GARFIELD — When Lewis Neuman moved his manufacturing business to Garfield in 1992, he thought he had settled for good.

But with the city now looking to take his Hepworth Place property to make way for an ambitious redevelopment plan that calls for apartments, stores and restaurants, he and his business partner, Abe Levine, fear for their future.

“I just don’t know what we’ll do,” said Neuman. “We could lose everything.”

For years, city officials have eyed the Passaic Street corridor — located in Garfield's 1st Ward — for redevelopment. With a rise in absentee landlords and a decline in property maintenance, the area has fallen on hard times, Mayor Richard Rigoglioso says.

In May, the city's Redevelopment Agency voted to study 27 lots near the Passaic Street train station for redevelopment. The Planning Board began hearings on the proposal in July.

The plan, which would give the city the power to take property via eminent domain, has been met with both support and opposition. Some residents say it is necessary to revitalize the area. But property owners who would be affected by the proposal have packed the Planning Board meetings, pleading with city officials to spare their homes and businesses.

The Institute for Justice, a national civil liberties law firm that represented property owners in Long Branch and Atlantic City in their eminent domain battles, has joined the fight. And recently, Neuman and other community members formed Stand with Southern Garfield, a coalition dedicated to raising awareness about the situation that has urged city officials to abandon the plan to take properties by eminent domain.

"It's heartless," says Dolares Capizzi, whose family has lived in her Midland Avenue home for three generations. "I'm really worried."

'Garbagefield'

Garfield's 1st Ward is currently home to a collection of factories, apartments, single- and two-family homes and services such as nail salons and barbershops.

Once a thriving area, Rigoglioso says, it has become run down. This has hurt the reputation of the city, sometimes called "Garbagefield." In a recent online analysis, Garfield was named the third-most "white trash" town in New Jersey.

"That's an image we get, and a lot of it comes from this part of town," he said. "It's unfortunate, because it used to be one of the better areas of our town."

To change this perception, city officials, in conjunction with the non-profit Greater Bergen Community Action, have crafted a River to Rail concept that envisions a neighborhood of apartments, stores and restaurants running from the Passaic Street train station at Midland Avenue to the Passaic River.

The hope is to attract millennials, who often look for apartments near train stations so they have easy access to jobs in New York City, said Greater Bergen's president and chief executive officer, Robert Halsch. The commute from Passaic Street to Penn Station is 31 minutes.

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Greater Bergen is also working with the city to create affordable housing for Garfield residents who may be looking to downsize as they age, but still have access to amenities such asgrocery stores.

City officials hope to apply for transit village status, which would make Garfield eligible for state transportation grants and enable the city to receive technical assistance and priority funding from the state.

"This is for the greater good of the city," Rigoglioso said of the redevelopment plan.

As part of this effort, the Planning Board has been tasked with studying whether 27 properties near the Passaic Street station should be designated an area in need of redevelopment.

The area spans six blocks: Palisade and Midland avenues, Hepworth Place, and Passaic, Somerset and Atlantic streets. It includes two single-family homes, four two-family homes, 28 apartments, a firehouse, two churches and the Alfred J. Thomas Home for Veterans Program, an eight-bed transitional housing program for homeless veterans.

The firehouse already has a relocation plan to keep it in the 1st Ward. Halsch said Greater Bergen is also working with the city and county to move and expand the veterans home elsewhere in the city.

The Planning Board is expected to continue hearing public comment on the plan Nov. 16. If the board votes to recommend the area for redevelopment, it will then be up to the City Council to decide whether it should be designated as such. The council would then authorize preparation of a redevelopment plan, which it would have to adopt by ordinance.

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Once the process is completed and a redeveloper is chosen, negotiations would begin with business and home owners, who are entitled to be paid the market value of their properties. If a settlement cannot be reached amicably, the matter would then go to the courts.

A separate study is also looking at an additional 65 properties on nine blocks.

Eminent domain looms large

Somerset Street business owner Amos Regev is among those who could lose their properties if the plan is approved. He said he's not only concerned for his hand-weaving and drapery business, which he established 18 years ago, but also his three employees.

"I'll be out of business and they'll lose their jobs," he said.

Capizzi, meanwhile, fears being forced out of her home. A schoolteacher preparing for retirement, she said she has remodeled 80 percent of her home and plans to put in a new porch next month.

"I'm still hopeful," she said. "I've known these people my whole life. They're good people, and I'm hoping their character will hold up."

Pericles Niarchos, an activism manager for the Institute for Justice, says he finds the whole situation a unique and once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the city, but that it is being overshadowed by the debate over eminent domain.

“It’s fascinating: You have a group of community members who are passionate and energetic and want to make a difference. You have lawmakers who want to make a difference, and you have a nonprofit and investors who all want to make a difference,” said Niarchos, who has spoken at the Planning Board meetings. “Why can’t everyone come together and find a plan from the ground up instead of a one-size-fits-all mold that doesn’t help the people that have been here for decades?”

Niarchos feels that the city rushed to use eminent domain, instead of exploring alternatives that would not require residents to lose their homes. Doing so would be more challenging and call for creativity and ingenuity, but he believes it's possible.

“I get the impression the mayor really cares about the community and Garfield," he said. "You can tell he wants what’s best. But I don’t know where the narrative came from that it’s either eminent domain and take people’s homes and businesses, or Garfield will fall to shambles.”

But Rigoglioso says that without eminent domain, the city runs the risk of some properties not being acquired. He believes that without this, a developer will not be interested in coming to the area.

"Without it, it's a tough sell," he said. "We need to move forward."

Email: cattafi@northjersey.com

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