Last week Teaneck Voices reported its research into the near and long-term economic consequences of the Town’s allowing developers in its AINR areas to agree with the Town to use payment in lieu of taxes (PILOT) rules and thus not pay taxes to the Town based on the value of their planned developments. Our research showed that the Town would be the loser – big time. It will take FAR MORE Township $ to service the new residents moving into the massive rental facilities now being proposed than the Town will receive.

This week, Teaneck Voices has been exploring whether the AINR designation and implementation of an AINR development scheme will quickly and, efficiently improve neighborhoods that, for whatever reason, Council picked to be investigated for blight.

Specifically, what evidence is there that, if neighborhood betterment is the goal, AINR designation gets the job done better and sooner than, for example, investing in more active health and code enforcement carried out by Town compliance officers?

These compliance officers could be equipped with modest discretionary financial resources and empowered to connect property owners with the successful County Division of Community Development’s Home Improvement Program Click Here.

The simple answer to those questions is that we now have evidence about how ineffective, costly and slow AINRs are proving to be. Deputy Mayor Schwartz, in the PB public hearing where the Block 4905 AINR was considered and approved, estimated that AINR might bring that neighborhood relief in 5 to 6 years. As we will see, some of the property owners who had maintained their homes did not buy it – and accused this Council of making a land grab.

To date, the AINR program initiated 4 years ago (October 2018) has yielded a hole in the ground at Alfred and Decatur that Margaret Baker and her neighbors say has ruined their residential neighborhood and promises (given that AINR’s PILOT agreement) to cost tax payers far more every year than it generates in revenue.

By contrast, every time trying a neighborhood betterment policy implemented by stronger code enforcement carried out by dedicated and well-trained enforcement personnel has been proposed by members of Council (Councilwoman Rice preceded by former Councilman Pruitt), the suggestion has been shouted down by a Council chorus led by Deputy Mayor Katz. It never has even gotten to a vote! DM Katz has consistently equated code enforcement with town-wide neighborhood “snitching”, but without presenting any anecdotal let alone real evidence.

Since compliance has been off the table, we acknowledge how little evidence we have for the relative success of either approach.

But Teaneck Voices has looked carefully at how the Council-proposed AINR designation at Block 4905 (21 lots at West Englewood & Teaneck Road) was studied and decided.

Let’s do a quick review of thatAINR’s lots and then track them on a map. Of the 22 Lots Council asked the PB to investigate for blight, the planner, Keenan Hughes, reported finding that 5 of the Council-proposed lots met NONE of the state’s criteria for blight. (All of them were well-maintained residential homes.) So Planner Hughes literally excised those 5 from the proposed AINR areas. That left 16 lots

Next, the planner found that 5 of the remaining 16 lots were well-maintained. But he left them in the designated blighted area ONLY because they were located “in the midst” of lots that he found did meet the blighted criteria.

So only half of the lots Council had proposed be called blighted actually were blighted.

Next, Teaneck Voices has gone back and carefully reviewed the actual Hughes report to see just how significantly blighted the remaining 11 “blighted” lots were. We wanted to see what caused those 11 to be identified because we were interested in the question: what if the Town, through both compliance efforts and very limited financial assistance, reached out to help those property owners maintain and improve their properties – and thus improve some additional lots so that they could be rated well maintained.

From what Planner Hughes had identified, perhaps another 5 lots could, with less than $5K in assistance and some focused help in parking enforcement, be lifted out of the blighted category. And then, for properties with more significant deficiencies, what if the Town worked with the property owners and the County Home Improvement program to get 3-4 more sites into well-maintained status.

Is it true that from the 22 lots that Council wanted to call blighted, we could have a nearly fully bettered neighborhood for $25K and a bit of County cooperation? We would have an almost completely bettered neighborhood and have done so within 18 months – not 6 years. And what about the comparative cost of this compliance approach rather than proceeding with the implementation of AINR redevelopment?

Let’s map out what we have just said about improving the 4905 Block AINR.