News
Ordinance Would Streamline Business Approval Process In RB
By John Burton
RED BANK - Mayor Pasquale Menna and members of the governing body would like to offer a helping hand to the retail community.
The Borough Council on Monday approved an ordinance that would streamline the permit application process for businesses seeking to open in the downtown business district. The ordinance would allow approvals to be granted administratively, as opposed to requiring business owners to file applications and then appear before the borough planning board for a hearing on the application.
Menna has long touted this change as a way of assisting businesses by sparing them the time and expense of going before the planning board for approvals.
Menna said he would also like to propose similar measures for Shrewsbury Avenue, the main business corridor for the borough's west side.
In the early 1990s, borough officials and business- and property owners established a special improvement district to orchestrate the area's redevelopment. The operations of the SID were to be funded by the assessment of an additional tax on property owners within the district. That tax would be used to attract new business, redevelop the district and promote the downtown as a retail destination.
At the time it was proposed, plans called for the SID to encompass the entire borough. But a west side property owner objected and, faced with the prospect of a lawsuit, the borough scaled its plans back, redrawing the SID to include only the borough's downtown.
A couple of years ago, the boundaries of the SID were again redrawn to encompass much of the west side. The expansion was undertaken in the hope of encouraging redevelopment of commercial and mixed-use property in that area.
That SID expansion did not include Shrewsbury Avenue. Officials said at the time that they would wait before bringing the Shrewsbury Avenue strip of retail, commercial and residential properties under the SID umbrella.
Now, however, Menna said, there are no plans to incorporate the corridor into RiverCenter.
"The problem is the economy is not that good," Menna explained on Tuesday. "And it doesn't make sense to impose any additional charges on business people."
The charges he was referring to are the additional assessments property owners pay, separate from property taxes, to support RiverCenter's role as an advocate and marketing coordinator for the special improvement district.
Instead of expanding the SID once again, Menna said he is proposing a similar ordinance to the one approved for the downtown business district, making it easier for Shrewsbury Avenue businesses to gain approval and get up and running quicker. Along with that proposal, Menna said he would like to establish limited tax abatements for structural improvements for qualifying property owners. This was done on the east side in the early 1990s, he said.
Menna at Monday's borough council meeting said businesses on the west side, especially Shrewsbury Avenue, are surviving these tough times because they are adhering to "Economics 101, supply and demand."
Menna said that included landlords who showed a willingness to work with tenants to keep stores open.
A long-standing criticism of downtown property owners is that they have charged exorbitant rents, which now has resulted in a number of vacancies along Broad Street. "It's insane," Menna said.
"The whole idea," he said of his plans for Shrewsbury Avenue, "is to invite and create an atmosphere to bring people who don't live there into the neighborhood and show them the neighborhood is vibrant."
Business and property owners are supportive of his proposal, Menna said. "They'd like any help we can give them," he said.
