New Bruns homeowners say RU-backed apartments will destroy ambience on Mine Street
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I'm sure access to public transportation is very important in the Beltway communities around DC, just like it is important in Hudson and Bergen counties.
But for most of the rest of NJ, you are going to have a hard time convincing me that access to public transportation is a significant factor in a community desirable when 27 out of 29 residents who work outside their homes don't use public transportation to get to work.
You can provide whatever anecdotal evidence you want. The hard numbers tell a different story. There just are not enough people in the rest of NJ who commute with public transportation for it to significantly impact the demographics.
This post was edited on 4/16 3:19 PM by Upstream
Your hard numbers don't tell that story at either - you aren't even correlating - you are just implying. After all, even in Bergen and Hudson, its not some HUGE rate - its not like 50% of people use transit. 15% is still a significant minority.
One thing you are missing is this - the people for whom it matters are likely clustered around transit. After all the 6.6% covers the entirety of South Jersey which has basically no transit, and the northwestern counties, which again have almost no transit.
One thing you are missing is this - the people for whom it matters are likely clustered around transit. After all the 6.6% covers the entirety of South Jersey which has basically no transit, and the northwestern counties, which again have almost no transit.
To your first point, more than 40% of commuters in Hudson County use public transportation. It is about 15% county-wide in Bergen County, because Bergen County spreads out further from NYC. And while 15% is a statistically significant minority that can moderately impact the demographics of a town, 6% is not, especially since this is 6% of commuters, and does not include people who telecommute or otherwise work from their homes. If you include these, outside of Hudson and Bergen counties, only 5.4% use public transportation. And if you include retired people and people who are not employed, the number drops to 3.6%.
To your second point, almost everyone in NJ is clustered around transit, once we add in the definition changes you and NIRH have proposed: including bus transportation and including people who drive to train and bus transportation. If I have chance, I'll look up the population numbers, but I would not be surprised to find that more than 90% of NJ residents live within 10 miles of a rail station or bus stop. And at that point, access to transportation stops being the differentiator that NIRH claims it is.
Remember PATCO that travels through Camden county (including Haddonfield) to Philadelphia. A fair number of people take it during rush hour because, if you live in the right place, it's a lot easier than driving. But you may ask how much difference does it make to values? It's hard to say. Haddonfield is expensive for lots of reasons, including an attractive older housing stock and excellent schools. Collingswood, two stops away, is now booming. But it's unclear to me how much difference the PATCO station makes. After all, the station has been there forever, but the boom is recent. I would say it helps in that it attracts young people to the community. But whn all is said and done, I think that mass transit matters less than school quality, and Collingswood's schools are not good enough to attract couples with school-age kids.
Also remember the River Line. I don't know how much difference it has made to property values along the line, although I do understand it has bolstered the commercial areas a little. Finally, NJ Transit does run buses, although of course the network is not as thick as in North Jersey.
Not in the post I was responding to.
Is that why places like Rahway, Plainfield, Perth Amboy, or smaller towns like Dunellen or Bound Brook are becoming desirable? Oh, wait, they're not. Even in places like Bridgewater or Edison, the desirable parts are not the areas within walking distance to the train stations, while the areas near the train stations have some of the lowest housing prices in town.
Regardless, this is a very difficult answer to the fundamentals of experimental design. You could run a longitudinal study over the past decade using Zillow data - I think you would definitely find a positive correlation between rail access and home prices, but it is difficult to control for other factors if for people who don't have a strong statistical background. There has been some national research to that effect, and as a millennial, I admit I am speaking anecdotally because everyone I know wants easy rail access.
Is that why places like Rahway, Plainfield, Perth Amboy, or smaller towns like Dunellen or Bound Brook are becoming desirable? Oh, wait, they're not. Even in places like Bridgewater or Edison, the desirable parts are not the areas within walking distance to the train stations, while the areas near the train stations have some of the lowest housing prices in town.
Regardless, this is a very difficult answer to the fundamentals of experimental design. You could run a longitudinal study over the past decade using Zillow data - I think you would definitely find a positive correlation between rail access and home prices, but it is difficult to control for other factors if for people who don't have a strong statistical background. There has been some national research to that effect, and as a millennial, I admit I am speaking anecdotally because everyone I know wants easy rail access.
I provided significant data on Montclair, including average home price, increase in the past year, projected increase, and school rank.
I also provided that data for school districts similarly ranked not known for their transit.
Montclair is not in Hudson or Bergen.
So then what is it that is driving to Montclair? It's high school is good, but 98 other NJ high schools are better.
Based on what Upstream is saying- Montclair is just an aberration. I don't agree. And I'm not basing it on anecdotes. I don't know anyone specifically my age that has moved there, though I do know many Hoboken and JC people move there to have kids generally.
The PATCO is a great example. It seems to me that most of the wealthy South Jersey towns are on the PATCO line with a few exceptions. The line also has Camden. But I think it does drive those towns.
And in speaking of county versus county, it's pretty notable how Hudson prices keep going up at a rate higher than the rest of the state, while counties like Ocean, Sussex, and Warren lag behind.
If proximity to the city was irrelevant, much fewer people would live in North Jersey. For the price I paid for a 1 bedroom condo, I could have bought a 3 bedroom townhouse somewhere from parts of Monmouth on down- and the schools would not have the gang riot my local high school had in the past few weeks either.
I also provided that data for school districts similarly ranked not known for their transit.
Montclair is not in Hudson or Bergen.
So then what is it that is driving to Montclair? It's high school is good, but 98 other NJ high schools are better.
Based on what Upstream is saying- Montclair is just an aberration. I don't agree. And I'm not basing it on anecdotes. I don't know anyone specifically my age that has moved there, though I do know many Hoboken and JC people move there to have kids generally.
The PATCO is a great example. It seems to me that most of the wealthy South Jersey towns are on the PATCO line with a few exceptions. The line also has Camden. But I think it does drive those towns.
And in speaking of county versus county, it's pretty notable how Hudson prices keep going up at a rate higher than the rest of the state, while counties like Ocean, Sussex, and Warren lag behind.
If proximity to the city was irrelevant, much fewer people would live in North Jersey. For the price I paid for a 1 bedroom condo, I could have bought a 3 bedroom townhouse somewhere from parts of Monmouth on down- and the schools would not have the gang riot my local high school had in the past few weeks either.
More data in today's NYT article on how fewer young people live on LI and in Westchester:
But he said there is also survey data that seems to show "that younger adults are becoming more drawn to denser, more compact urban environments that offer a number of amenities within walking distance of where they live."
Unless downtowns become livelier, he said, the island's "long-term sustainability" will be hurt because new businesses will not locate in places where they cannot attract young professionals.
Some suburbs are working diligently to find ways to hold onto their young. In the past decade, Westbury, N.Y., has built a total of 850 apartments ? condos, co-ops and rentals ? near the train station, a hefty amount for a village of 15,000 people. Late last year it unveiled a new concert venue, theSpace at Westbury, that books performers like Steve Earle, Tracy Morgan and Patti Smith.
Long Beach, N.Y., with a year-round population of 33,000, has also been refreshing its downtown near the train station over the last couple of decades. The city has provided incentives to spruce up signage and facades, remodeled pavements and crosswalks, and provided more parking. A smorgasbord of ethnic restaurants flowered on Park Avenue, the main street.
link
But he said there is also survey data that seems to show "that younger adults are becoming more drawn to denser, more compact urban environments that offer a number of amenities within walking distance of where they live."
Unless downtowns become livelier, he said, the island's "long-term sustainability" will be hurt because new businesses will not locate in places where they cannot attract young professionals.
Some suburbs are working diligently to find ways to hold onto their young. In the past decade, Westbury, N.Y., has built a total of 850 apartments ? condos, co-ops and rentals ? near the train station, a hefty amount for a village of 15,000 people. Late last year it unveiled a new concert venue, theSpace at Westbury, that books performers like Steve Earle, Tracy Morgan and Patti Smith.
Long Beach, N.Y., with a year-round population of 33,000, has also been refreshing its downtown near the train station over the last couple of decades. The city has provided incentives to spruce up signage and facades, remodeled pavements and crosswalks, and provided more parking. A smorgasbord of ethnic restaurants flowered on Park Avenue, the main street.
link
If it is the rail access that is driving Montclair, then how come Bloomfield, Little Falls, and Clifton, all next to Montclair and with their own train stations, don't see the same desirability? Or is it other factors about Montclair that drive desirability, even though Montclair, Bloomfield, Little Falls, and Clifton are all about the same distance from NYC and all have train stations.
You can't just pick a nice town with a train station and conclude that it is the train station that made the town a nice town. You are not showing causation; you are just showing coincidence.
As far as why so many people live in North Jersey, that is because that is where the jobs are. I never said proximity to NYC was unimportant. I said that ability to commute to NYC is unimportant for 95% of the people in NJ. But NYC is the economic engine that drives the regions economy, even if most people don't need to commute to NYC. (And before you ask, the jobs are near NYC because companies built facilities near NYC for access to materials coming in through the ports, and ability for NYC-based executives to easily visit back-office operations in NJ, and the ability for NJ-based executives to easily meet with media, advertising, and financial partners in NYC. But that doesn't mean that the people who work in NJ need to commute to NYC.)
Yes rail can add value to a town but it's not a make or break factor in New Jersey. There are nice towns with rail and not so nice towns with rail. There are plenty of great towns without rail stations. Pointing out Montclair as some kind of indicator for a trend isn't really the best option. Montclair has been an affluent suburb of NYC for generations. It has nothing to do with millenials or any recent shift to public transportation/urban living.
And millennials favoring urban living is true and clearly the recent generations (Gen X included) have favored city life more than the generation or two before them. But as Gen X aged they also showed that there were limits to their love of urban life. In large part, once they had families they chose to retreat from urban living toward the suburbs. Should we expect millennials to do the same?
There's no doubt that the trends in American society are changing but the reality is that many of the trends don't necessarily mean urban living or rail are the be all and end all. The reality is that taking the train to NYC or anywhere is not the norm for NJ residents. And the trends toward "urban" or "urban suburb" is a very broad discussion that doesn't necessarily mean moving from one place to another. In many towns it means altering planning discussions, master plans, etc but not wholesale changes across the state.
And millennials favoring urban living is true and clearly the recent generations (Gen X included) have favored city life more than the generation or two before them. But as Gen X aged they also showed that there were limits to their love of urban life. In large part, once they had families they chose to retreat from urban living toward the suburbs. Should we expect millennials to do the same?
There's no doubt that the trends in American society are changing but the reality is that many of the trends don't necessarily mean urban living or rail are the be all and end all. The reality is that taking the train to NYC or anywhere is not the norm for NJ residents. And the trends toward "urban" or "urban suburb" is a very broad discussion that doesn't necessarily mean moving from one place to another. In many towns it means altering planning discussions, master plans, etc but not wholesale changes across the state.
There is truth to this, but it is exaggerated. There are towns in South Jersey that do very well without train access, e.g. Moorestown, which is in many ways quite similar to Haddonfield -- both old towns with Quaker traditions and lots of nice houses, There are towns along the PATCO line that do poorly: Lindenwold, the Ashland area, and of course Camden (where there is three stops). The land near the Woodcrest station (which has by far the most parking) is undeveloped except for a United Parcel Service facility (which depends more on ready access to I-295. And in Haddonfield, the schools, the ambience and the varied commercial district probably make more difference. Collingswood has boomed recently, but PATCO has been there for ages. My guess is that mass transit access makes some difference, but not a huge amount. The reason may be that there are many jobs outside the Philadelphia center city district, which the line serves.
Yes - of course we should with a caveat - millennial will have fewer children than previous generations, so fewer of them will feel the urge to move. The question is will they try to take the things they like about urban living and transplant it into the suburbs via real mixed use town centers.
I think your point about transplanting urban concepts is the more relevant topic for most of NJ. How will suburban towns evolve?
One of the biggest issues that NJ will face is the sheer number of municipalities in the state. As towns look to evolve, the lack of of shared planning/zoning among towns will be a problem. You can't address the major issues if towns are operating independent of their neighbors.
For example, my town has two neighboring towns with traditional town centers. I would characterize one as vibrant but it is a mix of walkable town center and some connected sprawl areas. The other town has a serviceable but declining town center despite its downtown train station. My town has plans to build a town center from scratch provided they can get the developer in place to make it happen (a very real hurdle to date). The fact that none of these towns are working together on a broader planning and development perspective is short sighted and counter productive.
Do we really expect urban millennials to behave significantly differently than the gentrification boomers in the 70's, young urban professional yuppies of the 80's, DINKs of the 90's?
They acted by mostly leaving cities when they started having families.
But it is a good point that there are more Millennials.
Also, the nature of cities has changed, providing more opportunities for Millennials to live comfortably in cities. Take New Brunswick, for example. In 1978, New Brunswick had essentially no housing options and maybe 2 restaurant options for young professionals. Today, there are lots of housing options plus lots of dining options. 30 years from today, there will be even more housing options. I think you will see that the old single-family homes along Livingston Ave and elsewhere in NB have been renovated and are occupied by older professionals with families. Also, there will be a greater variety of shopping and dining options.
Let me pick up on something said earlier, I believe by Der Leider. No matter if millenials have one kid or six, they are going to be concerned about the quality of the schools, especially in these very competitive times. Until and unless urban school districts improve markedly, the millenials will follow the examples of their elders and leave for the suburbs once their children become school-aged. To me, the issue far outweighs the impact of mass transit.
I agree that Livingston Avenue should be a goldmine and have said as such here before. Millenials do drive a lot less though, and that means we have to stop oversubsidizing parking
Another important point about the NB housing development is while it's too high end for my liking, even more high end construction does push down prices elsewhere in the market.
As to Camden's point, DEVCO is thinking very much along the same lines. That's why these projects like student apartments and all the on campus stuff is so important. DEVCO wants to turn that College Ave to Easton corridor from undergraduate student housing to grad student/professor families. It's not going to happen overnight, but the idea is they can get one decent elementary school going in New Brunswick for these engaged Rutgers familieis, and then work their way from there.
As to Camden's point, DEVCO is thinking very much along the same lines. That's why these projects like student apartments and all the on campus stuff is so important. DEVCO wants to turn that College Ave to Easton corridor from undergraduate student housing to grad student/professor families. It's not going to happen overnight, but the idea is they can get one decent elementary school going in New Brunswick for these engaged Rutgers familieis, and then work their way from there.
Has this been stated somewhere? I have a hard time believing that College Ave to Easton would ever fit that profile. Most professors with families want nice single family homes not apartments. I could see grad students and young professionals/academics working at the university but not families.
Yes - but fewer of them will have kids at all, and they are a HUGE cohort - equal in numbers to the Boomers. They will and are reshpaing the country just like the Boomers did.
Yes - alot of the ones who have kids will move out. But will they move to transit oriented suburbs if given the chance (i.e. given the choice between two tows with good schools) - isn't that the main question in this argument. Will they demand walkable downtowns, or accept places like Edison with its miles of strips malls?
It's too early to know, but I actually doubt they will have fewer kids. What is happening is what happened in the 1930s -- people are deferring forming households and having children because of the poor economy and the lack of jobs that results. If things get better (and let's hope they do), then we will see a mini-baby boom (the grandchildren of the original baby boomers).
The Haddonfield v. Moorestown example indicates that there is some preference for a town with mass transit. Haddonfield has PATCO, and Moorestown does not. Haddonfield's median house price is $445,000, and Moorestown is $382,500. But I think that Moorestown's mix of housing includes more modest houses than found in Haddonfield. Keep in mind that both are less than a half hour from Philadelphia. And please keep in mind that this is anecdotal evidence and, as I said early, the plural of anecdote is not data.
The issue is that millennials are going to have less kids for certain because of Mother Nature (unless there are changes in science, which I guess is possible).
We are not getting married as early as the Xers, because the economy sucks and our careers are starting later, but the cost of everything keeps going up.
By time we are ready to settle down, many women will be beyond prime baby making age. Unfortunately, we've gotten better at improving chances but we're not there yet. I actually know a lot of women who fret about this quite regularly.
So I basically agree with Der- yes there will be some suburban movement but as we can see already from the Zillow data I posted, in towns where schools are roughly equal, prices seem to be higher in the transit and downtown oriented districts.
That is my point. That is what the higher prices in Montclair versus similarly situated districts shows.
In this part of the country, where the rate of higher education is better, there's going to be some natural population decrease because I think very, very few families of millenials will be having 3 children, two will become for bigger families and one will move closer to normal. Adoption may go up but so will being childless.
We are not getting married as early as the Xers, because the economy sucks and our careers are starting later, but the cost of everything keeps going up.
By time we are ready to settle down, many women will be beyond prime baby making age. Unfortunately, we've gotten better at improving chances but we're not there yet. I actually know a lot of women who fret about this quite regularly.
So I basically agree with Der- yes there will be some suburban movement but as we can see already from the Zillow data I posted, in towns where schools are roughly equal, prices seem to be higher in the transit and downtown oriented districts.
That is my point. That is what the higher prices in Montclair versus similarly situated districts shows.
In this part of the country, where the rate of higher education is better, there's going to be some natural population decrease because I think very, very few families of millenials will be having 3 children, two will become for bigger families and one will move closer to normal. Adoption may go up but so will being childless.
I feel like a lot of what is being posted here is personal theories. The reality is that perception outweighs reality more often than not. The 19 towns surrounding Princeton that are allowed to use Princeton as a mailing address are a perfect example. Rail lines have a good influence, but that is case by case. Another perception over reality case is Rahway, linden, eliz. They could put the nicest apts or tow homes there, but you're still not going to see the drastic change due to the stigma associated w it.
You could build a 10 story condo in keansburg w amazing views of NYC, the harbor and sunrises, but who the hell would live there due to the stigma associated with it.
People associate red bank with high end stuff, but a good portion of the town is rentals and low income. Once again, perception outweighs reality.
Unless you're a 10 min train ride into NYC, the train doesn't have too much bearing on development of towns. How else could you explain the lack of development surrounding the matawan station, or the stagnation around the red bank station. I'm going Monmouth heavy on my examples, because in reality Monmouth/ocean could be their own CBSA.
Obviously everything I posted above is personal theory. I just think that declaring what you say as fact is a fools errand
You could build a 10 story condo in keansburg w amazing views of NYC, the harbor and sunrises, but who the hell would live there due to the stigma associated with it.
People associate red bank with high end stuff, but a good portion of the town is rentals and low income. Once again, perception outweighs reality.
Unless you're a 10 min train ride into NYC, the train doesn't have too much bearing on development of towns. How else could you explain the lack of development surrounding the matawan station, or the stagnation around the red bank station. I'm going Monmouth heavy on my examples, because in reality Monmouth/ocean could be their own CBSA.
Obviously everything I posted above is personal theory. I just think that declaring what you say as fact is a fools errand
But stigmas can be broken. Most of the NJ cities that have turned around, NB included, have gotten past a significant part of that. Yeah, some old timers still think it's dangerous, but places like New Brunswick and Jersey City don't strike fear in the heart the way they might have in 80s or 90s.
Monmouth has a big NIMBY problem, but certainly parts of Asbury and Long Branch have made considerable changes, and Long Branch will get better if they get the ferry.
I think Red Bank has come a long way from the way I remember it as a kid, but yeah, you still have that area west of Shrewsbury Avenue which is kind of crappy. I think that's just cities. Hoboken, even, one square mile big, has notoriously unsafe projects on the west side of town and that area has not developed (though they are supposed to knock them down).
Eventually people get past it, though obviously, a place like Keansburg that you mentioned, it's going to take a lot. My feeling on Matawan is that a lot of these towns just don't want anything, though there are some newer townhomes and apartments walking from the train.
Monmouth has a big NIMBY problem, but certainly parts of Asbury and Long Branch have made considerable changes, and Long Branch will get better if they get the ferry.
I think Red Bank has come a long way from the way I remember it as a kid, but yeah, you still have that area west of Shrewsbury Avenue which is kind of crappy. I think that's just cities. Hoboken, even, one square mile big, has notoriously unsafe projects on the west side of town and that area has not developed (though they are supposed to knock them down).
Eventually people get past it, though obviously, a place like Keansburg that you mentioned, it's going to take a lot. My feeling on Matawan is that a lot of these towns just don't want anything, though there are some newer townhomes and apartments walking from the train.
Where are they going to dock a ferry in Long Branch, on one of the creeks off the Shrewsbury River?
I am also assuming that you are talking about a ferry to Manhattan. Since Long Branch already has a rail station, why do they need ferry service. There are only 83 people who reside in Long Branch and work in NYC. Even if a ferry brings new residents to Long Branch and doubles that number, you are only talking about 160 people.
I think that Long Branch would be better off building a synagogue. Orthodox Jewish people need to live near their synagogues so they can walk on the Sabbath and holidays. A nice ocean-front synagogue would be a lot cheaper than ferry service. And it could easily attract 200 new residents.
Actually, as I think about it, you are looking at the wrong factor by looking at transit to NYC to revitalize New Jersey towns. There are more Jewish people in NJ than people who work in NYC. If you look at the desirable towns in NJ, you will see that they almost all have synagogues. If in marginal towns, it is the areas near the synagogues that are among the most desirable. Montclair and Red Bank aren't nice because of the train stations. They are nice because of the synagogues.
I really disagree with that. Synagogues attract Orthodox Jews who offer little economic impact. Quite the opposite actually if you look at Lakewood. You want secular Jews, and their interests aren't really different from the general population either as single people, and as parents they will put even more of an emphasis on schools.
Your analysis should have pointed towards wealthy gay men as an audience to attract, which Asbury Park has done quite well with, and even Plainfield has made a bit of a bump. Plainfield has incredible housing stock (it used to be one of the richest cities in America), but they largely have no need for schools, so it's nearly a perfect fit considering that the neighborhood they are buying in is right on the Scotch Plains border.
I can definitely see this audience interested in high end amenities and beachfront living on the shore. For NB, you do have a lot of old mansions that are currently dilapidated frathouses. They might eventually be drawn to those, as well as Livingston Avenue obviously.
Your analysis should have pointed towards wealthy gay men as an audience to attract, which Asbury Park has done quite well with, and even Plainfield has made a bit of a bump. Plainfield has incredible housing stock (it used to be one of the richest cities in America), but they largely have no need for schools, so it's nearly a perfect fit considering that the neighborhood they are buying in is right on the Scotch Plains border.
I can definitely see this audience interested in high end amenities and beachfront living on the shore. For NB, you do have a lot of old mansions that are currently dilapidated frathouses. They might eventually be drawn to those, as well as Livingston Avenue obviously.
In an unprecedented defeat for a controversial developer and their attorney, the New Brunswick Planning Board narrowly voted down a proposal to build a 52-unit apartment building on Mine Street.
Link---> http://newbrunswicktoday.com/articl...sition-defeats-controversial-plan-mine-street
Link---> http://newbrunswicktoday.com/articl...sition-defeats-controversial-plan-mine-street
