The public expresses concerns about environmental, safety and oversight issues as Board approves ferry facility

It was past midnight on Thursday, June 8th, when the Hoboken Planning Board called for a vote on NY Waterway’s (NYWW) application for site plan approval of its ferry maintenance facility at Union Dry Dock. Despite listening to hours of testimony from community members expressing grave concerns over the impact of NYWW’s facility on the area, including safety, environmental, and quality of life issues, the board voted unanimously to approve the application.

“Well, I think one of the things that should mitigate some of the concerns is the fact that this is — the application itself is a temporary application for a temporary use,” Hoboken City Councilman and Board member Jim Doyle explained.

However, the members of the human-powered boating community were not so sanguine, and worried that Hoboken was courting danger by allowing a busy industrial facility to operate adjacent to the Hoboken Cove – home to the largest paddling program in New Jersey – without proper safeguards. Oscar Hernandez of the Hoboken Cove Community Boathouse lamented that NYWW had a history of not responding to paddler’s concerns. “There has to be a way to communicate, to make sure we’re safe, to make sure the captains actually answer their radio calls all the time. We’re answered by pretty much every ferry operator in the New York Harbor except for NY Waterway.”

NYWW was applying for permission to build a ferry maintenance, storage and refueling facility at Union Dry Dock. This approval was required as part of a settlement agreement between the City of Hoboken and NYWW, allowing the City to acquire the Union Dry Dock property from NYWW for future use as a public park. In February, the City approved a three-year lease with NYWW that potentially can be extended for an additional two years while NYWW rebuilds its facility in Weehawken.

Planning Board Chair Frank Magaletta made clear at the beginning of the meeting that NYWW’s unpopular lease with the City would not be discussed, and instead warned the audience to keep their questions focused on land use issues. Donald Liloia, a NYWW Vice-President, provided the bulk of the testimony during the evening, answering questions from board members and the community about the company’s plans for the site.

The questioning revealed the scope of the operation, including:

• NYWW will store 20 ferries on the site, with no more than 5 boats active on any given day, and ferries leaving at approximately 5:30 AM and returning between 9 and 11:20 PM.
• After significant debate, NYWW confirmed that they will not dock boats or use the northern side of Pier 1, the northernmost pier.
• Maintenance crews will work 7 days a week, 24 hours a day, with much of the maintenance taking place on a travel lift barge out on the water.
• Refueling operations will remain in Weehawken until that facility is being replaced, which Liloia estimated would occur sometime in the 2nd or 3rd year of the lease. However, refueling may occur in Hoboken during unforeseen emergencies.
• Refueling will take place on land via a tanker truck that Liloia characterized as “a home fueling truck you would see on Hudson Street.”
  Ferries are required to sound their horns while exiting the site, which will generally occur at 5:30 AM.
• NYWW will remove the existing trees in the parking lot, creating 63 parking spots, which will be reduced to 45 after the Sinatra Drive Project begins and reclaims a 25 foot area along the roadway for a protected bike path and expanded sidewalk.

Paddler safety was a major theme of the evening. Carter Craft, an “occasional Waterway commuter and Boathouse board-member” said “the biggest things I worry about is that there will be an incident in the future between motorized vessels and other users of the cove or the beach, not unlike something that happened at Pier 79 in Manhattan in 2016, 2017, [where] eight kayakers got run over by a backing ferry.”

“Couldn’t we set a higher standard here when we’re reactivating a maritime industrial district next to a recreational park right up against a very treasured beach?”
Carter Craft, speaking about potential for fuel spills in the Hudson

Again and again, community members stood up to express their specific concerns, including what residents considered a perfunctory Neighborhood Impact Report. Indeed, NYWW was returning to the Board after having its application deemed incomplete because the ferry operator had failed to provide this report measuring the impact the maintenance facility would have on the surrounding area. The resulting report, produced and presented by Sean Delany of Bowman Engineering, was a disappointment to many of the people who spoke at the meeting.