Middlesex Borough officials are about to engage in a renewed redevelopment effort, asserting they have learned from the missteps of the past, both in their town, but also in surrounding communities.
That was the message of Mayor Jack Mikolajczyk as he answered questions about the coming redevelopment process at the Borough Council’s Tuesday, Jan. 28 meeting.
At the governing body’s reorganization session three weeks earlier, the mayor announced he would reactivate the Economic Development Committee in the first quarter of 2025. The EDC has been dormant for the past half-dozen years.
Officials look to a restarted redevelopment effort to lure tax ratables, hoping to offset revenue lost from homeowner buyouts due to the feds’ floodwall construction.
The last version of the EDC was appointed by then-Mayor Ron DiMura after he was sworn-into office in 2016. That panel did not keep meeting minutes and tended to convene without constituent scrutiny.
Mayor John Madden appointed a Redevelopment Committee in 2020. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, that five-member group met remotely several times to discuss two distribution center projects.
Mikolajczyk said the reorganized EDC will meet in public and keep minutes of those sessions. Past redevelopment efforts in Middlesex and adjacent towns such as Bound Brook and Dunellen have been instructive, he said, on things to avoid such as extensive waivers of parking standards.
In particular, MIkolajczyk referenced the situation at Bound Brook’s Meridia Main Station high-rise. There, a parking squeeze causes some building residents to park their vehicles offsite in nearby Billian-Legion Park.
“We’re not looking to hide anything, that’s for sure,,” Mikolajccyk said of the EDC convening in pubic. “We’re looking to let people know we’re open for business. We need to solicit people to come and invest in our town.”
“We’re being more proactive In the things that we’re doing,” the mayor added. “We’re going to research it more thoroughly because like Einstein said, ‘If you’re doing things the same way and you’re expecting a different result, it’s not going to happen.’ “
“We’ve actually learned from the towns that are nearby us,” the mayor said. “Oh by the way, you can’t put up a six-story building and have (room for only) .5 cars per every building unit. We don’t even have the luxury of a Billion Park where we could put all the cars when we make a mistake like that.”
“We’re a little bit further down the road – not that mistakes can’t happen or won’t happen,” Mikolajczyk said. “But we’re certainly going into it with our eyes open. We certainly are not looking for runaway redevelopment.”
Since 2005 there have been various Middlesex Borough redevelopment studies and updates. Many of the envisioned upgrades in those documents have never come to pass.
The EDC issued a general report in December 2016. An existing Visioning and Redevelopment document and Lincoln Boulevard Redevelopment Plan were both revised in late 2017.
The Lincoln Boulevard report contains recommendations. They included that freestanding parking decks should be permitted, that a buffer zone be created between the redevelopment zone and abutting residential areas, and that outside/sidewalk dining be allowed.
Past redevelopment projects have brought hundreds of thousands of dollars annually into municipal coffers, but have been prone to certain pitfalls.
The Lofts produced a parking problem for the nearby residential neighborhood after it opened. It was later learned that PILOT (Payment in Lieu of Taxes) payments to the municipality by the high-rise’s owners began in 2018 – roughly a year later than they should have. The explanation given was that the borough’s zoning officer had not immediately notified the tax office in 2017 after a certificate of occupancy had been issued.
After it opened, the Amazon distribution center on Baekeland Avenue contributed to an abundance of speeding in a neighborhood roughly a mile away. It eased after police took steps to address the issue. When asked about the problem, council members said the related traffic study had been conducted in the immediate area of the warehouse, not in the affected neighborhood some distance away.
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