With the final vote on a $701,380,029.82 municipal budget looming, Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop discussed affordability in an interview yesterday.
By John Heinis/Hudson County View
“We’ve tried to be really conscious of people’s taxes over the last 10 years, the majority of the time that I’ve been here, we’ve had no tax increase on the municipal side and two percent is well below inflation over the last year,” Fulop said outside of a fundraiser at Surf City.
“The costs of goods and services for the city to provide to the public goes up every year: we have labor increases, insurance increases, just acquiring materials, whether it’s salt or construction materials it goes up more than two percent.”
He continued that keeping the municipal tax increase at two percent a big accomplishment for the administration considering the obstacles they had to overcome.
While Fulop held a $30 a ticket event for his Democratic bid for governor, the Jersey City Council approved two resolutions to introduce budget amendments, raising the spending plan $3,870,489 from the preliminary budget.
That sets up the final vote on the budget for the council’s July 12th session.
When asked about residents who have pointed out that their rent and/or taxes have doubled or tripled in the past five years, the mayor said that “in some ways we are victims of our own success.”
“First, the city has built more affordable housing than anyone has in New Jersey, whether it’s Bayfront, whether it’s the inclusionary zoning ordinance, the overlay ordinance: we’re doing a lot, there’s pressure on the market because of New York City not building enough supply,” Fulop explained.
“Jersey City has changed and in many ways there’s a lot of demand and people wanting to be here: in some ways we are victims of our own success in the sense that there’s so many people that want to be here, putting pressure on rents.”
This year, the Jersey City Board of Education approved an over $1 billion budget with no tax increase, while the Hudson County Board of Commissioners approved a roughly $688 million budget, where the average Jersey City homeowner will see a $27 tax decrease.
