Focused on Land Use and Redevelopment Law in New Jersey
As seen on: ROINJ
When it comes to discussing factors involved in retaining and attracting companies to a region, Ted Zangari likes to quote the famous New York City businessman who made a fortune before making a surprising entry into politics.
No, not that one.
Zangari, a member at Sills Cummis & Gross P.C. and the leader of the Smart Growth Economic Development Coalition, is a big fan of former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
A year after a landmark effort to secure the Permit Extension Act of 2008 — a law that lengthened the life of development approvals statewide — a group of commercial real estate industry leaders saw another opportunity in Trenton.
New Jersey was preparing to swear in a new governor and Legislature. For the coalition, it was a chance to weigh in with sweeping recommendations that could help the state navigate what had become a crippling recession. The group of professionals and trade association leaders did exactly that in late 2009, providing a playbook to the incoming Chris Christie administration that led to bipartisan overhauls of state incentive programs and other key reforms.
After years of tax policy and planning discussions, and following debates within committee during the last few months, the U.S. House of Representatives’ Ways and Means Committee yesterday released the first draft of the “Tax Cuts & Jobs Act” or H.R. 1 of the 115th Congress. The tax proposals have implications for those in the real estate industry. Here are some brief highlights:
A SALTY Compromise to Consider for Tax Reform
Dear Members of Congress:
As representatives of high-tax states, you are acutely aware of the importance of the state and local tax deduction, otherwise known as the SALT deduction. Unfortunately, your colleagues on the House Ways and Means Committee have proposed the elimination and most recently, capping, of the SALT deduction despite the valiant efforts of many of you to save it or keep it in its current form. In fact, some committee members of low-tax states have openly suggested that the SALT deduction be eliminated to punish states that are operated inefficiently or expensively, without any appreciation of or regard for the extraordinary demands imposed on dense, urbanized states, particularly “blue” states. Likewise, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin’s rationale for eliminating the SALT deduction is that the federal tax code needs to “stop subsidizing states.”
Continue Reading An Open Letter to Blue State GOP House Members
It should come as little surprise that as the world becomes ever more interconnected so too does the international investment market. The United States commercial real estate market has been a major beneficiary of foreign investments over the last several years and, in turn, U.S. based sellers, lenders and landlords have had to recalibrate their due diligence procedures. One significant difference when dealing with foreign investment opportunities is the use of a Letter of Credit which will give assurance to the U.S. seller, lender or landlord that the foreign entity or individual has the sums of capital that it purports to have and that the capital is available for its stated purpose. While fairly simple in form, a Letter of Credit requires proper review and negotiation to ensure its effectiveness and this article will provide an understanding of its mechanics.
As seen in: The Briefing – (Real Estate NJ’s daily eblast)
A consulting and engineering firm has teamed with a global insurance agency to expand coverage for environmental cleanups, with the goal of spurring remediation at sites that are otherwise seen as too costly or risky for property owners to take on.
Susan C. Karp of Sills Cummis & Gross was part of a distinguished panel of insurance executives, developers, consultants and attorneys at the Brownfield Coalition of the Northeast’s seminar which addressed the evolving environmental insurance market and how to mitigate risk and opportunities for Brownfields Development. The event sponsored by WCD Group and Advance Realty presented a current update of the dynamic environmental insurance marketing and how insurance is being effectively utilized in brownfields transactions, risk transfer and mitigation, and site remediation.
> Click here to view Ms. Karp’s presentation materials
As seen on: The Town Crier
(New Jersey State League of Municipalities' Legislative Blog)
Our State’s liquor licensing laws date back to the ratification of the Twenty-first Amendment in the 1930’s. The world is a different place. And those laws have tended to stifle competition and to hamstring local economic development options.
New Jersey municipalities looking to revitalize downtowns and Main Streets, could use some new tools. Thus, the League of Municipalities supports A-2452, which would create new liquor licenses for restaurants meeting certain criteria…
As seen on: TapInto.net
It’s taken 30 years for Hoboken and Jersey City to become an overnight success. Newark? Well, we’re still fighting to sustain a renaissance 50 years in the making.
If we’re not careful, we can severely undermine the delicate balance of a market that is still struggling to achieve scale and a new sense of place, especially in the Central Ward.
How can such a thing happen? Newark is hot, right? Yes, and for all the right reasons that we are so cognizant of – location, infrastructure, transportation, culture, sports, and corporate leadership to name just a few.
Also at Council Meeting: Residents Speak about Dry Dock Petition
As seen on: HudsonReporter.com
The City Council voted Wednesday to amend a longstanding ordinance prohibiting liquor license holders from opening within 500 feet of each other. The new amendment allows plenary retail consumption license holders to open closer together in certain parts of the city.
Also at the council meeting, the council approved contracts to place free WiFi kiosks in town, and petitioners asked the city to try to buy the Union Dry Dock property on the northern waterfront (see sidebar).
And They Could be Coming Just When N.J. Developers Need It the Most
As seen on: NJBIZ.com
Ted Zangari vividly remembers the reaction of investors and developers when he first started explaining the EB-5 program.
“The entire development community knows about this money source by now,” he said. “But in the early days, as we would go through the litany of what dollars were available from where and we would explain the EB-5 program — essentially, foreign investment in exchange for the investor and his or her family receiving visas to come into the U.S. — the reaction of clients, without exception, was, in a word, incredulous.
“That’s still the visceral reaction of the average person outside of developers — ‘What? You mean someone can buy their way into the country, not go through the usual lawful channels, but literally write a check and come in?’ ”
