The False Promise Made by the Current Township Council.
For the last eight years, this council has kept the residential property tax flat.
This practice put the residents to sleep and caused them to continue to elect council persons who kept this promise. When they woke up they found hundreds of new residents intown and plans in place to bring in many more hundreds of new residents with no plan to enhance the infrastructure so that we could continue to keep the quality suburban life style that we all moved here for, intact.
When a community’s infrastructure is exceeded, congestion in all aspects of community will take place. Let us examine the true beneficiaries of this flat tax.
Developers come to communities where they can make the most profit. They are not concerned about the quality of life.
Let us imagine that regular residents were required to pay an additional one percent on their taxes:
Tax liability is $10,000 annually
A one percent increase is $100.00
An eight-year increase is approximately $800 00.
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By contrast, let us imagine a commercial tax liability of $5,000,000.
A one percent increase is approximately $50,000.00
An eight-year increase is approximately $400,000.00
In the case of these commercial properties the one percent increase which would have been in the expense column is retained in the profit column of the ledger. But that is just the start of how our town now manages its relationships with developers.
Developers are particularly interested in communities who declare Areas in Need of Improvement (AINRs) and opportunities where the township government is interested in providing them with Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILOTs). Both of these designations allow for tax breaks and the suspension some of the usual state mandated requirements such as the selection of the lowest bidder. So those breaks mean that we regular taxpayers make up the difference while the developers add additional increments to their bottom line profits.
Most of us moved to Teaneck to take advantage of the numerous amenities offered by this township that are not offered by surrounding townships. We made the decision to pay higher taxes to support these amenities to ensure a quality suburban life style.
· Full time paid fire department.
· Library
· Volunteer ambulance corps
· Recreation Center, Parks and Open Spaces
· Manageable traffic flow
· Accessible commuter bus capacities
· Low density housing
· Professional Police department
· Uncrowded public and private schools
· DPW
Even were dense development to bring real revenue to the township, overdevelopment destroys the suburban quality of life in the community.
Adding a couple of thousand new residents to the community without any plans to upgrade the community’s infrastructure and deficiencies will quickly eliminate the quality of life reasons for moving here in the first place.
· It will take the fire department just a little bit longer to get to your fire
· The library will become a less responsive facility.
· The volunteer ambulance will take longer to get to your emergency.
· Many people will not be able to attend the programs that they are interested in because of limited capacity at the recreation center.
· Traffic congestion: Teaneck roads are mostly two lanes in both directions but narrow down to one lane often.
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It is almost impossible to safely make a left turn on North Teaneck Road from any of the side streets that do not have traffic signals. There is no plan to widen this roadway.
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Route 4 narrows down to two lanes east bound in Teaneck causing a traffic problem. There are no immediate plans to widen route 4 east bound in Teaneck.
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If plans go forward to develop the Stop and Shop area this will cause a traffic problem on Cedar Lane.
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If plans go forward to add density to State Street and Teaneck Road and West Englewood Avenue and the site of the old recreation center at 1425 Teaneck Road this will cause very serious traffic concerns in an area that is already under stress due to high traffic volume.
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If the DPW site on River Road is developed with multi-family apartment buildings it will cause traffic concerns on River Road. Additionally due to the contamination and flooding problems at this site, the developers, in order to make a profit the buildings will have to be so tall that they will cast a shadow on the homes on the other side of River Road from noon to sunset every day.
· New Jersey Transit has already maxed out on commuter bus capacity on Teaneck Road and more people will have to use their cars to get to work.
This council has rejected proposals to develop low density one family housing. Instead during the past eight years it has:
COMPLETED: the extended stay hotel, 1500 Teaneck Road, 1475 Palisade Avenue, the Avalon Bay project on Windsor Road, the small development on Teaneck Road and Fort Lee Road and the small development on New Bridge Road.
IN PROGRESS:
The HOLUBA townhouse project, the developments on Alfred Avenue (with their Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILOT) arrangements).
PROPOSED PROJECTS
The Stop and Shop area development will cause a significant access and egress problem and a major traffic concern on Cedar Lane.
The proposed additional developments on State Street and the senior citizens project on Teaneck Road will seriously impact a neighborhood that is already over-crowded.
The designation of State Street and the Stop and Shop Areas Need of Redevelopment (AINR’s) open the door for developers to ignore the usual bidding requirements and pay less than the annual assessed valuation for the property.
We need a new set of eyes to lead our community and to maintain a suburban quality of life.
· We need to move away from using dense development to meet our tax liabilities.
We should utilize available opportunities to develop single family homes. This will enhance the suburban quality of life.
· The township momentarily had an opportunity to expand the recreation center but we did not follow through on that opportunity. The new council should look for other ways to expand this facility.
· We need to work with the county to expand Teaneck Road to two lanes in both directions from Liberty Road to Fort Lee Road. This may require a few feet of the public right of way on both sides of the road.
· We need to work with the state to expand route 4 to three east bound lanes to reduce congestion as it enters Teaneck.
· We need to work with New Jersey Transit to increase the number of commuter busses on Teaneck Road during rush hour.
· We need to seek a Power Purchase Agreement with an electric company to put solar panels over municipal parking lots and other available practical sites. This could come at no cost to the township but would provide us with a much lower public electric bill.
· We need to seek out high end retail stores for our shopping areas. (like Englewood). This would keep more of our shoppers in town. Star Bucks was once very interested in coming to Cedar Lane but the deal did not work out. We recently lost a Chase Bank Branch on Cedar Lane. At the moment the only retail that will bring a lot of out-of-town shoppers to our community is the proposed cannabis establishment where ever it is finally located.
· We must figure out a way to keep residential taxes low and build a vibrant commercial base.
· We must expand the collaborative purchasing opportunities by working with the hospital, the university and the school district. We could expand this collaboration to include Englewood and Hackensack.
For several years prior to 2006 Teaneck had gathered hundreds of residents together in work groups to create Pathways to the Future. Pathways to the Future was the visioning that inclusively drew together residents from every one of Teaneck’s diverse communities. Its work groups had assessed every aspect of Town life. The final report of this project was published and ready for implementation by the spring of 2006.
Instead, the 2006 election resulted in the selection of new Mayor Elie Y. Katz whose Council immediately killed the Pathways Project and instead no-bid contracted an expensive economic development plan that was the basis for what has evolved into a Council-led program to over-develop Teaneck by declaring various locations as area of blight.
We are ready for a new Council majority – Rise for Teaneck on Column Two,
2, 3,4, and 5; We can now choose the leadership to forge a renewed suburban quality of life in which we will all thrive.
Henry Pruitt October 15, 2022 !
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