Developer Seeks Major Tax Abatement
Buyers of condos at “The Monarch” could pay only 40 percent of city taxes for five years if a proposed tax abatement plan goes through.
The Monarch at 400 East Front Street has a new senior center and veterans’ center on the ground floor, with 63 two-bedroom condos on three top floors. Sales are being coordinated through an office located across the street and more information is online here.
An ordinance that received initial City Council approval Monday states that the plan is “deemed to be in the City of Plainfield’s best interests” and would “benefit the residents of the City by helping to ensure the sale of the condominium units to bona fide purchasers.” At a May 20 open house for the senior center, developer Glen Fishman said eight condos had been sold.
Although the ordinance authorizes the five-year agreement between the city and P&F Management LLC, Corporation Counsel Dan Williamson said Monday its passage will actually open the door for negotiations with the developer. P&F Management LLC appears to be a successor to Dornoch Plainfield LLC, which negotiated the original development agreement with the city.
The Monarch at 400 East Front Street has a new senior center and veterans’ center on the ground floor, with 63 two-bedroom condos on three top floors. Sales are being coordinated through an office located across the street and more information is online here.
An ordinance that received initial City Council approval Monday states that the plan is “deemed to be in the City of Plainfield’s best interests” and would “benefit the residents of the City by helping to ensure the sale of the condominium units to bona fide purchasers.” At a May 20 open house for the senior center, developer Glen Fishman said eight condos had been sold.
Although the ordinance authorizes the five-year agreement between the city and P&F Management LLC, Corporation Counsel Dan Williamson said Monday its passage will actually open the door for negotiations with the developer. P&F Management LLC appears to be a successor to Dornoch Plainfield LLC, which negotiated the original development agreement with the city.
Council President Rashid Burney said without the tax abatement the condos would be extremely difficult to sell and might become rental units.
The ordinance will be up for a public hearing, second reading and final passage on Aug. 17.
Among commenters at Monday's meeting, resident Nancy Piwowar said her family has paid its taxes in full for 55 years and suggested a one-year tax abatement for people who have been paying taxes for 50 years or more.
"I think we're giving away too much here," said resident and Republican mayoral candidate Jim Pivnichny.
Resident Robert Darden read from a July 2006 newsclip comments by Assemblyman Jerry Green that the senior center/condo project was expected to bring the city $400,000 in taxes annually and that there would be no tax breaks.
A groundbreaking was held for the project in July 2006, with promises of completion within one year. But the developer missed three stated deadlines. Mayor Sharon Robinson-Briggs, who is seeking a second term in the November general election, turned up the heat on the developer as the promised senior center appeared to be stalled. In May, a couple of weeks before the June Democratic primary, the mayor hosted a large celebration in the senior center, which was opened for the day on a temporary certificate of occupancy.
According to Construction Official Joe Minarvich, the developer has until October to complete the project before being in default of an agreement with the city and the Union County Improvement Authority. The agreement was signed in January 2007, but the two-year time frame for completion did not start until construction permits were obtained in October 2007.
The condos were originally priced at $300,000, but were reduced to $199,000 as the housing market collapsed. Various amenities can be added to the basic model at additional cost. Tax liability begins when a certificate of occupancy is issued, but with questions remaining on the overall tax picture, the council will ask Tax Assessor Tracy Bennett to the next agenda session for clarifications.
--Bernice Paglia
posted by Bernice at 11:32 PM
16 Comments:
Why is it that Plainfield always feels as though it has to bend over backwards and be second class.
1- Do other towns that have condos that are not selling giving tax abatements?
2- The housing units are going to lower middle class people. Do I really want to give them a tax break? Are we not perpetuating the housing crisis further? If you buy a house, you buy it so that you can afford it - taxes and all.
3- Aren't we being short sighted? The housing crisis will not last forever - some say it has bottomed in this area already. The direct train to NY is on the horizon. Do we want to give away the ranch at this time.
Let's focus on what is important which is making this city a desirable place to live, and the people will come and pay more than 400K. Get this city cleaned up - if you are going to give tax abatements - give it to businesses - and not hair salon - wireless phone - low end restaurants.
Rashid Burney says that these condos will become rental units if this 5 year partial tax abatement
is not put into effect. However, he does not support his opinion with facts-only one liners!!! Is he another GG go-with-the-flow politican who fails to support his decesions with quantitative analysis? Oh, I forgot next year is relection time for Mr. Burney. Shame on him!!
unfortunately, hair salons, wireless phone, low-end restaurants are the businesses in Plainfield.....oh, and let's not forget bail bonds and tattoo parlors....
class.
The condo project is nice.Give away the store over it ???? NO WAY. They either sell those condo's or the bank takes the building. There is the solution. If you want the city to be better, like previous comments ----- ZONING....You make the city the way you want the city to look. You put a strangle hold on landlords and business dictating what can go where and what it can look like. Grandfather the existing business in, with an clause that ANY change to exteriors must be brought into line with the zoning restrictions. You dictate how close certain business can be, what the awnings will look like, how many signs per square foot can fill up the windows. IT IS POSSIBLE. The City of Saratoga in Upstate NY did this 40 yrs ago when their town was at rock bottom. It is now the premier place to live and vacation. How did they make their city so beautiful... Z O N I N G . Bit by bit the city will begin to be cleaned up and the way it looks in other towns. No tax abatement should be granted to the condo project. I agree with one of the previous comments regarding tax abatements to existing business if you feel the need to give someone a tax break.
"Council President Rashid Burney said without the tax abatement the condos would be extremely difficult to sell and might become rental units."
How dare he suggest this! Is he kidding? What about those of us who have been paying our taxes every single year? Where's OUR abatement? If Burney and the council goes through with this, they will see a taxpayer revolt like they have NEVER seen before as we simply refuse to pay our city taxes! The call for a petition is already being made! TAX REVOLT!
Another failed project brought to us by the Union County Improvement Authority. Besides this type of tax abatement being wholly unfair to the rest of the taxpayers of this City, would it even be constitutional? If it goes through, I think you will see more than just unhappy taxpayers. I think you will see a revolt.
I'm already getting correspondence about this. Will there be a tax revolt in Plainfield, which is what I'm hearing?
Rebecca
Thanks, Bernice, for an excellent report on the Monarch discussions that took place last night at the City Council meeting. You could have also mentioned that the city already gave the developer a generous inducement to go forward with this project buy selling him the land for $1.00. This amounts to a gift of several hundred thousand dollars, perhaps more. This amounts to a loss of revenue that directly impacts all of the city's taxpayers. Isn't this amount enough? Many people may think that this is already too much, and in retrospect, so do I.
If I buy a condo in a different development in town will I get a tax abatement? How on earth can this possibly be justified? Or, are they just "floating" this possibly dire consequence in order to gauge public reaction so that we'll feel relieved at a more middle of the road decision? That's par for the course with this mayor and council president. At the next meeting lets see what their reaction is to residents who say they will only pay 40% of their city taxes. I wouldn't be surprised if they really want to give a 20% or 10% per cent abatement, but are floating 40% percent so that less seems "reasonable." 0% tax abatement is the only option. So much for the mayor doing this for the seniors. Senior space attached to a commercial property would have been a much better idea.
1. The mayor and city council president Blanco gave the developer the land for $1.
2. The mayor and city council president Burney want to give a 40%tax abatement to anyone who buys one of these condos. Where is Burney's analysis of this? Why is he jumping to conclusions about rentals? Why won't he take a hard line here? No spine is what got us here.
3. Why don't I sell my house and buy one of these condos and get a 40% tax break?
This is the most ignorant proposal I have ever heard, to punish us Plainfield homeowners for paying our taxes by giving a favored developer and county development agency a tax break. This whole deal looks more and more like a scam. Let the bank take the building if they can't sell the units. That's what happens when people go into foreclosure. I blame the mayor and councilors who signed on to this deal. The mayor was pandering to the seniors but now we see that the city could have gotten space in the bottom floor of a commercial building for a senior center and paid probably less rent than the 13% condo share fees will be. Smart move.
Does anyone have a dollar figure on what a 40% city tax abatement means per condo owner, per year?
Council President Burney, who appeared to favor the plan, or at least wasn't openly hostile to it, needs to explain in his blog exactly why this makes sense for Plainfield, because right now it just seems like a cross between government bail-out and developer extortion.
I would ask the mayor's office for an explanation, but, well, you know, I would actually like to get one.
Bernice,
The Monarch condos are listed as being from $235,000 to $293,000 on the website of Sleepy Hollow Realtors, who are selling them. That is a very different number from $199,000. Maybe the high price is part of the problem. I know that if these new owners are given an abatement I will be at the city tax office to get papers for an abatement of my own.
Bernice, in 2007 the Union County Improvement Authority bought a property from Jerry Green on St Georges in Linden for a development project that never came about. He bragged that he had bought it for $60,000 and sold it for about $700,000. He said this last year at his Washington School forum on the Muhlenberg closing when he brought in a developer to discuss turning the hospital into a medical mall.
I believe that the county will let this project fail and meanwhile the developer here was sold the building for a single dollar. What does the city get from this? If they turn the building into rentals we won;t see anything near the $400,000 in taxes they promised the building could potentially bring.
Incompetence. Corruption. Insanity. Plainfield needs to wake up. The though of even raising this issue is an insuly to me as a taxpayer. This administration and Burney has no regards for the people in Plainfield. We still have a chance to vote them both out.
The people of Plainfield had a choice. They once again voted for the incompetence and corruption of the Robinson-Briggs administration. I pray that the people of Plainfield wake up and get it. This proposal is an insult to all of us.
Yikes, Under no circumstances can we let the developer not make as much money as they want !! Give 90% tax abatement if needed !!
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