Bayonne Mayoral Questionnaire

If the developer doesn't want to include affordable units, they are not welcome in Bayonne. New Jersey needs new supply at a price our residents can afford, not more luxury apartments meant for people leaving New York City.

I would support requiring an affordable housing set-aside in future residential PILOT agreements, provided the policy is structured in a way that produces meaningful affordability while still allowing projects to remain financially viable and move forward. The goal should be to ensure new development contributes to housing opportunities for working families and seniors without discouraging investment that benefits Bayonne overall.

This needs to be coordinated with public policy and a new master plan. My answer is that new development should include EITHER a set aside OR community benefit payment and the final answer as to which applies in a specific development depends on location and how the project fits into our neighborhoods and special purpose districts outlined in a new master plan. I would make certain that our city ordinances include such language and it would be predicated on the special purpose zone impacted and specific community needs in that area as to whether added units or cash payment into the affordable housing trust is best for our residents.

First of all, we need to leverage the money in our affordable housing trust fund to rehab existing units. Second, mixed use development focused on transit village zoning would be my priority, because it's not only wealthy residents that should get to live near public transit. The whole premise of the Light Rail was supposed to be making travel around our region more affordable, not a trolley for the rich. Bayonne is key to the Light Rail's original mission of reducing reliability on cars, and with the way the world is going I think as people see the increasing price in gas they will feel more and more tempted to change their lifestyles accordingly.

1. Inclusionary zoning tied to growth areas. Adopt or strengthen an inclusionary zoning ordinance requiring a set percentage of affordable units in new multi-family developments—especially along transit corridors and redevelopment zones like the waterfront and areas near the 34th Street light rail. This aligns new housing with infrastructure while meeting Mount Laurel doctrine obligations.

2. Redevelopment + adaptive reuse. Designate underutilized or city-owned sites (vacant lots, obsolete industrial properties) as redevelopment areas and partner with developers to build mixed-income housing. Prioritize scattered-site infill across neighborhoods to avoid overconcentration, ensuring affordability is integrated citywide rather than isolated.

This is major tenet of my vision for the future of Bayonne. WE NEED A NEW MASTER PLAN. Additionally, we must combine public policy, planning and finance to focus on creating NEW affordable housing units. Currently we work closely with our Bayonne Housing Authority to address both the rehabilitation of affordable housing projects and most recently looking at building new units. It should be noted that Bayonne exceeds its obligations with respect to the Mount Laurel obligations, and I believe this puts us in a great position to start addressing new units. This requires doing a city wide needs assessment, in preparation for a new master plan document. I want to have specific special purposes zoning areas, such as a financial area, transit hubs, medical community around the hospital, arts and entertainment, historic and the like. Mapping out special purpose districts will change the dynamics of development and redevelopment in our city. It gives control back to the city in deciding what is appropriate in a specific area vs. a helter skelter free for all approach to development.

PILOTs can be a tool for good, but many times are abused to line the pockets of politicians. Positive examples of PILOT provisions can include the building of new development-adjacent green spaces that are open to an entire community, as well as cash infusions toward environmental remediation or other short-term expenses. Because PILOTs sap so much money from the education system, establishing a trust fund to divert part of those payments to our boards of education like Hoboken does is also a good example.

However, obviously PILOTs can be abused. For example, after the Gamal Group wrote Loyad Booker a $2,600 check, he voted to award them a 25-year PILOT to build luxury apartments with zero affordable units, which means Bayonne taxpayers are paying Gamal to build homes our own residents will not be able to afford. The best way to prevent this from happening is to take a stance against developer influence in politics and give yourself more leverage to actually negotiate. If, at the end of the day, the developer's plan doesn't serve our particular needs, they don't have to build in Bayonne.

No, I don't agree that PILOT agreements are simply giveaways to developers. When used properly, they're a tool to turn underutilized or vacant properties into productive assets that generate steady revenue for the city—often more predictably than conventional taxes on land that might otherwise sit undeveloped. That said, I don't support open-ended negotiations or vague promises of community givebacks; every PILOT should have clear, upfront terms, with defined contributions to the city, including support for a housing trust fund where appropriate. The focus should be on transparency, accountability, and ensuring residents can see exactly how these agreements deliver real, measurable benefits to Bayonne.

I was a long time critic but now have a slightly different perspective. First we need to control what kind, how much, how fast and where new PILOT development occurs. But PILOTs bring more money into city coffers than conventional taxes for a specified period of time and it transforms fallow land into something productive in our community. It is the county that gets less of the tax dollars and it will ultimately need to be make up the difference to meet its obligations somehow. We need a long range plan for how we will survive after the PILOTs are done and what we may have to do when the county needs to make up the declining tax dollars. PILOTs should not be a permanent way of building a community, and I'd prefer to see more emphasis on commercial PILOTs rather than residential. We want to bring more jobs into town, not just new residents. All this development puts an inordinate amount of strain on an aging—at capacity—infrastructure for roads, water and sewer, gas and electric. Again, this is why a new master plan is imperative.

Hudson County has recently approved a feasibility study of BRT along JFK Boulevard, which I support. But our residents are also wary of overdevelopment and traffic implications. 14A is already a massive bottleneck that interferes with people's lives on a daily basis. We'd need to incentivize the conversion of single family homes midway down JFK Boulevard into missing middle housing in order to do responsible upzoning that doesn't necessarily impact the existing traffic bottlenecks at 14A and the bridge.

That's on my wish list—but until those pieces fall into place, this is why I was so strategic about development down at the base, relentless in advocating for a ferry to finally get built there, and pushing for smarter traffic patterns in that area. Any increased density would be tied to affordable housing, open space, pedestrian safety improvements, infrastructure upgrades and real community benefits.

No explanation provided.

Yes, this is essential and best addressed with a broad needs assessment and new master plan in terms of designating specific areas.

All of the above, but specifically the traffic mitigation. Traffic management plan to prevent cut through traffic on resident streets and clear truck routing to keep heavy trucks off our local roads continued coordination and enforcement. There is no way we can seriously entertain narrowing our own roads to accommodate bike lanes (which many people want to see) if the state is about to make the 14A bottleneck worse.

I would make Bayonne's cooperation contingent on clear, enforceable protections and investments from the New Jersey Turnpike Authority tied to the Newark Bay Bridge reconstruction:

Noise + quality-of-life protections: Require modern noise barriers, air-quality monitoring, and restricted overnight construction near residential areas.

Local traffic mitigation: NJTA should fund traffic officers, signal timing upgrades, and truck-routing enforcement to keep cut-through traffic out of neighborhoods.

Pedestrian & bike investments: Secure dedicated funding for safer crossings, protected bike lanes, and connections to the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail so residents have alternatives during construction.

One positive: This project is a chance to deliver long-overdue infrastructure upgrades—if negotiated properly, Bayonne can come out of it with safer streets, better transit connections, and improvements that last well beyond the construction period.

I am not convinced the Newark Bay Bridge reconstruction continues to fit our needs after the state recently declared it was no longer doing two bridges. However, I am involved in monthly meetings addressing concerns with NJTA and their engineers and our Municipal Services Department. These meetings recently got awkward once the new Governor changed the plans. Bayonne is still fighting for the two bridge resolution. The delaying or denial of this significantly impacts Global Terminal, Royal Caribbean port, USPS expansion and our long awaited film production studio the jobs and our economy as well as traffic and safety. Despite the bridge confusion there are several components of long term control plans that still must be addressed in this immediate area which will still impact traffic patterns.

No explanation provided.

No explanation provided.

In principle I would commit to this. It is important to know specific details, and unfortunately, I am uncomfortable expressing anything else at the moment without benefit of details. But these are definitely items we need to address for our community for modernization of transportation access—basically there is none in Bayonne at the moment. As with the vision zero plan, I believe there is much to gain from working with a countywide plan in this regard.

This is something I'd work with the County with and ask them to take the lead on. It's true that our longest roads are still crash corridors (although not as bad as they used to be); however, the roads that belong to the County are still almost 3x more likely to produce crashes according to their own Vision Zero report. They must be partners in this conversation and no Vision Zero plan will happen without them at the table.

No explanation provided.

Frankly, I would begin with collaborating with our Police Department/Traffic Control as well as the Hudson County Sheriff's office to expand upon the plan they have been working and perhaps this could be a shared service arrangement throughout the county. It would make more sense to share the vision and the cost and have a cohesive county wide plan. There is a lot of technology and planning costs associated with this and it should not be an impediment to adopting a formal policy and monitoring its effectiveness. There is no doubt that this is an important public health/public safety issue. I would commit to working on an adoptable plan and implementing it.

Speed tables are a good temporary solution before any PBL exploration, mostly because of the associated costs. Right now Bayonne has a multimillion dollar deficit and until we get a Mayor and Council in there who can seriously negotiate with developers, there are financial barriers to "all of the above" strategies. Traffic adjustments can be secured through PILOT negotiations.

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Food aisles in shop rite are also dangerous when scooters come flying through the store. This is a multi-pronged problem and solution. This is something I would prioritize and would also be a component of a master plan.

The fiscal reality of a municipality that often gets left out of the conversation is that we often lack the financial support to take on large projects. Therefore, Bay1-X and 440-X are probably more feasible than explicitly local projects because by considering projects that cross municipal borders we can tap into state and county dollars.

I don't understand the references below. I will find out more, but cannot answer this moment except to say Bayonne is a peninsula. We have a lot of waterfront and should be celebrating this by providing more access for residents and visitors.

Green fund paid for by new development.

I believe our parks should reflect the pride we have in Bayonne. I will fight to bring in state and federal funding so we're not relying only on local taxes, and I'll build partnerships with businesses to invest back into our community spaces.

I will make sure we have a clear plan to upgrade our parks—safer playgrounds, cleaner facilities, more trees, and spaces for families to gather and stay active. Most importantly, I will listen to you, because our parks should serve the people who use them every day.

Together, we can make Bayonne's parks stronger, safer, and something every resident can be proud of.

For many decades Bayonne has made public parks, open spaces and recreation a priority and encumbered grant funds and bonded to accomplish this. It is still a priority and we now include developer commitment to these projects whenever we can.