All over Hoboken are seemingly innocuous red-lettered paper signs reading “TEMPORARY POLICE ORDINANCE NO PARKING.” The majority of passersby likely don’t even notice the signs, let alone think anything of them. However, those little signs led to over $4 million worth of controversy and Stevens filing a lawsuit against the City of Hoboken.
Businesses in Hoboken can purchase no parking signs in order to reserve parking spaces for set amounts of time. In March, the City passed Ordinance No. B-119, which established that nonprofit organizations could automatically get approved to use the signs without paying fees. The Stute spoke with City Council President Jennifer Giattino, who explained that prior to this, nonprofits had to request to have the fees waived on a case-by-case basis. These requests were usually relatively small, and always got approved, so automating their approval made a lot of sense.
Shortly after this change, Stevens used the ordinance to block off 62 parking spots along Sinatra Drive for three years, the projected duration of the University Towers Project. Since Stevens is a registered nonprofit, it had the fees for doing so automatically waived. Despite this, in May, the Hoboken Director of Transportation and Parking, Ryan Sharp, sent Stevens a memorandum demanding over $110,000 per month for use of the parking spots. Stevens then contacted the City Corporation Council to defend its position that, as a nonprofit organization, it is exempt from paying for the signs.
At an impasse, Stevens and Hoboken officials met numerous times to try and come to a resolution. Together, they devised the “Griffith Parking Lot License Agreement,” which stated that Stevens would trade the use of 62 spots in Griffith Lot to the city for the duration of the project, and continue to let the city use 50 of those spots for the 20 years following the completion of the project. On July 10, the City Council voted 8-0 to adopt the “Stevens Resolution,” which approved the terms of the Griffith Agreement. Also on July 10, the Council adopted the Amended TNP Ordinance (AO), which removed the exemption for nonprofit organizations.
The Resolution and the AO then needed to be signed by Mayor Ravi Bhalla. On July 11, he signed the Amended Ordinance. On August 8, however, he told Stevens that he would not sign the Resolution as he did not think it was in the best interest of Hoboken residents, according to Council President Giattino. Instead, he would be applying the AO and requiring Stevens to pay about $4,037,400 in fees (62 spots*$60 a day*365 days in a year*3 years).
Finally, after all of this, Stevens filed the lawsuit. The school’s main argument is that “The City introduced and passed the Amended TNP Ordinance as a direct result of the City’s realization that Stevens qualified for the Fee Exemption.” Stevens is hoping to have the AO rescinded and declared “improper, invalid, unlawful, arbitrary, capricious, null and void, unconstitutional, and of no force and effect,” and have the Griffith Agreement approved in its place. As a secondary argument, Stevens is also claiming that since it owns the section of Sinatra Drive in question, seeking fees from the school would violate the terms of its ownership (or more specifically, a 1975 easement between Hoboken and Stevens which granted Stevens the land).
Giattino and Stevens Administration both expressed hopes that the issue could be resolved calmly. Giatinno said, “If you can find a solution that works well for everyone, why not go that route?” Stevens Director of Public Relations Thania Benios said on behalf of the school, “Stevens has worked hard to be a positive force in Hoboken and to build strong working relationships with the Mayor and his administration, with all members of City Council, and with the neighboring community. In an effort to develop a mutually satisfactory resolution to this issue and before filing the lawsuit, Stevens met several times with representatives of the administration and Council with the goal of finding a ‘win-win’ solution […] we remain hopeful that Stevens and the City can resolve this dispute in a manner that is fair and equitable so that both parties can put this matter behind us and continue to focus on the many joint initiatives that benefit both Stevens and the Hoboken community.”
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