Do not segregate affordable housing in the West Side of Jersey City
- by: West Side Residents
- recipient: dridley@jcnj.org, Jersey City, NJ
Petition in brief:
It is discriminatory to segregate so much affordable housing (as much as 38% or 3040 out of 8000 units) in one location. It should be spread out equitably throughout Jersey City.
The city government should stay out of becoming a builder or developer and concentrate on more pressing issues.
The city should also not take on 200 million dollars of debt to become the master developer, without proper due diligence, since that debt will have to repaid by Jersey City taxpayers eventually.
West Side does not have the necessary infrastructure (schools, roads, parks, mass transit, traffic planning) to support so much housing.
What is the Mayor's Bayfront Development Plan?
On June 27th, 2018, the Jersey City Council will vote on whether to approve option 3 (or option C), that will allow the city to control the site for about 200 million. The three options are:
1. Move forward with current redevelopment plan that was created through input from the community (attached). 10% affordable housing (5% onsite, 5% offsite). No additional cost to City.
2. New option presented by Honeywell. City would pay $42 million towards the infrastructure of the project. 10% affordable housing, 10% workforce housing.
3. City would purchase Bayfront site for $105 million. City cost for infrastructure would be $60 to $80 million. City would be the master developer of the project and be able to have more control of what is developed at the site.
Under option 3, Mayor Fulop proposes as much as 38% or as many as 3040 out of possible 8000 units in the Bayfront Development I to be affordable housing.
This would be unfair to the residents of West Side, Greenville and Country Village neighborhoods of Jersey City.
Concentrating so much affordable housing in a single neighborhood would bring crime, noise, traffic, gridlock, pollution and reduction in property values for existing homes. This will akin to economic segregation.
It will accentuate the existing divide in the city, where all the benefits of development accrue to one neighborhood of the city and all the other neighborhoods suffer from lack of balanced development.
It would be very discriminatory to have so many affordable housing units in the West Side neighborhood of Jersey City, which already suffers from City Hall's neglect in comparison to other areas like Downtown, Journal Square and the Heights.
We support affordable housing but would like to see affordable housing spread equitably throughout all wards of Jersey City. Does the city council feel that people living in affordable housing should be cut off from the rest of Jersey City.?
Traffic problems would be exacerbated as the only main thorough fare is Route 440.
It boggles the mind that the City Council is considering allowing developers in downtown Jersey City to renege on of their commitments to set aside a 20% of their units as affordable housing, and at the same time, the Mayor wants to allow as much as 38% of the units in Bayfront to be affordable housing.
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Also, the residents of West Side, Country Village and Greenville have already been overpaying on their property taxes for at-least 15 years, if not more.
The Mayor has also not elaborated on what the 60-80 million of infrastructure improvements would entail.
Bayfront was envisaged was "a bustling urban center with new apartments, office space, retail, public parks, and even a train station". Developers will shy away if the city insists on 38% affordable housing. Will anyone want the market rate units or will any company lease office space or have a retail presence if there is 38% affordable housing.
Also what prevents Mayor Fulop from not increasing the threshold of 38% affordable housing to 50% or even 60% once the City controls Bayfront.
We request the members of the City Council to reject option 3 or option C, Mayor Fulop' s plan for so much affordable housing in one neighborhood and vote for option 1.
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