City Council approved a deferred payment schedule on water and sewer connection fees for the first phase of the Meridia Brownstones development. 

The governing body adopted a resolution (AR-102-18) at its April 9 regular public meeting. The resolution was simply to create a schedule for payment of fees, City Administrator Cherron Rountree said. Sewer and water connection fees are set by City Council within the Code of the City of Rahway, under Chapter 337, Sewer and Sewer Disposal, and Chapter 411, Water.

The developer has filed for building permits for the property and required to pay sewer and water connection fees.  The resolution stipulated a payment schedule on the nearly $725,000 in total fees ($285,025 in sewer connection fees and $439,491 in water connection fees). The total will be paid in installments, with the first payment of $241,505.67 due prior to the city issuing the first building permit for the property. The remaining two payments of $241,505.67 each will be due prior to the completion of construction framing inspections and again prior to the issuance of the first temporary certificate of occupancy (CO) by the city.

Rountree, who also serves as deputy executive director of the Redevelopment Agency, told commissioners during their monthly, public meeting on April 4 that the developer had a pre-construction meeting with the Engineering Department last month. Foundation permits have been obtained and a building permit review is ongoing, she said.

Linden-based Capodagli Property Company is developing the project under Meridia Brownstones Urban Renewal, LLC. The 298 units represents the first phase of a total 487 units on the seven-acre property that gained Planning Board approval in December 2014.

At that time, demolition was anticipated around the end of 2015, with the first phase slated for completion and leasing by the first quarter of 2018 and remaining units in the second phase by the first quarter of 2019. While the former Wheatena building at the corner of Elizabeth and West Grand avenues was demolished at the end of 2015, the rest of that timeline hasn’t held up.

Capodagli also has been completing construction of Meridia Lafayette Village as well as developments throughout the region, including Bound Brook, Hackensack, Linden and West New York.

Environmental remediation on the nearly eight-acre property is estimated to cost some $1 million and the developer did not seek state brownfields development funds for fear that it could delay the project.

Meridia Brownstones Urban Renewal, LLC, acquired the three lots for $4.7 million in May 2015 and City Council in August 2014 approved a 30-year Payment In Lieu Of Taxes (PILOT) for the project.