The Bayonne City Council is contemplating extending the closing period for a valuable piece of property slated for redevelopment on the former Military Ocean Terminal at Bayonne (MOTBY).
The intersection of 40th Street and Chosin Few Way in Bayonne. Photo via Google Maps.
By Dan Israel/Hudson County View
They are also seeking environmental consultants in regards to remediating a Brownfield site at Constable Hook, as officials detailed at yesterday’s caucus meeting.
First, the governing body advanced a resolution to execute a purchase and sale agreement between Bayonne and Centre Street Redeveloper LLC – affiliates of Kushner Real Estate (KRE) Group – for property off of the intersection of 40th Street and Chosin Few Way.
The site is an empty plot of land surrounded clockwise by warehouses to the north and east including Amazon, Harbor Pointe condominiums, a makeshift truck parking lot to the south, Bayonne Fire Department Station 5, the Costco, and the Bay 151 apartments to the west – also a product of the KRE Group.
“Currently, the purchase and sale agreement is structured so that the closing on the property will be September 30. The amendment would move the closing date back to December 31, so the end of the calendar year,” said Business Administrator Andrew Casais.
He continued that none of the other terms of the agreement will change, other than the mandatory closing date to “give the city additional time to consider its options.”
The council also advanced a resolution authorizing the award of a professional service contract to Onterris, Inc. for environmental consulting services in support of preliminary assessment and final site investigation of the Route 440 site in the Constable Hook Brownfield Development Area.
The contract would not exceed $107,687, the resolution says.
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, a brownfield is a property where expansion, redevelopment or reuse may be complicated by the presence or potential presence of a hazardous substance, pollutant or contaminant.
Casais then interjected to note that Bayonne is one of the few municipalities in the state with a designated Brownfield development area.
“A lot of times, the words Brownfield has been used in a negative connotation,” Casais acknowledged.
“It’s much more of an opportunity and the situation has changed. So having a Brownfield designated area, which Constable Hook in Bayonne is one of them, opens us up to about $5 million of grant funding a year to do investigative and remedial activities in these areas.”
According to Casais, part of the $5 million allocated to municipalities with Brownfields like Bayonne is dispersed through grants like one the council also advanced earlier in the caucus meeting.
“We received a grant for exactly $107,687 which will completely offset the cost of this remedial investigation of city-owned property in the Brownfield Development Area,” Casais added.
“Part of the preliminary assessment site investigation is you have to go in there and you’re seeing what kind of contaminants are on the property, what are we contending with there. In terms of what the perspective future uses are, what would it take to make it a park, a residential project, a commercial project, an industrial site? What is the pathway to get there?”
Casais said that if the city needs more funding, they can go back to the EDA through the Hazardous Discharge Site Remediation Fund (HDSRF).
“Unfortunately, once you go in the ground, a lot of times you find surprising things and the surprises are not always great,” he explained.
“A lot of times, they drive up the cost. So this $107,000 could go up. It could go down. But the nice thing that we have is that Brownfield designation in this area, which opens us up to additional grant funding.”
Once proof is provided that more money is needed, the city can get preferential treatment to additional grant funds.
“Preferential treatment is probably not the word the state uses, but I’m going to use it because that’s what we get,” Casais said.
“So, not the most exciting thing in the world, but I just wanted to call out that this is not a burden on the local taxpayer. It’s part of a larger plan for that area.”
The Bayonne council will convene for a regular meeting at City Hall, 630 Avenue C, on Wednesday at 6 p.m., which will also stream live on the City’s YouTube channel.
