For real estate investors and many city officials, the explosion of new multifamily buildings Downtown has been a welcome development. For others, concerned about gentrification, rising rents and quality of life issues, not so much.
According to a new study by StorageCafe.com, between 2013 and 2022, Jersey City saw more multifamily construction in its downtown than any other city on the East Coast. Nationally, Jersey City placed eighth, just ahead of Brooklyn, New York.
Data compiled by storagecafe.com
Over 10,000 apartments were built in Jersey City’s downtown from 2013 to 2022, representing 60% of the total inventory. The best year for downtown apartment construction in Jersey City was 2017, when almost 3,000 new apartments were built – however, 2022 is on track to be a big year, according to the study, as almost 1,200 new units have already come on line.
Asked about the study, Ward E Councilman James Solomon remarked “It doesn’t surprise me. It should be the policy to have development. But not enough has been smart development. There aren’t enough schools, open space and affordable homes. It’s my job to turn turn the tide.”
Solomon conceded, however, that the space is limited Downtown.
“It’s an indictment of New York City” he added. “The fact that Jersey City is building exponentially more than New York City speaks to rising rents and infrastructure issues there. New York has added 700,000 new jobs but only 200,000 new homes. New York City policy is the root cause of gentrification here.”
Storagecafe.com noted additional key highlights that brought Jersey City’s downtown to the top:
An increase of downtown apartment inventory by 60% over the past decade with more than 10,000 new apartments.
While office workers aren’t yet returning to offices in droves, people still seem interested in living in downtown Jersey City, which has another 1,200 new apartments currently under construction with completion dates spanning approximately two years.
With urban cores becoming the place to be for an increasing number of renters, the need for more space transferred to downtown areas as well. Jersey City’s downtown area saw the addition of almost 390K square feet of self storage space from 2013 to 2022.
Before there was McGinley Square and before there was Journal Square, there was Bergen Square. But not many Jersey Citians even know where it is, if they know of its existence at all. And that’s a problem, according to local historian James Dievler.
On Saturday, with an eye toward raising the area’s profile, Dievler corralled a group of volunteers, vendors, and performers to put on the third annual “Bergen Square Day” along a two block stretch of Bergen Avenue.
Bergen Square comprises four blocks between Vroom and Newkirk Streets and is, according to Dievler, a place rich in history that every local should know about.
Dievler’s own pamphlet, “Bergen Square 360,” traces the square’s beginning in 1660 as a “stockaded, agrarian outpost” founded by the Dutch East India Company to the more recent travails about removing the statue of Peter Stuyvesant from the square that took place in 2010. “The Jersey City Board of Education had decided that a statue of an infamous enslaver and antisemite was inappropriate in front of P.S. 11,” wrote Dievler.
As we stand at the intersection of Academy Street and Bergen Avenue, Dievler gestures to our surroundings. “This was the meeting spot, the parade grounds for Jersey City.”
Chris Bernardo, administrator of the Journal Square Special Improvement District, gets credit for coming up with the idea for the event in 2019. Dievler and the Journal Square Community Association took the idea and ran with it, producing the first Bergen Square Day that year together with the SID, the city’s Office of Cultural Affairs, and the Bergen Square Historical Society. The festival was cancelled in 2020 due to Covid-19.
Deacon Steve Lipski, Commissioner Yraida Aponte-Lipski, Leticia Villalon-Soler, James Dievler, Ross Cohen, Renee Tirella Cassidy and Bill Armbruster
Said Journal Square Community Association Secretary Bill Armbruster (who admitted that even as a long time Jersey City resident he hadn’t heard of Bergen Square until six years ago), Bergen Square Day is at its most basic a celebration of history and culture.
And there was culture aplenty, from a dance performance by students from the arts-and-entertainment nonprofit Surati to the selling of handicrafts such as bags embroidered by Zala Collective, a cooperative of local Afghan women. Well-known Jersey City groups like Friends of Liberty State Park and Speranza Theatre Company also set up booths.
Antonio Quinlan and friends manned the Hudson River Apiary Society booth, doling out tastes of honey collected from hives the society maintains in North Bergen.
A milestone for Bergen Square’s modern incarnation will be the opening of the Museum of Jersey City History later this year in the Apple Tree House, the square’s last remaining colonial structure. For political junkies and devotees of the HBO series Boardwalk Empire, the museum’s first exhibit will look at the years between 1917 and 1947 when the infamous Mayor Frank Hague and his machine ruled over Jersey City with an iron fist.
Bergen Square isn’t just about the past, however. The enclave boasts an art gallery (Eonta Space) and some Hudson County Community College buildings.
In his remarks to the crowd, Mayor Fulop predicted that a park at the intersection of Academy Street and Bergen Avenue would be completed by the end of 2023.
Said Dievler, “What we hope that everyone feels is that sense of Bergen Square as a location of community interaction and cultural exchange.”
Heather Grabin recalls driving down Monticello Avenue on the way to dropping her daughter off at school. “I remember thinking this is the most adorable street.” Such was the street’s allure that at the height of the pandemic, Grabin opened a restaurant on the thoroughfare, called the Cottage.
Indeed, to an outsider, Monticello Avenue has all the makings of a street ready to take off: a hip café, a bike shop, a jazz club, and a funky store specializing in banana pudding. A number of tidy but still empty storefronts beg to be rented.
Several of the blocks would fit easily into an Edward Hopper painting. The elements are there: dark red nineteenth-century brick row houses, black streetlamps that look as if they might be lit by gas. Nearby sits the now-closed Trust Company of New Jersey, with its classic granite facade, an elegant building just waiting to be repurposed.
But like so many neighborhoods in transition, Monticello Avenue and the neighborhood to which it belongs — Bergen Hill (or Midtown to old-timers) — continue to struggle with the familiar problems of poverty and underinvestment that beset much of Jersey City’s south side.
Bergen Hill has also seen more than its fair share of violent crime. On August 7, a shooting on Monticello took the life of one man and left another critically injured. In January, a man was gunned down on Belmont Avenue in broad daylight as terrified residents looked on.
For Charley Cano, owner of Outlander Gallery at 126 Monticello Ave., the crime was too much. In April, he said that because of the danger, he was planning to relocate.
But Tamika Wilson, owner of Oh So Bougee Beauty Supply and Beauty Bar, is staying put. “I believe the neighborhood is safe for the most part. The people who have issues have issues with each other.”
Barak Stribling who runs his business designing costumes for Broadway shows from a Monticello Avenue storefront agreed. “When I think of crime, I think of a break-in, a mugging … okay a shooting is bad, but they knew the shooters.” In his 35 years in the neighborhood, Stribling, says he’s “never felt unsafe.”
Like so much of Jersey City, the area has gone through a cycle of relative affluence, decay, and renewal.
Ruth Moore, the owner of Moore’s Lounge, has lived in the neighborhood 53 years. She remembers that there were taverns up and down the street with names like Sal’s and The Robin’s Nest. “Everyone was able to make a living.”
The neighborhood was “mostly Black and about 20 percent white and 20 percent Spanish,” she recalls. “One by one” the bars closed, however, as people moved out of the neighborhood.
Today, Moore’s is the only bar on the street. The taverns have been replaced by storefront churches with names like Continuous Flow Christian Center, Miracle Temple Church and Jerusalem Temple.
But the street is, apparently, bouncing back from the urban flight Moore describes. “Monticello’s come a long way from what it used to look like,” said Michele Massey, executive director of the Jackson Hill Special Improvement District, which encompasses Bergen Hill. She attributes much of the turnaround to a project under former Mayor Glenn Cunningham that renovated storefronts between Brinkerhoff Street and Astor Place.
As he works on a bike in the back of his shop, Bike Hub, “Buzz” Pasdar says, “In my fifteen years here, the street has improved tremendously.”
But Pasdar, who also owns the hip Snapdragon Coffee & Social directly across the street, expresses a sentiment shared by others on the street. “I worry about the effect of gentrification on the people who have always lived here.”
Yet for all the progress, recent arrivals to the neighborhood worry too. Patrick Toussaint and his wife, Andrea Ducas, moved to Bergen Hill three years ago. “You can see the divestment,” says Toussaint. “There is so much blight and so many vacant storefronts on Monticello. The city doesn’t crack down on absent landlords or crappy developers who intentionally take the vacancies as a loss.”
As is the case in many Jersey City neighborhoods, green space is at a premium. “There are very few places to put a park” says Massey. “There is one pocket park. I’ve been speaking with the city about getting that rehabbed.”
“The city’s got to put some skin in the game in order to be more creative with places and spaces,” say Massey.
She recalls the many summer and after-school activities for kids that were available when she was growing up in Jersey City “We used to go to a summer camp at the teacher’s college that is now NJCU. Then we had the YMCA, the YWCA, the Jewish Community Center. All the places that we could go to as kids are gone.”
Graber echoed Massey’s concern. “There’s no playground, there’s no splashpad … there’s nothing for children. They have no resources. What do these parents do? You can go down to Berry Lane, but it’s a schlepp.”
Schools are another issue. One parent who asked to remain anonymous, said ruefully that most of the newcomers with young kids leave. “Your baby is about to start school, and you move to Montclair.”
For many, however, moving to an upscale suburb isn’t an option. There are three public schools in the area, P.S. 12 (Pre-K–5), P.S. 17 (Pre-K–8) and Lincoln High School. Chris Gadsden, the principal of Lincoln High School has seen the neighborhood changing. Just ten years ago he notes that his school was 90 percent Black but said that now he’s seeing a marked increase in the number of Hispanic, Asian, and white students.
Developers clearly see the neighborhood’s potential. In 2021, the upscale “Monticello Triangle” project containing 304 residential units, parking, retail space, and a public plaza was approved. A 22-unit mixed use project is slated for 43-45 Monticello is also on the boards. Both lots, however, remain undeveloped.
The new projects may not come soon enough though. Graber says that low foot traffic is a problem, with many of her customers coming from out of the area.
The neighborhood remains a good relative value. A brick row house on Astor Place with a snazzy modern interior is currently listed for 879,000. And according to Realtor.com, the median price for a home in the neighborhood is $424 per square foot, a steep discount from downtown.
If the area still presents challenges, those who live and work in Bergen Hill swear by it. Says Graber, “Our neighbors are amazing, the other business owners are amazing.”
Ditto for Massey. “I live off Monticello … I like it a lot … it’s just one big neighborhood … everyone knows each other. There are some guys hanging out on the street, and they’re like, ‘How ya’ doin’?’ They remember you. I never feel uncomfortable.”
A recent decision by a federal agency has dealt a setback to local groups hoping to turn a 1.4-mile abandoned elevated railway bed known as the 6th Street Embankment into an elevated greenway for pedestrians and cyclists.
The decision was just the latest in a long-running legal battle set off in 2005 when Conrail sold the Embankment for $3 million to real-estate developers Victoria and Steve Hyman. According to critics, including Jersey City, Conrail illegally sidestepped getting approval for the sale from the STB.
Concept for 6th Street Embankment
In the recent case, the Embankment Preservation Coalition and Rails-to-Trails Conservancy cited Conrail’s removal of rail bridges and other infrastructure and the sale of the property as evidence of Conrail’s intent to subvert the historic review process. To support their position, they submitted statements from historic preservation consultants, two historic preservation employees of the city, and a Hoboken city employee. Conrail wanted to avoid the property’s receiving historic designation, they argued, because it would diminish the commercial value of the property.
In rejecting the claim, the STB said that, given the nature of the rail line, Conrail had no reason to believe that a historical review process was required and that the company was justified in relying on its own legal department’s determination that STB approval of the abandonment and sale of the Embankment was unnecessary.
But even if STB approval and a historic review process had been required, said the Board, “Conrail could not have known, at the time the first of the bridges and related infrastructure were removed in 1994, that the Embankment would first be listed as a historic property in 1999, when it was placed on the NJ Historic Register.”
Conrail noted that in the 90s, Jersey City itself had encouraged the company to remove the bridges and had opposed placing the Embankment on the New Jersey Historic Register and National Register.
Attorney Charles Montange, who represented the Embankment Preservation Coalition and Rails-to-Trails Conservancy, called the decision an “apostasy” that would be “readily reversed.”
“The Surface Transportation Board takes the position that historic preservation does not apply to railroads” said Montange. “Although everyone knows that Conrail should have obtained an abandonment authorization for this right-of-way before they sold it to a developer, they never did. The issue is why. They thought they could get away with it.”
Montange said that Conrail’s claim that it didn’t know that STB approval was required falls qualifies as “willful blindness.”
Stephen Gucciardo, president of the Embankment Preservation Coalition was measured in his response. “We don’t agree with the ruling. The STB is choosing not to hold Conrail accountable by accepting its excuse that they just didn’t know it (The Harsimus Branch) was a rail line” that required STB approval before it could be abandoned and sold.
Concept for “continuous corridor” along 6th Street Embankment
Meanwhile, negotiations between greenway advocates, Jersey City, Conrail, and a developer hoping to build a hotel and a residential project at Marin Boulevard have been going on for years.
In 2012, then-Jersey-City-municipal-attorney William Matsikoudis told the Wall Street Journal the city was “one step away from a settlement (of the Embankment lawsuit) that will provide a world-class amenity for the people of Jersey City.” The amenity was not to be, however. Today Matsikoudis recalls that ultimately Conrail refused to sign the agreement.
Again, in 2020 the parties pressing for a settlement were “at the one-yard line” according to Mayoral Spokesperson Kimberly Wallace-Scalcione, when without explanation Conrail once more walked away. Gucciardo was equally perplexed, telling the Jersey Journal “I think they owe everyone an explanation.”
Asked why it had chosen not to settle and for a response to the August 18 decision, a Conrail spokesperson told The Jersey City Times this morning that it “will not discuss matters that are part of ongoing legal proceedings.”
In October 2021, the Jersey City Municipal Council responded by designating the Embankment an area in need of redevelopment, allowing the city to acquire the land through condemnation. Conrail promptly sued the city arguing that, as it relates to railroads, local zoning is preempted by federal law.
While the STB has yet to rule on the central issue in the 17-year legal battle, the August 18 decision does not bode well for Embankment advocates, at least as it relates to the STB proceding. In its ruling, the STB called the groups’ evidence that Conrail knew or should have known that it needed STB approval prior to the sale “not persuasive.”
“We are considering our remaining federal remedies while we continue to pursue a settlement agreement,” said Gucciardo.
Beginning Sept. 1, 2022 and running through Nov. 1, 2022, Jersey City residents can once again apply to the city’s Golden Neighborhood Housing Program, an opportunity for low- and moderate-income residents of the city to receive as much as $150,000 toward the cost of a buying a Jersey City apartment or house.
“This is a great opportunity to get the community engaged and educated about homeownership in our city,” saidMayor Fulop. “Our goal is to create and preserve affordable housing while also helping residents achieve homeownership where they may not otherwise be able to afford their own family home.”
The program, run by the Division of Community Development (within the city’s Department of Housing, Economic Development & Commerce), is open to an individual or family that meets certain income eligibility requirements, has never owned a home or has not owned a home in the last three years, and has a minimum credit score of 660.
Because the awards are grants, not loans, they require neither interest payments nor repayment (assuming certain conditions are met). This enables recipients to leverage their awards over time.
“We want to keep communities intact while creating opportunities for generational wealth building,” said the division’s director, Deja Anderson, notes.
Those Jersey City residents who qualify after the preliminary September 1–November 1 screening will be entered into a lottery from which a select number of grantees will be drawn. Lottery winners will need to complete pre-and post-mortgage counseling by a HUD-certified provider. (They will also need to secure mortgages.).
Lottery “losers” and those who did not qualify for the lottery for financial reasons will be offered limited services as well.
The division will host a mortgage fair on October 5 with local and national banks to provide additional support/information on their own in-house first-time homebuyer programs, which can be used in combination with our grant.
Details on the program — along with the preliminary application — can be found on the city’s Community Development website.
Readers are also invited to contact the division at 201-547-6910 or GNHP@jcnj.org.
The year was 2015, and the mayor was all in on short-term rentals. Unlike many other cities, Jersey City would welcome Airbnb with open arms and make money in the process by charging a six percent “hotel” tax.
“Airbnb is incredibly popular and growing rapidly, and while some people might have concerns about the sharing economy upending old ways of doing business, the best way to address those concerns is by engaging with these companies, not pretending they do not exist,” Fulop told the Jersey Journal. Companies like Airbnb were, he added, the future of the economy.
Fulop’s spokesman said at the time that the city was “encouraging and embracing the use of Airbnb” and hoped the city could reach similar agreements with other companies.
But on Monday, seven years later, the mayor celebrated the undoing of his 2015 Airbnb deal, making no mention of his earlier support and apparent failed efforts to turn the company into a major political donor.
Referencing an appeals court decision that upheld Jersey City’s 2019 ordinance banning most Airbnb rentals, the mayor tweeted, “We put lots of time to get this ordinance right from the start + this decision is good for residents/housing in our city.” The tweet gives the impression that the mayor had been battling Airbnb from day one.
But the mayor’s “start” wasn’t an ordinance to limit Airbnb, it was full-throated promotion of short-term renting in Jersey City. His approach was in stark contrast to that of mayors in cities like New York and San Francisco. In these communities, the mayors cracked down on Airbnb because residents were complaining of soaring rents and quality-of-life issues.
Predictably for many, within a few years the negative effects of short-term rentals became apparent in Jersey City too.
In 2019, with the mayor’s support, the City Council voted to sharply curtail home-sharing rentals. Where previously an investor could buy an apartment and rent it out on Airbnb without time limits, the new ordinance created a cap of 60 days on such rentals. Where the owner lived on site and the building had fewer than four units, there would be no time limits; in buildings of more than four units, an on-site owner would need to get permission from the building’s condo association.
The industry didn’t take the new limits lying down. A group called Keep Our Homes spent over $4 million on a referendum to overturn the new law. But on November 5, 2019, Jersey City residents voted overwhelmingly to preserve the ordinance and its limitations on home sharing. Airbnb alone spent approximately $3 million on the losing effort. It was the most expensive municipal referendum in New Jersey history.
But according to Airbnb and the property owners who would end up suing the city, the mayor’s change of heart had little to do with rising rents and quality of life issues. “Getting it right from the start” was never the concern for the mayor.
As Chief Judge Michael Chagares noted in his opinion, “Following the passage of Ordinance 15.137, Mayor Fulop’s relationship with Airbnb purportedly began to deteriorate. In 2016, Mayor Fulop allegedly sought a donation from Airbnb to his reelection campaign. Mayor Fulop attended a fundraiser at Airbnb’s San Francisco headquarters in 2017 but still did not receive a donation. In May 2017, Mayor Fulop allegedly sent a number of emails to Airbnb expressing his frustration, and, in response, Airbnb sent a $10,172 contribution to his reelection campaign. Airbnb represented that, following the delay in the donation, the relationship ‘fractured,’ and Mayor Fulop began receiving donations from the hotel industry.”
The mayor’s spokesperson did not respond to an email yesterday asking for an explanation for the mayor’s U-turn on the issue.
As housing advocates fear the coronavirus pandemic has put more tenants in danger of eviction, lawmakers are looking for new ways to protect tenants.
Two recently introduced bills would extend the period certain senior citizen renters and tenants with disabilities are protected from eviction if their homes are converted into condos, and would require more landlords to provide receipts for cash payments.
Both were introduced last week by Hudson County Democrats Sens. Brian Stack and Sandra Cunningham.
Peter Chen of progressive think tank New Jersey Policy Perspective supports the bills but said lawmakers are “nibbling at the edges of a much bigger problem” — that tenants have seen substantial rent increases over the last two years in New Jersey and the rest of the nation.
“It’s addressing a relatively small sliver of the overall rental market, and this is a large-scale national problem,” he said.
The first bill (S2961) would extend the protection period under the Senior Citizen and Disables Protected Tenancy Act, which aims to protect senior citizens and people with disabilities from being pushed out of their apartments when they are converted into condos or co-ops. The law offers the protections for 40 years, and the new bill would extend the protections for the eligible tenant’s “remaining lifetime.”
As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, relocations have sharply increased, the lawmakers say in the bill, which also notes there are limited housing units that are properly equipped for what some people with disabilities need, like ramps for wheelchairs.
The second bill (S2962) would expand the definition of a landlord in an already existing law that requires they provide receipts for cash payments. The bill would define a landlord as anyone with one or more dwellings who rents or leases for at least one month, which means more small landlords would be included. It would exclude hotels, motels, and other guest houses for transient and seasonal tenants.
The first bill would help a relatively small number of people, Chen said, but the legislation seeking to expand cash payment receipts to small landlords would apply to a “substantial number of renters” who have historically had fewer protections than people renting from large landlords.
Chen said the challenge with these laws is enforcement. Not all renters, particularly in single- or two-family units, are “on file” with their municipality or even have official lease agreements, he said. This also makes collecting data around housing difficult, he added.
Chen would like to see lawmakers tackle some broader housing legislation to benefit tenants, like exploring rent increase control, tax credits for families, and more funds for rental and utility assistance. Currently, rent control is left up to municipalities.
“New Jersey is already a high-cost state, and as we’re seeing larger chunks of family incomes go toward housing costs, this is going to potentially be an issue that New Jersey will have to address over the next few years,” he said.
Stack and Cunningham did not respond to requests for comment. Legislation isn’t expected to move until the fall when the Legislature resumes regular sessions.
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Plaintiffs in a lawsuit brought to stop a controversial 17-story development in Bergen-Lafayette have submitted a settlement proposal to the Jersey City Planning Board.
In a letter today, plaintiffs Morris Canal Redevelopment Area Community Development Corporation, Inc. (“MCRACDC”) and its executive director, June Jones, proposed an alternative plan developed by former Jersey City Senior Planner Jeffrey Wenger that would “reconcile the community’s desires regarding height and scale of the residential project with the redeveloper’s desired density.”
In 2020, the redeveloper, Skyline Development Group, unveiled a plan for the 361 unit mixed use project on the former site of a factory next to Berry Lane Park now commonly referred to as “Steel Tech.” Called Morris Canal Manor, the project was to include five percent “affordable” units; a 22,000-square-foot building housing a basketball court and spaces for other yet-to-be-determined recreational uses; and eight commercial “incubators” for minority-owned startup businesses.
From the beginning, opponents raised multiple objections to the project. Chief among them were the project’s size in a neighborhood of one and two family homes and the inclusion of only five percent affordable housing.
In 2021, the council adopted an Inclusionary Zoning Ordinance (IZO) which mandates that new apartment projects allot at least ten percent of their units as affordable.
Opponents also object to using the land for luxury apartments on a site previously designated to become part of Berry Lane Park.
Today’s proposal would allow the developer to build up to 368 residential units in a building eight stories tall. To achieve this, the building’s footprint and density would be increased. “369 units is equivalent to 109 units per acre, which is just over three times (3x) the permitted residential density of the…area surrounding Berry Lane Park.”
The lawsuit, which was filed in April, is asking the court to repeal an ordinance passed by the City Council in March amending the Morris Canal Redevelopment Plan to allow for project to move ahead as originally proposed by the redeveloper.
Jones is asking that the amendments be put on the Planning Board’s August 23 agenda.
Last night the Jersey City Redevelopment Agency unanimously voted to approve the first Bayfront redevelopment agreement, a deal with Bayfront Development Partners LLC, to build a six-story building on Route 440 that has 35 percent affordable housing.
According to the city’s press release about the deal, the project will garner numerous environmental certifications and will include retail space and many common spaces for residents. Priority for jobs related to the undertaking will go to Jersey City residents.
“With these requirements,” Bayfront, which sits on a former environmentally contaminated site, “will provide the most affordable housing of any private mixed-income community of its size in the country,” the release goes on to say.
Bayfront Development Partners is a joint venture between Philadelphia-based Penrose LLC and Manhattan-based Omni America LLC, both of which have extensive experience building mixed-use, mixed-income projects.
According to earlier reporting, the Bayfront site will be redeveloped in two stages resulting in 1,000 new apartments. This first structure, “Bayfront Promenade,” will have 209 units, 35 percent of which will be reserved for households at 60 percent and below of the area median income.
Bayfront
Last night’s vote follows the unanimous approval of the project by the Bayfront Community Advisory Committee, a 7-member committee comprised of the mayor, a representative from JC Together, Ward A Councilwoman Denise Ridley, Ward B Councilwoman Mira Prinz-Arey, a representative from Society Hill, and two additional community members.
Said Mayor Fulop: “This marks a major milestone as we successfully move forward with the Bayfront redevelopment project, which has already triggered interest, investment, and revitalization within the City’s Greenville and West Side neighborhoods. The transformation of the formerly contaminated site into the largest mixed-income community in the region serves as a model for sustainable and affordable mixed-income development.”
The city acquired the 100-acre Bayfront property from Honeywell Corporation in 2018 with a goal of increasing the on-site affordable housing requirements from five percent as was previously stipulated in the redevelopment plan to 35 percent. The City Council voted to bond $170 million to purchase the land and build the necessary infrastructure on the property.
Coming after years planning and negotiation, last night’s deal was considered momentous.
“We are seeing incredible progress as we transform the 100 acres of underutilized and remediated land into a welcoming and affordable community along the Hackensack River Waterfront,” said JCRA Executive Director Diana Jeffrey. “This RDA (redevelopment agreement) approval comes after a vigorous vetting process in which the City hosted numerous public meetings to ensure the entire community is part of the decision-making process, maintaining transparency and incorporating residents’ input.”
The Bayfront Promenade building will also house nearly 10,000 square feet of common space including an outdoor terrace with grilling stations, a community lounge with a kitchen, a co-working lounge/media room, a fitness center, yoga room, a dog wash, and bike storage. Sponsors expect the structure to earn Enterprise Green Communities and Energy Star certifications.
If it seems like the rent is too damn high in Jersey City, you’re probably not alone.
According to a new report from Rent.com, the rent for a one bedroom apartment in Jersey City averaged $4,421 in June, a one year gain of a whopping 51.6 percent. That made Jersey City second only to New York City nationally.
Two bedroom apartments saw an even larger jump, increasing in cost by a massive 57.6 percent from June last year, making Jersey City the most expensive market for a two bedroom in all the U.S. cities surveyed. New York City was not included in the two bedroom analysis.
Only three cities in the top ten, Jersey City, Portland Oregon and Salt Lake City, experienced year-over-year price increases in both one-bedroom and two-bedroom apartments.
Sawyer Smith of the eponymous Sawyer Smith Residential is unsurprised by the data. “Demand is very high, we’re seeing multiple applicants and things are renting within days.” Smith pointed out that two Silverman buildings, Swift & Co. and The Hendrix rented immediately. “As fast as you can show them, they’re renting. Some people are switching buildings but there are people coming from New York because rents have gone up and then there are people coming back into the cities.”
Affordability continues to be a major political issue in Jersey City. According to a recent study, of 18,051 units that came online in the last decade in Jersey City, 95 percent were considered “luxury.” Last week, the city proposed a new inclusionary zoning ordinance called “The Affordable Housing Overlay” that would incentivize developers to include from 10 to 15 percent affordable housing, depending on the neighborhood’s income level, where currently none is required.
To determine average rent prices, Rent.com started with June 2022 data from its multifamily rental property inventory and evaluated changes seen since June 2021. Monthly prices are based on the average price for that respective month as a whole.
