Hoboken Zoning Board and City Council

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Permalink Reply by James Vance on March 12, 2010 at 7:06pm

Here is the note I received from Mr. Bhalla on January 8 in reply to my letter. It was remiss of me not to have included it with my first posting.

Ravi said: Thank you for your email – your position is well though-out, reasonable and I respect it. This is a difficult issue. My feeling right now is that perhaps we should hear the appeals that are now before us, wait for at least 6 months or so, and then re-evaluate if anything needs to be done. I do not intend to bring an amendment to the ordinance at this time. Thanks again, Ravi

Jack, as far as "scuttle-but" goes, don’t listen to it. There is way too much rumor and speculation going around as it is. Find out for yourself. Councilman Bhalla can be reached at rbhalla@hobokennj.org or by phone at (201) 610-9010.

Jim Vance

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Permalink Reply by Tony Soares on March 12, 2010 at 8:01pm

The Current Zoning Board is not anything like the one Liz is describing...

• Fortunately thanks to The Zimmer majority, the Zoning Board is now appointed by a 9 Member Council as opposed to just ONE Mayor. In fact the night before Cammarano was cuffed, councilpersons Mason and Russo were standing against the Ordinance to put the power in the Reform Council majority's power.

• On that very eve of Canmmrano's arrest people like Ines Garcia Keim, Lane Bajardi and Curtis Crystal (Realtor) spoke against stripping the crooked Cammarano of his Zoning appointment power.

• I was the only commissioner (prior to Zimmer as Mayor to vote down Stevens Plan-Stevens was a huge backer of Cammarano and the Cammrano commissioners voted accordingly, just as some did on 901 Washington St -despite public outrage..



Elizabeth Markevitch said:

Zoning board members are not trained. They are supposed to be knowledgeable about the community.
So if a developer has a witness saying a project will not add to traffic because they did a study at 3pm .The board’s has knowledge of Hoboken and knows that that is not a high traffic time in Hoboken and therefore not a good time to monitor traffic This board has the authority to grant variances to approved zoning regulations voted on by city council. The board has been granting a large number of D variances.

D-Variances are only supposed to be allowed if they contribute to the public good.
An approval of D-variance may be repealed by the City council


The Stevens project has 19 variances which is tantamount to the board usurping the Master plan and the laws voted on by the City Council.

One area of concern is Stevens plan to widen the road thereby making it easier to speed around on Sinatra Drive. Since all of Hoboken is a city and subject to 25 mph. In order to ensure the safety of our citizen’s , changes to roads must be given careful consideration.

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Permalink Reply by Jack Dawkins on March 13, 2010 at 7:04pm

Thanks for posting Ravi's response in addition to your original letter, Jim.

Looks like we'll have to stay tuned our Sept/Oct (when the 6 months is up)

James Vance said:

Here is the note I received from Mr. Bhalla on January 8 in reply to my letter. It was remiss of me not to have included it with my first posting.

Ravi said: Thank you for your email – your position is well though-out, reasonable and I respect it. This is a difficult issue. My feeling right now is that perhaps we should hear the appeals that are now before us, wait for at least 6 months or so, and then re-evaluate if anything needs to be done. I do not intend to bring an amendment to the ordinance at this time. Thanks again, Ravi

Jack, as far as "scuttle-but" goes, don’t listen to it. There is way too much rumor and speculation going around as it is. Find out for yourself. Councilman Bhalla can be reached at rbhalla@hobokennj.org or by phone at (201) 610-9010.

Jim Vance

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