Paterson planning board rejects proposal for 122-unit apartment complex on Totowa Avenue
PATERSON — The city planning board has rejected a Brooklyn company’s application to build 122 new apartments on Totowa Avenue in Paterson’s 1st Ward, three blocks from Hinchliffe Stadium and School 5.
“That area is already saturated with traffic, after school, before school, whenever the stadium is being used,” said Mark Fischer, one of the planning board members who voted against the proposal.
Plan rejected in 5-2 vote
Officials said the vote against the plan was 5-2 during a special meeting of the planning board on Monday night.
Paterson Press erroneously reported in a story published on northjersey.com on Feb. 14 that the special meeting had been canceled.
Fischer said the proposal may have had a better chance of getting approved if the plan included fewer apartments. He said one of the planning board members had made that suggestion during Monday night’s meeting, but that the developer didn’t offer to revise the project.
Representatives of the Chars Group, which is based in the Borough Park section of Brooklyn, did not respond to a message seeking comment for this story.
The property at 506-522 Totowa Ave. is in Paterson’s National Park Gateway District. It currently contains a warehouse and a street-level parking area. Chars was seeking to demolish the warehouse and replace it with two five-story buildings, one with 68 apartments and the other with 54.
More from Paterson Press: Could soccer be the key to success for Hinchliffe Stadium?
What did officials say?
Mayor Andre Sayegh did not comment on the planning board denial of the proposed development.
Sayegh has repeatedly highlighted what he says has been $1.5 billion in new investments in Paterson since he became mayor in 2018. But Paterson’s tax base decreased by 4.7% between 2020 and 2023, from $6.375 billion to $6.074 billion, according to public records.
In explaining the reduced tax base amid the surge in development, city officials have said most of the new projects received 20- to 30-year tax abatements. So, the city won’t be collecting full taxes on those developments until the 2040s at the earliest.
Paterson has several other projects under construction that would add hundreds of new apartments, including 138 at the old Paterson Armory location on Market Street, 154 units at the former Greenbaum furniture store in the city’s downtown area, and 171 apartments at the former Passaic County Administration building in South Paterson.
Councilman Michael Jackson, who represents the 1st Ward, where the Totowa Avenue property is located, said 122 parking spaces would not have been enough for that many apartments in an already congested neighborhood.
“There isn’t enough parking in that area already,” Jackson said. “People have to park up on the sidewalks.”
Joe Malinconico is editor of Paterson Press. Email: editor@patersonpress.com
This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Paterson planning board rejects proposal for apartment complex
