Hoboken411.com
Occhipinti: City shortchanges 4th ward on southwest park plan The long-delayed Southwest Redevelopment Plan is back at square one, for the fourth time in 4 years, after the administration was forced to remove two blocks from the preliminary “Area in Need of Redevelopment” study. The new resolution will be considered by the city council at tonight’s meeting. “It’s taken a full year for the administration to finally admit that the zone boundaries they drew were inappropriate,” said 4th ward city council candidate Tim Occhipinti. “This is almost too much to believe. Where has the 4th ward councilman been?” The council authorized the latest study in October of 2009, but a planner to complete the study wasn’t hired until late last summer. Now, the planner has come back with a determination that no work can begin until the proposed redevelopment map changes because the administration included long-completed buildings like the Skyline and Hoboken Grande in its proposed Area in Need of Redevelopment. “This mistake has set back the effort to build a real Southwest Park for yet another year,” said Occhipinti. “Meanwhile, more and more condos are being built down here. Had someone, perhaps the 4th ward councilman, identified this error sooner, and had a planner been hired earlier, Southwest Hoboken would be one year closer to a park instead of back to the drawing board.” Occhipinti said the timing of the resolution was another example of the administration manipulating the city’s agenda for political purposes: “They will try to say that this ineptitude is actually an example of progress. The reality is that residents of the 4th ward are being shortchanged, again. While appointed 4th ward councilman Michael Lenz concentrates on western edge redevelopment, outside the ward, residents of the southwest are again asked to take a back seat. This is just wrong. Michael Lenz has dropped the ball – again.”
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Paid for by Occhipinti for Council Anthony Poulin, Treasurer