“those opposing the expansion want to block the company from building affordable housing for needy residents.”
THAT will be the day…
“those opposing the expansion want to block the company from
buildingprofiting handsomely under the pretense of providing affordable housing for needy residents.”
FIFY
Connelly shot back, “I will not be bullied into thinking that we need to have several debates.”
“As far as I’m concerned, zero debates should be sufficient!”
And what is Kushner Cos tax break for this project? 30 years?
The Kushner and the Trumps are all learning that scamming is much harder when you are living in a fishbowl. Everybody’s watching every move.
Donnie Two Scoops’ greed and hunger for attention may end up costing the hangers-on much more than helping them.
I shed a tear for them… 
I can only hope that Kushner gets thirty years. Or, thirty years to life!
Let’s not be knee-jerk about this which may not affect us. There is a very serious shortage of housing nationwide especially in urban areas. Except for fringe developments, sensible housing added to the total benefit everyone.Malls are dying and if there is a chance this land can be put to use for housing, maybe not so bad. It is totally reasonable to wonder about tax abatements for this one but what do we actually know?
His tenants in Baltimore would disagree.
[quote=“dannydorko, post:4, topic:58700, full:true”]
Connelly shot back, “I will not be bullied into thinking that we need to have several debates.”
“As far as I’m concerned, zero debates should be sufficient!”
[/quote]“In fact, if we could have approved this and got it done without anyone knowing…well, that would have been quite fine by me.”
One of our local malls successfully transitioned from a dying indoor mall to a successful outdoor one … without special considerations or foreign money laundering.
We have all seen “Kushner innovation” at work in Manhattan … and the Russian embassy there. And as far as I can see, Kushner’s sort of cleverness is better suited to the Black Sea shore. Jersey deserves better.
Kush attempting to play that his politics and place in politics don’t intermingle with his business.
IOW, sleazeball wonders why people won’t not consider him a sleazeball.
how are these businesses the biggest taxpayer when they won’t pay taxes for years?
You know Kushner isn’t putting up apartments for teh Poors! Unless its another slum; he seems to like them.
Propublica has an investigation into Kushner’s company, worth a read.
An open, transparent process of decision making, with community participation, benefits everyone, not a behing-closed-doors deal.
Someone ought to create a map of all of the Trump and Kushner properties that outlines the issues with each one. You don’t have to put crosshairs on each one since that would be in poor taste, just a annotation so everyone can see the wreckage they leave in their wake.
Hey, leave Jared alone, he is busy fixing the Middle East, something could explode…
Obviously it’s important to look at the details of this particular project… and given its provenance, heightened suspicion of corruption, double-dealing and fraud are certainly reasonable (I mean, it includes BOTH the Kusher empire AND New Jersey real estate!).
Still, it’s also worth remembering that anti-renter NIMBYism is a bedrock value in better-off New Jersey townships, who use every legal and illegal dodge possible to block the construction of apartments in within their boundaries – this despite clear state law that requires all townships to support and further the building of housing at multiple price points, including low-income.
So let’s not assume that the anti-Kushner actors in this particular dispute are good-government progressives interesting in creating vibrant, diverse communities. From the sound of their rhetoric, they may well be “pull up the ladder behind me” protectionists who want to block lower-income housing and rental apartments near their own properties at any cost. That wouldn’t make the Kusher project clean, of course – it seems likely, given the Kusher’s history, that it is designed to extract rents from some aspects of the situation.
But I will happily be bullied into thinking that we need to have no debates.
So if 88 of the 700 apartments would be “affordable” housing (which has some interesting definitions in the tri-state area), that means the other 600+ would be high-end stuff? Because people are going to be renting luxury apartments over the parking lot of a dying mall that’s not terribly close to anywhere? I don’t think I’m the only one who is thinking bailout or money-laundering.
(But also: i don’t have a lot of confidence in the statements of people who think that being next to rental apartments is going to hurt their property values more than being next to a mall parking lot.)