Small businesses across Hoboken have been hit by the economic downturn due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and have had to close the doors to their physical storefronts to customers and instead offer their products online, or through delivery or pickup.
To help businesses cope with the financial impact, Hoboken has released a 22 page COVID-19 Small Business Recovery Strategy which, if enacted into law, will reshape how streets and sidewalks are used by allowing small businesses to expand their outdoor capacities.
The plan, which is scheduled for an introductory vote at tonight’s city council meeting as an ordinance on first reading, permits businesses to expand outdoor space on the sidewalk, create shared spaces, and creates a framework for businesses to operate in the street during scheduled road closures.
With eventual re-opening guidelines from the state anticipated to include indoor capacity reductions, the ordinance seeks to maximize outdoor space for businesses and provide safe areas for customers.
“The ordinance we are putting forward today will ensure our small businesses can maximize outdoor space in a way that has never been done before in our city,” said Mayor Ravi Bhalla. “When the governor eventually gives the green light for business to gradually re-open, we are committed to ensuring they can accommodate customers in the safest and most socially distant manner possible with expanded sidewalk cafes, shared spaces, and open streets. I’m very grateful to Council President Giattino and the entire City Council for their partnership on this important initiative and to the various departments in City Hall who helped create this plan.”
“I will look to take every effort to provide our brick and mortar businesses with expanded spaces and opportunities to succeed after this pandemic and any ordinance that takes a step in the right direction to do that I will be supportive of,” said Council President Jen Giattino.
The ordinance includes flexible provisions to facilitate outdoor expansion as well as an expedited approval process for sidewalk café expansion, streateries, parklets and more.
Outdoor space to dine and sit
The ordinance would allow daily outdoor sidewalk cafes to extend hours of operation by one hour on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday evenings and expand their space as long as six feet of sidewalk width is maintained.
They will also be able to expand outdoor café seating to adjacent properties with the neighboring property owner’s consent and tables will have to be six feet apart from one another.
The ordinance also provides for two types of new outdoor shared spaces, a “streatery” and a “parklet.”
A streatery will be an outdoor, shared public space that temporarily converts curbside parking spaces into outdoor dining for take-away food and beverages. It will be separated from adjacent parking spots and vehicular traffic by moveable barriers such as barricades, planters, and bollards and tables will be six feet apart from one another.
Parklets will be a seasonal public seating spaces on platforms that temporarily convert curbside parking into a mini-park as an extension of the sidewalk. The semi-public parklets will be built in partnership between the city and a specific local business.
Similar to the streatery, the parklet will be separated from adjacent parking spaces and the travel lane using built-in barriers such as planters, bench, wall, railings, bollards, and all tables will be six feet apart from one another.
Giattino and Councilman Michael DeFusco introduced an ordinance to expand outdoor cafes at the last council meeting which is scheduled for second reading tonight.
“Council President Giattino and I have been working to develop innovative plans to help our small businesses recover from the COVID-19 pandemic for the past several weeks,” said DeFusco. “It’s great to see that the administration is now advancing the ideas we’ve put forward because now, more than ever, we need to work collaboratively to help our small businesses succeed in Hoboken.”
Outdoor retail
Hoboken has also been piloting an open streets program, which the ordinance would officially make available for outdoor dining retail and recreational activities. The ordinance would permit three contiguous blocks of city streets to closed on Thursday and Sunday evenings initially.
Business would be able to expand outdoor seating with the additional space and the city would offer an expedited event approval process for the road closures.
The strategy also calls for retail businesses to be able to use the sidewalk area in front of their storefronts to display merchandise during business hours and permit outdoor signage that was previously prohibited.
Options for expanding outdoor capacity are flexible to accommodate different locations and types of businesses.
Application process
The city will create an application process that will provide general design guidelines for sidewalk cafés, streateries, and parklets which will be reviewed on a case by case basis/
The sidewalk café fee will also be waved for the remainder of the year.
The city is also exploring various options with the Hoboken Business Alliance and other groups to help subsidize the cost of the streateries, parklets, and open streets.
“The Hoboken Business Alliance is thrilled to see the City offering options to businesses across Hoboken and we want to continue to support these and other efforts to see businesses open as soon as possible, but safely,” said Greg Dell’Aquila, president of the Hoboken Business Alliance. “The HBA wants businesses to come back as successfully as possible, and fully supports the introduced ordinance.”
Hoboken also created a local Economic Recovery Task Force which is working on recommendations and guidelines to help businesses.
“I am very hopeful and confident the City will take care of small businesses and do everything in their power to help us through measures like this ordinance, which has my full support,” said Grace Sciancalepore, co-chair of the City’s Economic Recovery Task Force.
For the 22 page recovery strategy go to https://tinyurl.com/RecoveryStrategy.
For tonight’s council agenda go to http://hobokennj.iqm2.com/Citizens/Detail_Meeting.aspx?ID=1923
For updates on this and other stories check www.hudsonreporter.com and follow us on Twitter @hudson_reporter. Marilyn Baer can be reached at Marilynb@hudsonreporter.com.
