North Arlington presented with options to improve business district
“The North Arlington council heard a presentation from the town planner on steps that could mean redeveloping and rehabilitating the business districts in North Arlington. Stan Slachetka of T&M Associates presented three action plans for the borough to advance the redevelopment and rehabilitation objectives.
Slachetka was asked by borough administrator Terence Wall to present to the council a range of options from most aggressive to passive that the borough could use. Slachetka said that elements from each option could be used in coordination with each other.
The one option that garnered the most reaction from the council was targeted redevelopment using eminent domain. This option would allow the borough to target key sites for immediate redevelopment action with Slachetka specifically citing the Ridge Lumber site in his written report to the council.
Under this option, the borough would approach property owners regarding interest in redeveloping their site in accordance with the redevelopment plan. The borough could, if needed, acquire the property by eminent domain and then designate a redeveloper. The next step would then be to issue a request for proposal or request for quotation from developers or negotiate directly with a specific developer.
Going down the path of using eminent domain received pushback from Councilman Richard Hughes.
“I do not like the idea of taking away somebody’s property so that the borough gets more tax revenues. The use of eminent domain ran amok several years ago such that the council passed a resolution that that the borough could not use eminent domain,” Hughes said, referring to Cherokees plans in building Arlington Valley that fell through.”
Hickey, James. North Jersey.com 27 June 2013.