Op-Ed: Jersey City needs affordable housing yesterday (and maybe sooner)

In an editorial, Journal Square Community Association President Tom Zuppa outlines why he believes Jersey City needs to address affordable housing immediately.

“I love Jersey City with all my heart,” says retired public school educator Aida Romero.

“I worked as a paraprofessional in the Jersey City public schools and dedicated my career to assisting children with special needs. I have come to realize in my senior years that this City is too expensive to rent here. Rents are just plain out of reach for senior citizens, and we’ve been forgotten about.”

Aida’s concerns are not unique. The number one concern we hear across the City, from thousands of residents, is that housing prices have skyrocketed while their middle-class incomes have not.

The City Council has an opportunity – for the first time – to enact meaningful, mandatory affordable housing in Journal Square, before it is too late. Jersey City is one of the fastest growing unaffordable cities in America. Journal Square is its fastest growing neighborhood.

Under the proposal currently before the Council, an estimated 23 percent of Journal Square would be covered, with less than 10 percent of that available for affordable housing.

Passing the current proposal tells residents in the other 76 percent of Journal Square that the City is unconcerned about keeping their neighborhood affordable.

The Journal Square Community Association has endorsed a proposal that both (1) mandates developers build affordable units and (2) protects one- and two- family homes and neighborhoods.

You would think this is an easy decision. Instead, we have been met by fear-mongering and downright lies about our proposal. We have come to expect that from a politician warming a seat for a decade, but this city deserves better.

Here are the facts: Under City zoning laws, traditional, working-class neighborhoods with 1-2 family homes are being replaced with high-rises; the proposal before the Council does nothing to stop that. By example, a project with 2,400 units along Baldwin Avenue and Highway 139 will go up without a single affordable unit.

A 67-unit project was approved for Perrine Avenue, formerly lined with 1-2 family homes, again, without any units affordable for our existing residents. N

othing about the Journal Square Community Association (JSQCA) proposal encourages development; we just want the development inevitably going up to be affordable for people, and we want to discourage developers from purchasing multiple 1-2 family lots and replacing them with high-rises that are out of reach for average residents.

“Jersey City’s diversity is part of what makes it great. I grew up with people from all ethnic backgrounds and they all moved out, couldn’t afford it anymore. So who are they building for? Not me, not my friends and family, and we’re the ones who gave our business to local shops and restaurants,” says Andre Vega, a resident of the Hilltop neighborhood and a union construction laborer.

“It’s bad enough the high rises don’t have union jobs for me, but now I can’t afford to live in them too? We’re going to lose what makes Journal Square special.”

If the council’s proposal goes forward, we can expect 1-2 family neighborhoods will see another wave of housing development, without restriction, and without a single affordable unit available for current residents.

It’s not too late to keep Journal Square affordable and protect our neighborhoods, but we need the council to act now.

Tom Zuppa is President of the Journal Square Community Association and community leader in Jersey City’s Ward C.