With one eye on preserving and upgrading its municipal resources and the other focused on its future, North Arlington is borrowing nearly $1 million and reviving a moribund Meadows redevelopment plan.
On Aug. 19, the Borough Council voted 5-1, with Councilman Mark Yampaglia the lone dissenter, to authorize bonding up to $980,000 for street paving, infrastructure repairs and the purchase of new automotive equipment. A $200,000 state road aid grant will help offset some of the bonding costs associated with the paving work, officials said.
The council also asked the Planning Board to review a proposed redevelopment plan for a portion of 120 acres of marshland that the borough sees as a prime spot for light industry, warehousing and commercial uses.
The borough will apply $550,000 of the bond money for the milling and paving of Belmont Ave., Sunset Ave. and Vanderbilt Place; $110,000 to repair the Schuyler Ave. firehouse roof and HVAC system; $150,000 for an EMS response vehicle, two parking violation vehicles, a Fire Department pickup truck that will tow Hazmat equipment and will be equipped with a snow plow attachment, a mini-street sweeper, an SUV for the Building Department for inspections and a new fire chief’s car; $150,000 for a new sweeper and hydraulic lift; and $20,000 for one or more stretchers and mobile-data terminals for the Emergency Squad.
The council agreed to pay Neglia Engineering $49,000 for surveying, engineering and construction management services in support of the paving job.
Mayor Peter Massa said that the bond, which is expected to be paid back in 20 years at an estimated interest rate of less than 1%, will probably account for an additional $15 in taxes each year for the average homeowner. It is not yet known whether this year’s remaining tax bills will reflect all or part of that projected increase, Massa said.
The mayor defended the move, saying that, because of the still depressed economy, “We’ll be borrowing money at the cheapest rate, and we’ll probably be getting a contractor at the cheapest rate as well.”
Massa said the borough was proceeding with the financing project based on advice received by its bond counsel, Rogut McCarthy of Cranford.
The bond includes $75,000 for professional fees associated with preparing and targeted response marketing it.
Council President Richard Hughes said it was essential that the borough acquire the new vehicles, particularly to replace an old mechanical sweeper plagued by constant breakdowns, and a 30-year-old compressor “that doesn’t work anymore, so we’ve had to borrow from other towns.”
The new Hazmat vehicle will replace one that’s 25 years old and will be ordered with the snow plow attachment so that it will have a dual function, Hughes said.
Hughes also said that the volunteers at the Schuyler Ave. firehouse have put up with a leaky roof for years. Money that was previously set aside for a fixup was allocated to another project, so now the borough is belatedly making up for lost time, he said.
A recent visit to the firehouse, which was built in 1994, showed evidence of leakage in the apparatus bay, volunteer meeting room, bathrooms and utility closet and a rusted-out heating and ventilating unit.
Fire Capt. John Inzinna, Schuyler company commander, said it’s common for the building’s heating/cooling system to go on the fritz, both in hot and cold weather. “We’ve been averaging four to six service calls a year,” he said.
Some winters, Inzinna said, if the building’s heating system has been off for 48 hours, the pipes in the firehouse and in the two firetrucks will freeze, which can mean critical time lost in a fire call response.
“If we have a very cold period, we’ll take all the water out of the trucks to prevent freezing,” he said. But, if there’s a fire call, Schuyler volunteers would have to rely solely on street hydrants as a water source.
Meanwhile, the Borough Council is asking the Planning Board to consider the merits of the 52-page “Amended Porete Ave./BCUA (Bergen County Utilities Authority) Redevelopment Plan,” drafted in May by the borough’s planning consultant, Susan Gruel.
At one point, the Meadowlands portion of the proposed redevelopment site was targeted for residential construction as part of the ambitious EnCap project but that plan was abandoned after the developer went bust.
Now Gruel is suggesting that the borough look to convert the old 41-acre Bethlehem Steel site, which contains an old sewage pumping station, to an industrial campus with eight buildings.
For the old 30-acre BCUA site, partly occupied by a transfer station, Gruel’s plan proposes two possible uses. The land could be redeveloped for use by a “modular home manufacturer or other space-intensive user” with a “showcase area” at the site entrance, an “outdoor storage area” in the rear, loading areas and parking. Or the parcel could be subdivided into three lots containing a 60,000-square-foot building with loading areas and parking “typical of smaller food distribution centers, data centers and other flex space uses.”
Another potential use – one that isn’t part of Gruel’s recommendations – is a recycling center. That idea is being pitched by WSI Management, a Florida company that wants to buy the BCUA plant and reportedly convert it to a solid waste management facility that would generate renewable energy.
However, Councilman Joseph Bianchi has cautioned that the WSI technology is still unproven and that a deed restriction placed on the property at the time of its sale to the New Jersey Meadowlands Commission reportedly forbids its use for garbage processing. Massa, however, has said the borough should consider the proposal.
The NJMC expects to take title to the North Arlington Meadows properties by this fall, with the intent of selling them – along with the BCUA land – to the highest bidder, to be developed in accordance with the borough’s wishes.
The borough is confident the land can be developed for warehousing, for example, to be leased to shippers who could take advantage of the proximity to New York, Newark Airport and highways.
The properties could generate as much as $1 million in annual tax revenues, officials predict.
The Planning Board has 45 days to review the plan and report back to the council with its recommendations after getting public input.
