The Powerhouse Arts District of Jersey City
Jersey City. Arts capital of New Jersey? It’s been called that. These days though some JC artists feel they are getting short-changed by the city. They feel the city has not followed through on commitments — via various zoning laws and provisions for developers — to provide affordable live/work artist studios. I’ve read the entire Powerhouse Arts District Redevelopment Plan (PADRP), and I must say that it is troublesome. Looking at the document from a macro view, it is very easy to accuse it and its framers of elitism. It seeks to create a special class of Jersey City citizens — qualified artists — that should be protected from free-market real estate forces on the sole proposition that these artists somehow are inherently more capable of contributing to the overall good of a community than any other type of citizen in the community. It also seeks to provide the type of haven to artists that other groups of obviously more needy people never get. The elderly, the physically and mentally handicapped, the blind, the deaf, should all be so lucky to have a municipality equally concerned for their special housing needs. When finished reading the PADRD, you cannot help but feel that the people that wrote it see themselves as victims looking to create a below market price real estate sanctuary onto themselves.
The PADRP rests on some very questionable legal grounds. Mainly, is it fair and just to make affordable housing available only to a very small and select group of low to middle income people, and not to all people of low and middle income? Poor people have always resided in JC, long before any artists had. The qualifications to be considered an artist by the PADRP and thus eligible for the special housing offerings are not that strict. In fact, it reads as though you only need to practice your art as a committed hobbyist rather than as a working professional. You can sell used cars by day and as long as you sketch out a drawing or two each and every month and show them to your friends, you’re an artist! By PADRD metrics, I myself qualify as an artist of three disciplines: writing, film/video, and photography. Yet in a recent Jersey Journal front page article, it is noted that many of the new live/work artist units available are not being snapped up by the glut of eligible artist applicants. Instead it seems many of the artists have not been following through with the required paperwork. The city and the building owners are now starting to allow anyone with the proper income requirements to apply for and occupy these units. Which is a good thing because empty affordable housing is perhaps even more offensive than no affordable housing at all.
The PADRD’s complex zoning restrictions certainly do not make the area a very appealing one to developers as it will cost a lot of money to meet all the requirements. But that might have been the point of the PADRP, to preserve the status quo of a blighted, toxic industrial area so a small group of people could continue to live and work on the cheap. But now that JC has become a very desirable place to live — which is not entirely due to the artists and arts community, as the PADRP and local JC artists would have you believe — even toxic, industrial land lots are now seen as diamonds in the rough. (And before we do anything else, let’s all please stop and pause to reflect at just how great that is!) Let’s face it, it’s the PATH train with its easy access to New York City that makes JC and its real estate so desirable, not its art or culture. The same market forces that shape New York City are going to shape JC too, it’s unavoidable. Regrettable to some perhaps, but we should remember that New York City is considered the greatest city in the world. We all have to figure out how to adapt to this changing environment and not expect the environment to adapt to our particular needs: in case you haven’t noticed that’s how it works, that’s how it has worked, and that’s how it will always work. One fact of economics, real estate development, and politics is that most municipalities seek to develop land so as to increase their tax revenues. A city like JC needs all the tax dollars it can get to improve its educational system, its social services, its public works, and to fund various government departments like its fire and police departments. When a company like the Toll Brothers seeks to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to create properties that will provide the kind of property tax dollars that might actually help improve all wards of JC, it is very hard for the city to take the marginal concerns of a very small group of artist all that seriously.
The Toll Brothers actual do seek to meet many of the art and culture requirements of the PADRP. Sure not all of them, but again, a reading of the intricacies of the PADRP makes it clear that it is impossible for any developer or group of developers to hit every one of those nails on the head. The Toll Brothers proposed changes are really not that drastic; many are practical considerations regarding building materials. In one case they would like the option to use aluminum instead of wrought iron. In another, they want to reduce the width of some of the parking lots from nine feet to eight-and-a-half feet. Yes they want to make some of the buildings taller so they can recoup their sizeable investment by having more units to sell at market prices. The nature and scope of the redevelopment outlined in the PADRP is going to cost huge sums of money. So far, it seems that the Toll Brothers are the only developers that wish to make the investment in the Powerhouse District and are willing to work within the vast majority of the PADRP regulations. It can only be expected that any organization like the Toll Bothers is going to have some changes in mind. Let’s not forget that the entire PADRP could easily be voted out of existence by the JC legislature, and the Powerhouse District could become one of many things that would be far, far worse than what the Toll Brothers are proposing.
To have a thriving art and cultural scene in any city, you need to have a lot of residents in that city. The more people that live here in JC, the larger the demand becomes for art and culture. Residents of JC often complain that there are too few good bars, restaurants, and shops to be found locally. More are needed they say. Yet most of the local bars, restaurants, and shops are hardly booming. Their owners are anxiously awaiting the population growth spurt destined for JC as new housing is built and occupied. These business owners understand that more residents here equals more economic stability for them. Why don’t the artists here in JC comprehend this basic principle? Surely not all artists wish to remain starving do they? If they do, well then they are going to have to do so somewhere else, as most of us like to eat.
Overall the PADRP could be a great thing. Its only major tweak should be that the affordable housing be made available to all people and not strictly reserved for qualified artists. I foresee minor concessions being made by current Powerhouse District residents, the Toll Brothers, and city officials as they are all fundamentally on the same page.
