Quote: I find that hard to believe...where ARE these homes? The only new construction to speak of since 1993 has been on the waterfront and there have been precisely ZERO units of affordable housing built there in that timeframe. Quote: Even though that was written in ENGLISH I Think it STILL might have been written by Marie Antionette as in "Don't worry dear, as homes fall apart they will always become available to the poor. In any case, it isn't true because old inner city housing has become much more valuable than newly thrown together junk because the former is built better. There are NO areas of JC that cost less than they did 10 years ago. <>

yup.

I am interested in what's considered 'affordable'. Does anyone know? A home/condo in Jersey City that a person making under $50K a year can afford? Is that possible? Or is 'affordable' what's marketed to those making merely $100K? If you make too much to qualify for low-income housing and far too little to buy something, I guess you're stuck renting forever and being pushed further and further out as rents rise?

Need a house? Jersey has 1.24 million acres available

Thursday, October 11, 2007
BY TOM HESTER
Star-Ledger Staff

Despite the impression that the last open space in New Jersey is about to be paved over, there is still plenty of elbow room, a state consultant said yesterday.

"All of the growth and development that has occurred in the 240 years since our nation was founded has used 1.42 million acres, or 28 percent of the state's total area," Henry J. Mayer of Rutgers University's E.J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy told a meeting of the state Council on Affordable Housing.

Of the state's 4.98 million acres, about 1.24 million acres -- mostly in South Jersey -- are undeveloped and unconstrained, available for future development, Mayer said, estimating the open acreage could absorb nearly 1 million new houses and apartments.

A second report presented to COAH found declining housing prices in New Jersey's cities and older suburbs are expected to make 47,306 houses affordable to people with low and moderate incomes by 2018. But affordable housing will continue to be hard to find in the suburbs and Shore area, according to a state consultant's finding.

The report found that as some cities attracted wealthier homebuyers or rural towns grew into suburbs, they lost housing that was once affordable.

Since 1993, for example, gentrified Hoboken lost 921 affordable houses, Manchester Township (Burlington) lost 790, Perth Amboy, 669 and Montclair, 404. Jersey City, despite rising housing prices in its Gold Coast and Downtown neighborhoods, added 2,597 affordable houses, Union added 1,881, Newark added 1,487, and Trenton, 526.

"The results are consistent with the widely held perceptions about the New Jersey housing market," said Richard Voith of the Econsult Corp. of Philadelphia.

Kevin Walsh, counsel for the Cherry Hill-based Fair Share Housing Center, said the loss of affordable housing in the suburbs enable those communities to "keep the poor out."

Rutgers, Econsult and the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania are providing information and consulting as COAH develops new court-ordered rules that will establish new amounts of affordable housing that towns will be asked to provide by 2018.

The Econsult report found that by 2018, the northern and southern parts of the state are projected to experience gains in affordable housing through lower home prices, while the central area is expected to lose affordable units. Projected loses include Long Branch with 429 houses, Brick, 372, Wayne, 208 and Sayreville, 174. Newark is expected to gain 5,725 units, Jersey City, 834, and Bayonne, 423.

The COAH meeting was the first officiated by new state Community Affairs Commissioner Joseph V. Doria, and he promised housing advocates, developers and the press openness when discussing and creating affordable housing standards, something that was missing during the McGreevey administration and the first 21 months of Gov. Jon Corzine's term.

Doria said following the meeting he may have to ask a state appeals court judge, who in June gave COAH until Dec. 31 to develop the new rules, for more time.

"There will be more reports, more stakeholder meetings. The issue becomes when can we put the rules out," he said. "I may be looking for some relief on that, a month or so."