ventura said. “She just wanted me out.”

Turning neighbor against neighbor

Unable to evict her, the landlord now appears to be trying to force her out by telling her neighbors about her health problems and turning them against her, she said.

“Now when I walk in or out of the unit, they are saying things like ‘Move aside before we get contaminated,’” she said.

Ventura, 39, is recovering from the virus but still has trouble breathing and is unable to work because she has to attend weekly appointments with a pulmonologist. She doesn’t expect to go back to work until February.

Her problems were compounded by the denial of state unemployment benefits on the grounds that she had to apply for disability payments instead. With no savings, she’s feeding herself and her children, 16 and 12, on $297 a month in food stamps, and whatever she can get from a local food pantry.

The Waterfront Project’s Albert, who represents Ventura, said there’s a decent chance the county will pay Ventura’s unpaid and future rent until she can get back on her feet. But she accused the landlord of treating her client poorly.

“The combination of dealing with COVID-19 and the potential for losing your home is really highlighted in what Mildred has to say,” she said.

‘Landlords are not in the business of evicting tenants’

But that landlord’s tactics are not representative of the industry, which needs to keep its tenants even under the current strained circumstances, said Reed, representing the Property Owners Association of New Jersey.

“Landlords are not in the business of evicting tenants,” he said. “It is actually counter to their business model. The real goal here is to keep folks in their homes, and also to help make landlords whole, in a timely way, not to burden landlords with giving interest-free loans in a way that would be unsustainable but real direct rental assistance that can help tenants get out from under the rent that they owe and help landlords continue to maintain and operate these very necessary housing options.”

 

Photo by Jose Alonso on Unsplash

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September 24 School Board Meeting Highlights

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At the Jersey City School Board meeting this past Thursday evening, Superintendent Franklin Walker led two presentations on mandates by the state of New Jersey.

Deputy Superintendent Norma Fernandez presented data that will be reported to the state on students that graduated in 2020. According to Fernandez, 1,678 students graduated from public high school in Jersey City in 2020.  The state will use this number to calculate graduation rates.

Ellen Ruane, Associate Superintendent of Curriculum and Instruction presented the LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer or questioning) curriculum mandated by the state of New Jersey. In 2019, New Jersey adopted a law requiring local schools boards to include and adopt instructional materials that accurately portray LGBTQ individuals. New Jersey was the second state after California to adopt this type of law.

Ms. Ruane explained the law and reviewed the work of the Curriculum and Instruction Department on aligning the city’s schools with the mandate. According to Ruane, the law provides a broad charge, not a blue print.  In the city’s high schools, the LGBTQ curriculum will get integrated into history classes; in middle schools the material, which includes the need to respect those who identify as LGBTQ, will get integrated into school climate issues such as school safety. The middle school curriculum will also be amended to designate the week of January 18–22, 2021, “No Name Calling Week.”

All of the items to be voted on during the meeting were approved with one exception:  replacing the district’s current corporate counsel (Bryant Horsely) with Mr. Robert J. Pruchnik. It was pointed out that Pruchnik previously worked for the district, at which time the board decided to vote “no” on the matter for the time being so that they could take up the issue of Mr. Pruchnik’s candidacy more closely in a subsequent closed session.

In response to a question, from Trustee Gerald Lyons, Superintendent Walker confirmed that no spectators will be allowed at football games.

The next virtual Jersey City School Board meeting will be held Thursday, September 24, at 6 p.m.

For past coverage of Jersey City School Board meetings, please click here.

 

Header:  Jersey City Times file photo

 

 

 

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Quality of Life Dominates Wednesday’s Council Meeting

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It was all quality of life at Wednesday’s city council meeting.  While the council passed an ordinance re-writing the law on “mobile food vendors” and withdrew for further discussion competing proposals for creating a civilian complaint review board, it was the second reading of an ordinance to place the Quality of Life Taskforce and other agencies under the umbrella of the Department of Public Safety that elicited the most comments.

Once again, Solidarity and Mutual Aid Jersey City was out in force arguing against the ordinance, lining up numerous callers.  Jenny Chang’s comments were typical:

“Quality of life enforcement will result in a larger budget for the Department of Public Safety and may increase its budget through tickets and fines.  I agree that increasing quality of life is important but giving the JCPD more reason to ticket people will create the incentive and opportunity for profiling.  A city that invests in its people is a safer city. Everyone deserves access to education, opportunities, clean air, water, shelter and food…that’s what the city should invest in, especially during a pandemic when we’re facing record unemployment. Actual resources to increase quality of life rather than more resources for the police and incentives for the police to profile and treat people like criminals. Quality of life policing increases interactions between the community and the police and gives the police the authority and incentive to ticket, arrest and harass people for something like littering and noise complaints.  This is basically just a repackaged form of broken windows policing which leads to countless incidents of police brutality.  Quality of life policing can also lead to increased detention and deportation of immigrants, especially undocumented immigrants in our sanctuary city.  It can also lead to increased harassment by police of people experiencing homelessness.  It’s only a matter of time that police, enforcing quality of life violations, will kill, injure or displace even more people here in Jersey City, because this is something that is already happening in cities across the U.S. Relying on issuing tickets to generate revenue will result in police misconduct and profiling.  Unless something changes, it’s only a matter of time.”

But Valerie Taylor, a resident of Ward F, had a very different take on the need for quality of life enforcement.  “Recent events in Ward F may be a surprise for some but not for those of us living here. Unfortunately, this unruliness and disorder is a part of our daily lives. There are constantly incidences that have made it impossible for many of us to feel safe. Police presence, in many cases, does deter some of this activity. For me, at this moment, defunding the police will only make things worse. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t revisit this issue down the road because I do believe that we in Ward F are in dire need of more social services. But we have to provide the residents of Ward F with a better quality of life first. The day that I can walk out of my home and not see drug dealing, large disorderly groups or a man, literally, urinating in my yard on my flowers, then we can revisit this issue. The day that my neighbor can open her window and not see two adults having sex outside in broad daylight, then we can revisit this issue. When we can walk out of our homes or send our children out without the fear of them being shot, injured or hurt, then again we can revisit this issue. I must say that I do stand with my brothers and sisters in this fight for equality for Black and brown people to have the same rights as others.  But I also stand with my children and the children in my neighborhood who just want to go outside and ride their bikes without fear. I have lived in my home for 13 years and every year I pray for improvement but unfortunately, every year things remain the same, or actually they get worse. I love my city and at this moment I am not willing to give up on it. I am here tonight because I can no longer sit back and let things happen. We must see improvements in our neighborhood. Our quality of life must be equal to that of other parts of this city.  We deserve that.”

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An Interview with Ward D Council Candidate Cynthia Hadjiyannis

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On November 3rd, Ward D/Heights residents will cast votes for a person to fill the remaining year on late councilman Michael Yun’s term, which expires on December 31, 2021. The seat is temporarily being held by Yousef Saleh, who was appointed by mayor Fulop. Saleh, along with four other people, have declared their intentions to run.   Local attorney and activist Cynthia Hadjiyannis was the first to accept Jersey City Times’ request for an interview.

JCT: Good morning, Cynthia, and thank you for taking the time to speak with us today. Can you give us a short summary of where you grew up and your educational background, your work history?

Hadjiyannis: So, I am originally from Massachusetts, and my family moved to South Jersey when I was about 12, and I went to high school in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, and then I went back to Massachusetts for college. I went to Wellesley College. I actually was a science double major—biology and Soviet studies. I wasn’t really planning on becoming a lawyer when I first went to college, and I had a lot of years where I couldn’t quite find my niche. I was trying different things all the time. So, I worked in a laboratory, I worked at the Kennedy School of Government and International Relations, I started graduate school—a graduate program at Michigan for political science—and then I eventually went to law school. I went to Rutgers for law school and I finished in ’98, and I passed the New York and the New Jersey Bars, and I’ve been a lawyer for about 20 years or actually 22 years.

And let’s see, my first job was a clerk. I came to Jersey City fresh out of law school in ’98, and my first job was at the William Brennan Courthouse here in Jersey City, and I worked for this wonderful judge. His name is Carmen Maisano, and then I went into private practice after I finished my clerkship, and I worked in commercial arbitration and litigation, and I kind of enjoyed that. I started off at the New Jersey firm, but then I went with the New York firm and it was an international firm. So, I was trying to kind of make my interest in international relations integrate with my law practice, and I did that for about five or six years, and then I went on my own, and I’m a small town lawyer now.

JCT: Your practice has revolved around what kind of work?

Hadjiyannis: Well, now it’s a mix. I started off in litigation, but now it’s a mix of certain types of litigation, real estate, and then things that are the nexus between real estate and litigation. I do some land use, I do tax appeals, I do construction and building violations, and zoning, and I have a niche, which is challenging development approvals on behalf of community groups and neighbors.

JCT: And give us some examples of some of the cases you’ve worked on.

Hadjiyannis: Well, I had one in West New York. Some of them, it’s hard because it’s an uphill battle with these things, but I had one in West New York, it goes back a while, it might have been 2008, where they were planning to build a giant tower on Boulevard East. It was zoned mid-rise, but it was basically a regular residential neighborhood where people had row houses and they wanted to do, I think it was a 12- or 13-story building, and a group of neighbors banded together. They were wonderful clients, and we didn’t succeed at the trial level, but we went up on appeal, and we got the development approval voided for the project. I think to this day there is no tower on the lot.

JCT: You considered that a win?

Hadjiyannis: Yeah, yeah. It was really egregious. You know, some things are kind of marginal but, this was really just a pretty bad—it was, I think, triple what you were supposed to be allowed to do.

JCT: Sure. And you live in Ward D (obviously), and how long have you been in Ward D?

Hadjiyannis: Since 2003.

JCT: What would you say are the top three issues in Ward D?

Hadjiyannis: I think housing is a big one, zoning and development, and the local economy.

JCT: Do you want to expand on those, specifically the housing, for instance?

Hadjiyannis: When I first moved here I was able to buy a house for about a third of what it would cost now for the same house. I have a small row house. I lived Downtown, and once I got in a position where I had gotten started on my career and I’d gotten a handle on my student loans, I wanted to buy something, and I got priced out of the market Downtown, so I had this great option of looking in other neighborhoods in Jersey City, and I came to the Heights. I think now that is less and less of an option for people. A little two-bedroom condo is $700,000, and stuff is just really unaffordable, and it’s not like there is another neighborhood close by where people aren’t priced out of the market. I’m seeing people who can’t— young people who want to buy homes are priced out of the market. People who want to get an apartment can’t find an apartment.

So, I think there is not much affordable housing. Seniors and other people who could benefit from that, I think they’re having problems. There’s a very long waiting list.

JCT: Then you mentioned development. What are the issues there?

Hadjiyannis: So, I think the Heights is essentially a low-rise community, and we do not want to be like the Downtown, and we don’t want to be like Journal Square. We have something that people like, we have backyards, we have very walkable neighborhoods, we have a lot more greenery than other places in Jersey City, and I think people don’t want to lose that, and little by little backyards are getting filled in, street trees are being lost, every little square, every buildable lot is being upzoned so that where you used to have one house now there will be four condos squeezed into where there was a one-family.

I think that we’re having pressure coming from Hoboken and from Journal Square and along Kennedy to move more toward high-rise development, mid-rise or high-rise development that’s going to increase density a lot. And increases in density without the appropriate infrastructure leads to problems. We’re having those problems now. Parking, traffic, I forget what they call the combined sewer system. So, we’re encountering all those problems that come with high-density development without the right infrastructure.

JCT: And in terms of businesses you mentioned businesses being an issue. What would you identify there as being the problem?

Hadjiyannis: Well, it’s interesting, I have a lot to learn about that, but I have a small business. I actually run my law practice from home. And just with COVID, a lot of businesses have seen they don’t have the same volume that they used to have, and they’re struggling. And then I think on Central, I think there always was a fairly high vacancy rate, but I think it’s gotten higher now during COVID. I know the city is trying to do some things to support small business. I’d probably try to do more things in addition to what the city is doing to support businesses. I know in New York, this is something I have to think more about and learn more about and talk to the Central Avenue SID, but in New York I think they don’t allow landlords to leave commercial—they allow it, but they’re penalized when you leave a commercial storefront vacant for too long. So, I think we could probably use some more regulations to encourage landlords to rent at a market rate.

JCT:  Right. And when it comes to those first couple of issues, I guess you mentioned affordability, do you have any ideas about how to make the neighborhood or Ward D more affordable?

Hadjiyannis: I don’t know. You probably know more about it than I do because there is this inclusionary zoning ordinance that has been languishing in the council committee for more than a year, and there seems to be a lot of discussion that doesn’t really cohere into an ordinance. And it needed to happen like 20 years ago before we had this development boom, and it didn’t, but it’s like we really shouldn’t let more time go by. The council needs to come together to support a version of that ordinance whatever it is so that it starts, so that we don’t have more development without affordability becoming a component of it.

I think they’re working on it, but they need to do it faster, and I think I would try to work with the council to get something we can pass. Then I want to make sure it actually impacts affordability. Like right now, I think the version of the ordinance that has been floated—it’s questionable whether it really does anything to help the people who need it most. They were talking about a range of what would constitute affordable housing, and they were saying people would be eligible, I guess, who were between 80%, or I guess the projects have to market to people with 80% to 120% of adjusted median—I forget the phrase, it’s AMI, it’s like average median income.

And so, I think the version of the ordinance now allows developers to meet the affordable housing requirements by building what is basically market-rate housing. If you’re between 80 to 100% of the average median income, you may not be the person who needs affordable housing the most.

So, I think we have to get that ordinance geared toward helping people who need affordable housing, but then I think we need something else that helps people who have under 80% AMI. So, I’d want to look at those options and maybe that can’t be, maybe those have to be public works projects, maybe there is no incentive for developers to build projects that are for people with less than 80% AMI. That might not work as part of an inclusionary zoning ordinance, but I think we’ll need to investigate other types of housing.

JCT: And what about on the density construction issue? Is this just a zoning question?

Hadjiyannis: A lot of the Heights is zoned R1, which is zoned for one- and two-family dwellings. So, even Kennedy is supposed to be R1, one- and two-family dwellings. Then developers go to the zoning board with projects that are much bigger than what they’re allowed to do, and the zoning board often dispenses variances. They’re supposed to be an independent land use board, so as a councilperson I couldn’t really control what the zoning board does, but I think to maybe get some members of the zoning board, like people appointed to the zoning board that are more sensitive to people in the community and don’t feel like it’s their job to okay everybody’s application.

I think that would be a good start, and I think as a councilperson I would try to empower the neighbors in the community groups to participate more in that process. And then even long before it got to the board, I would want to help facilitate communication between groups of neighbors and developers who want to come in and do something more than what they’re allowed to do.

JCT: Now let me ask you about citywide issues. If you were to name the top three citywide issues that you’d like to take on or that you think are burning issues right now, what would they be?

Hadjiyannis: That’s interesting, no one’s asked me that yet. I would say some of these racial equality issues we’ve been dealing with this, now, the whole summer. I think it’s really in the forefront of everybody’s consciousness. I think zoning and development is a citywide issue. I do get calls from all over the city from people who want help with tear downs, with giant projects they feel are inappropriate. So, I would say zoning and development is a citywide issue. I would say the school budget and funding our school system.

JCT: On the racial justice issues, are you in favor of proposals to cut the public safety budget?

Hadjiyannis: That’s such a tough question. I guess we would have to look at that really carefully. The issue with that is that it seems risky. I know people have been participating a lot in the public comments part of the city council meetings, and there was a huge meeting where everybody seemed to be reading from the same script where they were saying they want the budget cut by 50%. I think that seems extremely risky. Nobody really wants to take a risk with public safety, and if you cut the budget by 50%, there’s no guarantee that we all won’t be negatively impacted.

So, I know a lot of people were very vigorously advocating for that. I wouldn’t want to cut the budget like that. I think that is too much of a risk. I would want to just first examine what are we spending our money on? I’ve been hearing a lot; I have been trying to soak a lot of news in, and there are all these statistics being discussed where they say only a small number of calls that the police actually respond to have to do with crime, and there are a lot more calls that have to do almost with social services. Where I’m not even sure what the rest of the calls are.

So I would want to look at what is our money actually being spent on? Where can we find some efficiencies, and how can we work together with the police. This goes for every single part of the city budget, not just the police. How can we save the taxpayers’ money, and how can we make sure the money that is being spent is used in the best possible way? So, I am in favor of trying to economize, trying to find ways that we can reallocate some of the funds in ways that don’t compromise public safety. But I don’t have a perfect answer to the question. It’s something I’m going to have to learn a lot more about.

JCT: Got it.

Hadjiyannis: If it were that easy, I think we would have already done something.

JCT: Are there any areas of the city budget that you think need to be either trimmed or increased apart from public safety?

Hadjiyannis: I think the city made some big cuts to recreation recently. I don’t know if that was really—I think it’s very difficult to figure out what you need to cut. But I wouldn’t have been in favor of that.

JCT: In terms of cutting recreation.

Hadjiyannis: Yeah, yeah. And I think they’ve made a lot of cuts already, and I think that was probably pretty tough to do. I know they laid off all the part-time and seasonal workers. So, I don’t know, they said the budgets are like—I’ve heard different numbers, but supposedly they’re short like $40 million to $60 million, so I don’t know if it would be easy to cut anything else right now. But in the future when things become hopefully normalized we can look at that more.

Hadjiyannis: Also, I was surprised like 20% of our taxes go to serving municipal debt. So, I would probably want to [look at that].

JCT: Got it.

Hadjiyannis: Yeah, I mean it’s like I wouldn’t want 20% of my money going to pay…

JCT: Paying interest, right, right, sure. Let me ask you this: You have worked on the reservoir, you were the what? The president of the…

Hadjiyannis: Yeah, I was the president the past two years and I’m going to be stepping down next week, actually, so that—because I’m running—and I think you shouldn’t really be running a nonprofit while you’re a candidate for office.

JCT: Is there anything on that issue that you want to work on as a councilperson, or is there any intesection between your reservoir work and…

Hadjiyannis: Definitely. The reservoir is one of the things that mobilized me to become active in local politics. I felt like I was begging, back when we started. I felt like I was begging the council to do things that shouldn’t have been difficult decisions. It should have been a no brainer that we would want to preserve this site. So, having to spend so much time and energy to create this grassroots movement to get people to commit to saving the site. I’m grateful that they were persuaded to do it, but I felt like it shouldn’t have been so difficult.

JCT: Right.

Hadjiyannis: And the city wants to enter a new phase where they are investing in the site, which is something I really have been pushing for for like the last 10 years—to put the site in a position that they could get grants, and they could invest in the site. But, I guess it might have been right after labor day, they approved a plan without engaging our group to discuss the plan and with zero public engagement. And I think that is a chronic problem throughout the city, where a few people in a department come up with a plan and try to quickly push it through without really getting any feedback from anybody.

Hadjiyannis: So, now that the nonprofit—I’m still going to be on the board, but I’m just not going to be an officer of the nonprofit. We’re trying to re-engage the city to get a better plan in place because the plan that was approved last week, I guess right after Labor Day, is going to be extremely destructive to the site, and  what was interesting was that they awarded a contract for $2.2 million, but none of the environmental stuff that they’re required to do by the Green Acres program and Trenton, they’re kind of nowhere with that. They’re just figuring that out, so they awarded the contract, but they don’t really have the capacity to go forward with it because the site investigation’s complete, there’s no plan of environmental remediation, and I was trying to get the city to hold off on awarding the contract, but they were just determined to push it through for reasons I really could barely understand.

JCT: Switching gears now, I’d also love to know how you see yourself in relation to the mayor—as an independent councilperson who consults with the mayor from time to time but has no political obligations to him or some…

Hadjiyannis: I think it’s just like being a lawyer. I’m going to be obligated to do what is in the best interest of my constituents. So, if I am privileged enough to be elected, I am committed to working with the administration and working with the rest of the council on everything I can work with them on. Then I think there’s certain noncontroversial things that I would want them to work with me on. Like, everyone loves the reservoir, everyone wants it to be a nice place. There are other things like trash—everybody has mentioned to me that we just have a problem with trash. And we don’t really have clean streets in the Heights. That’s a noncontroversial thing. I want to work on a lot of the quality of life things.

But then if I think they’re making poor decisions, I won’t be shy about standing up for things that are important, trying to keep them from making poor decisions.

JCT: Let me ask you this, how are you funding your campaign?

Hadjiyannis: With contributions.

JCT: Are you getting any money from any political organizations, or are you backed by the county democratic organization? Are there any ties to any larger organizations, or is this purely a grassroots effort?

Hadjiyannis: A lot of my donors have been, or contributors I guess I should say, they’ve been people who know me.

JCT: Sure.

Hadjiyannis: They know me; they feel confident that I’m going to do a good job.

JCT: I’m just wondering if you’re tied to any larger organizations than individual donors you want to disclose in the name of campaign finance disclosure. I assume that some candidates will be receiving some support from deep pockets. Are you a Bernie Sanders type, getting small donations?

Hadjiyannis: That’s funny. I guess I’m more like a Pete Buttigieg or whatever his name is. He said if someone with deep pockets wants to give him a contribution, he is not going to turn his nose up at it.

JCT: Right.

Hadjiyannis: But, yeah, if there’s strings attached, I’m not really in favor of that. I’m not even—most of my things have been from individuals. I did get money from one PAC but, I’m not even sure, it’s sort of a small PAC that a friend runs, so I don’t think it’s any kind of big money.

JCT: Right, but you will have to disclose this…

Hadjiyannis: Yeah.

JCT: It will come out. I’m just curious, I’m really curious about institutional support that you might be receiving.

Hadjiyannis: No, No. Not so far.

JCT: Not so far, got it. All right well that is a lot.

Hadjiyannis: Yeah.

JCT: That’s very elucidating.

 

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Op Ed: Fulfilling a Dream for Liberty State Park

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This interview was conducted by Michele S. Byers, Executive Director, New Jersey Conservation Foundation.

Liberty State Park in Jersey City – the state’s most popular park, with over 5 million annual visitors – has been called New Jersey’s Central Park. But it has something Central Park doesn’t: spectacular views of the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, the Manhattan skyline, New York Harbor and the Verrazano Narrows Bridge.

This state we’re in got good news recently when the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection announced it will move ahead with long-discussed plans to improve Liberty State Park by cleaning up contaminated land in its interior section and opening it to the public. The restoration will expand the park’s usable acreage by 40 percent, with over seven miles of new trails.

Two of the plan’s most enthusiastic supporters are Sam Pesin, son of park founder Morris Pesin and president of the Friends of Liberty State Park; and Greg Remaud, head of the New York/New Jersey Baykeeper advocacy group.

As the state prepares to introduce park restoration plans at a public meeting this fall, Sam and Greg spoke with New Jersey Conservation Foundation about the park, its history, their hopes for its future, and why New Jerseyans should support the restoration. Here are some highlights:

Q: Why is Liberty State Park so important to all of New Jersey?

Sam: Liberty State Park is priceless and sacred public land – a very scarce urban open space in a densely populated area. The park has been shown, especially during the pandemic, to be essential for emotional health, physical health, mental health and spiritual health. It’s so crucial to the quality of life of urban people, and it certainly uplifts the spirits of all who visit.

Greg: Hudson County is among the most densely populated counties in the country and there’s not a lot of green spaces, especially large green spaces. You come to Liberty State Park and there’s natural treasures, cultural treasures, historical treasures, recreational treasures. There’s something for everyone, with great iconic symbols that people from around the world enjoy.

Q: Sam, is it true that the effort to create Liberty State Park began with a canoe ride taken by your father in 1958?

Sam: I was seven years old when my parents took my sister and me to see the Statue of Liberty. We got to the statue and my father looked toward Jersey City and saw an eyesore, junk-strewn, desolate waterfront. He got the vision of creating a beautiful park on the waterfront to honor the Statue of Liberty, provide open space for the people of our city and state, and provide access from New Jersey to the Statue of Liberty. A year later, he went to the local newspaper to see what he could do to dramatize the idea. The editor said, why don’t you go out in a rowboat? He ended up going out in a canoe, and it was a seven-minute canoe ride with a reporter to show the close proximity of the neglected shoreline of Jersey City to Lady Liberty.

Q: The first section of Liberty State Park opened in 1976 during the nation’s Bicentennial. What was its impact on the area?

Sam: My father always said the park would be a catalyst for economic development of the waterfront, and he was right. The area is now filled with condos and towers.

Greg: It’s now known as New Jersey’s “Gold Coast.” It’s some of the state’s most valuable land.

Q: The Friends of Liberty State Park and the NY/NJ Baykeeper have been fighting for 25 years to get the interior of the park – once the site of railroad yards – cleaned up and opened to the public. What needs to be done?

Greg: For a whole generation, that site has been off limits to the public, about 235 acres.  Our understanding of the contamination that remains in the interior is a linear pipeline that was backfilled with chromium-laced soil that will be remediated by the responsible party, and the majority of the site is what is known as “historic fill,” contamination that the DEP will remediate and cover with a soil cap. The area would then be restored to a mosaic of habitats, including grasslands, woodlands, freshwater wetlands and a salt marsh. Unfortunately, most of the vegetation that’s there now will be lost. But the public’s safety comes first, and we’re supportive of the remediation. The area is going to get so much use, we want people to feel safe going there and not have to worry about their children touching the dirt. Trails will connect the Liberty Science Center with the park’s Nature Center for the first time.

Sam: This will be an international model for turning brownfields into a really special, exciting and extraordinary natural wonderland for enjoyment, education and ecotourism – and, of course, for wildlife.

Q: Is using state Natural Resource Damage funds the best way to make sure this restoration project becomes a reality?

Greg: This is really a once-in-a-lifetime funding opportunity. The project will cost tens of millions of dollars, which will come from the Exxon natural resource damage settlement. These are not taxpayer dollars – this is truly a “polluter pays” project. It offsets the damages to natural resources that occurred.

Q: What can the public do to learn more about and support this restoration?

Greg: The DEP will be holding a virtual public information meeting this fall, and after that there will be a public comment period. The public can help out by attending the public information meeting and then writing in support of the project. Anyone who wants more information can see the state’s press release at  https://www.nj.gov/dep/newsrel/2020/20_0037.htm or read more on the website https://nj.gov/dep/nrr/restoration/liberty-state-park.html.

Deep thanks and appreciation to Sam and Greg for their long-term commitment to ensuring that Liberty State Park is truly a people’s park, and for their diligence in evaluating and responding to the multitude of proposals for park property over the years. Never doubt the power of dedicated individuals to make a huge difference!

Thanks also to the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection for its commitment to using Natural Resource Damage funds to fulfill the vision of this public open space gem in the midst of New Jersey’s most densely-populated region.

As the pandemic has shown, open space and access to nature are critically important to public health and well-being. With people relying on parks more than ever for outdoor recreation and spiritual nourishment, this project will make more of Liberty State Park available for the public to enjoy.

Be sure to get out this fall and enjoy the beauty of Liberty State Park! In addition to the amazing views from the waterfront, there’s the Richard Sullivan Natural Area, a 36-acre salt marsh named in honor of New Jersey’s first Department of Environmental Protection commissioner.

To learn more about preserving New Jersey’s land and natural resources, visit the New Jersey Conservation Foundation website at www.njconservation.org or contact me at info@njconservation.org.

Photograph of Cooper’s Hawk at Caven Point, January 20, 2020 courtesy of Shayna Marchese

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Art Review: “The Air and the Space”

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Winifred McNeill is an absolute local. She lives in Jersey City, teaches at NJCU, and she’s exhibited at Drawing Rooms, Victory Hall, and in the Windows on Columbus. Much of her prior work falls firmly within the Jersey post-industrial style: She’s fashioned plumbing pipes into tiny viewing chambers for her nude sketches, for instance, and she’s drawn to the smudged, illegible, overwritten quality of discarded books. Like many of the marsh creatures who populate these Garden State swamps, she’s fascinated by birds and seashells. Her color palette runs toward ghostly off-whites, factory-soot greys, and chemical blues. This is a Jersey person, in other words.

Yet her new exhibition stretches across the ocean. “The Air and the Space,” a short-run show that wraps up at the Art House Productions Gallery this weekend, plays gently but trenchantly with European signifiers and centuries-old traditions. McNeill, balanced as always, does this without giving up any of the characteristic qualities that root her in the arts movements of Hudson County. The pieces in “The Air and the Space” were created during a residency at the European Ceramic Work Center in the Netherlands, and that influence shows. A series of rectangular, tile-like sculptures, iced like pound cakes with Limoges porcelain, bear their images in Delft blue. Figures in an array of charcoal drawings have a tragic, mythological quality to them. The show is dominated by a series of small ceramic busts, mostly of bald-headed men, some colored gold, some slightly stained, all beautifully expressive, all evincing assumed nobility. They look as if they could have been unearthed from Pompeii.

McNeill and the Art House place these small busts — most of which could fit easily in the palm of a hand — on tall, taper-candle-thin pedestals, and arrange them in clusters at the center of the gallery. The result feels like a forum, and it renders the viewer a spectator and an eavesdropper, and maybe even an interloper, too.  If some of McNeill’s characters seem more interested in projecting stoicism and a defiant upturned chin than they are in conversing with their fellows, well, that may strike you as an honest assessment of transhistorical political discourse. It is, perhaps, for the best that Art House is limiting access to the show to a few viewers at a time because an errant swipe of an autumn coat could send all of these busts and their pedestals crashing to the ground like Jenga sticks. A slightly larger sculpture in the window looks as if it has something to say — but it is missing most of its face, and its head is hollow. Do these proud little patricians know how fragile they are? Do any of us?

The Ceramic Work Center residency ended just as the pandemic was gathering strength, (McNeill, the Art House tells me, was on one of the last planes back to the United States), and the shadow of the global health crisis does hang over “The Air and the Space.” But this small but eloquent exhibition speaks of older anxieties, too: impermanence, transience, the difficulties of communication, the prevalence and folly of hero worship, and the curious silence in the public square. These are, alas, threats that cannot be vaccinated against.

 

The Air and the Space

Through September 27

The Art House Gallery

262 17th Street, Jersey City

Only eight visitors are allowed in the gallery at once. Masks are required. Email gallery@arthouseroductions.org to schedule a visit.

www.arthouseproductions.org

 

 

 

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New Jersey is 3rd Best State for Teachers According to Study

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Personal finance website WalletHub has ranked New Jersey the third best state (including the District of Columbia) for teachers.  Only Washington and Utah are better, according to the study.  New Hampshire comes in dead last, begging the question whether “living free” is worth the tradeoff for teachers.  Perennial competitors Massachusetts and Connecticut may rank higher for their overall systems in some studies but they come in 11th and 14th respectively in this comparison.

When it comes to “teacher friendliness” here’s where New Jersey is ranked for selected categories:

  • 4th – Avg. Starting Salary for Teachers (Adjusted for Cost of Living)
  • 6th – Avg. Salary for Teachers (Adjusted for Cost of Living)
  • 3rd – Quality of School System
  • 4th – Pupil-Teacher Ratio
  • 2nd – Public-School Spending per Student
  • 29th – Teachers’ Income Growth Potential
  • 26th – 10-Year Change in Teacher Salaries
  • 9th – Statewide School Reopening
  • 1st – Existence of Digital Learning Plan

Last month, WalletHub ranked Jersey City’s schools at 241 for “spending equity.”

For more details on the ranking along with expert commentary, go to https://wallethub.com/edu/best-and-worst-states-for-teachers/7159/#main-findings

 

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Replacement Homeless Shelter Moves Forward

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Some time within the next three months, the Archdiocese of Newark, with help from a developer-partner, will begin construction of the new St. Lucy’s Emergency Shelter in Jersey City, replacing the existing building with a brand new facility.

St. Lucy’s, which is run by Catholic Charities, is the only homeless shelter in the city and the largest in Hudson County.

Catholic Charities, which has leased the Grove Street property from the Archdiocese since 1986, houses 120 single men and women in the former parish school and provides transitional housing for people with AIDS in the old rectory. Across the street in the former parish parking lot are five affordable housing units.

But within the next few years, the landscape of the site, which lies just a few blocks from the Holland Tunnel encompassing the west side of Grove between 15th and 16th streets, will be changing.

On Aug. 11, the Jersey City Planning Board granted site plan approval for Far Hills, NJ developer 15th and Grove JC LLC to demolish much of the interior of the St. Lucy’s complex while preserving the facades of those structures and incorporating them into the design of a new 23-story tower with 444 market-rate units, retail space, and a garage. The developer will also put up a new five-story shelter across the street.

The City Council voted in February 2019 to bump up the allowable residential density for the site in return for the developer’s providing a “public benefit” with the shelter.

The 57,000 square foot shelter building will go up first and open in the second half of 2022. It will accommodate up to 150 homeless individuals spread over two floors, five 3-bedroom units for homeless families on the second floor, 14 units reserved as transitional housing for men with AIDS on the third floor, and 15 permanent affordable housing studios on the top floor.

A dining room, community space, and support offices will occupy the building’s first floor.

During construction, the existing St. Lucy’s affordable housing mini complex of five townhouses will be torn down, and the occupants of those buildings will be relocated to other apartments pending completion of the new shelter. Those occupants will be given first priority to relocate to the new building.

John Westervelt, chief executive officer for Catholic Charities, said the need for homeless services has grown, and the hope is that the new building can keep pace with the demand for that service in the area.

In September 2015, the Archdiocese approved an agreement between Catholic Charities, Jersey City, and 619 Grove St. Corp., an LLC formed by the developer, for the exchange of property and subsequent development rights, pending zoning, historic preservation, and planning board approvals, which came this summer.

The developer’s project, which will take up more than 500,000 square feet of space, will offer 129 studios, 241 one-bedrooms, 70 two-bedrooms, and four three-bedrooms spread over 23 residential stories. There will also be a 251-space parking garage and 5,600 square feet of commercial space.

Specifications for the project called for no deviations from the Jersey Avenue Light Rail Redevelopment Plan, which sets the design parameters for the site. Landscaping waivers, which the developer sought due to “existing site restraints,” were granted.

Construction of the mixed -use project is expected to be finished by sometime in 2024.

During the city planning board hearing, the developer cited a structural engineer’s report on the condition of the St. Lucy’s complex which, the report said, has deteriorated “as a result of deferred maintenance since the de-consecration of the church [in 1986]….”

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