Jersey Journal file photo Steve Hyman, right, with his lawyer Arthur D'Italia at a Jersey City council caucus meeting to discuss their plans for the Sixth Street Embankment in November, 2007.
Three-way negotiations continue over the fate of the Sixth Street Embankment in Jersey City.
Sidebar tactics include: court filings; the developer seeking permission to rip down the granite walls of the defunct railroad turnaround to build housing; and the City Council endorsing a recently proposed state bill.
On Feb. 11, the City Council voted 8-0 to support an Assembly bill that would require railroad companies to negotiate in good faith with municipalities when selling railroad right-of-way land that is proposed for abandonment. Journal Square Councilman Steve Lipski, a close friend of the site's owner, developer Steve Hyman, was absent.
The primary sponsor of the bill is Assemblyman L. Harvey Smith, D-Jersey City.
In the meantime, negotiations continue between Hyman, the Embankment Preservation Coalition, and Jersey City over a potential development agreement for the elevated stretch along Sixth Street, from Marin Boulevard to Brunswick Street.
The coalition volunteers want to preserve the 6-acre stretch as open space. Mayor Jerramiah T. Healy wants a combination of open space and a light rail link, for which no money has been allocated. And Hyman -- whose wife, Victoria, purchased the property from Conrail for $3 million in 2005 -- wants to build housing.
His most recent proposal is to develop the easternmost block of the embankment with about 600 units, donate the next five blocks to the city for parkland and a light rail line, and develop a portion of land west of the embankment, across Newark Avenue.
But just in case this plan doesn't fly -- and so far it hasn't -- Hyman plans to ask the Historic Preservation Commission on March 2 for permission to rip down the embankment walls to proceed with his initial plan to build two-family homes.
Last March, Hudson County Assignment Judge Maurice Gallipoli ruled that the city must consider Hyman's permit applications. The city has appealed the decision to federal court.
Hovering over all of this is a ruling in August 2007 by the obscure federal Surface Transportation Board, which determined that Conrail never properly abandoned the site.
Attorneys hired by the city believe the ruling could mean that Hyman no longer owns the land and the city has to be given the opportunity to buy it.
All of this is still tied up in court.
"We've made a lot of proposals trying to make both Jersey City and the Embankment (Preservation) Coalition happy while accommodating the need for a greenway and a light rail. But they haven't agreed to anything," Hyman said. "I'm just trying to develop what the LLC has the right to develop."
Jersey City Corporation Counsel Bill Matsikoudis said: "We will continue to pursue a settlement that would preserve the embankment, a greenway and a transportation corridor."
Stephen Gucciardo, president of the Embankment Preservation Coalition, remains wary of Hyman's latest proposal.
"The devil is in the details of what is presented," Gucciardo said. "We are hoping that there can be some more specific information about size of buildings, footprints of buildings, the number of parking spaces and a lot of other details that will show us that what is being proposed is actually doable."