Ugh...convert affordable housing to condos!!! Perhaps Healy feels the same since he didn't attend.

Jersey City Mayoral candidates debate affordable housing policy

by Amy Sara Clark / The Jersey Journal
Tuesday April 21, 2009, 10:55 PM


From left, civic activist Daniel Levin, former state Assemblyman Louis Manzo, state Assemblyman L. Harvey Smith, and Jersey City Police Detective Phillip G. Webb, at last night's Jersey City mayoral debate.

Four of the five mayoral candidates debated affordable housing at a forum last night at St. Peter's College.

The candidates - Jersey City Police Detective Phillip G. Webb, state Assemblyman L. Harvey Smith, former state Assemblyman Louis Manzo, civic activist Daniel Levin - agreed on most issues, but each also brought new ideas to the discussion.

All the candidates stressed the need to make sure developers provide the required 20 percent of affordable housing units, and agreed those units should be built on-site.

They also agreed that when low-income or affordable housing units are lost -- such as in the case of the 549-unit Montgomery Gardens housing complex, which is slated to be torn down and replaced with a low-rise mixed income development -- they must be replaced on a one-to-one basis with new affordable housing units.

But each candidate had their own focus during the debate.

Webb often came back to the need for housing policy to "reflect the reality" of the need in Jersey City.

"We have a diverse population and what we build has to reflect the needs of all the people or its not appropriate management," he said. "If the reality is (that) 40 percent (need affordable housing) then we have to contend with that reality."

Smith suggested that the city use the Affordable Housing Trust Fund -- a pool to which developers can contribute funds to build affordable housing instead of building it themselves - to take over abandoned houses in Jersey City. The city would then hire qualified Jersey City contractors to redevelop the property and sell it to low- and moderate-income residents.

Smith also suggested that current affordable housing units be zoned to stay that way.

"We have to make sure that the people that were in affordable housing stay in affordable housing," he said.

Levin emphasized the need to get regular citizens on city boards and authorities. He pointed to The Beacon, as an example of public officials that were working in favor of special interests instead of for the public.

"Our career politicians gave (The Beacon) away to the person that paid the lowest amount for that property," he said. "Until we start getting people involved in their city government who are not self-serving career politicians we are going to have this ... so use your vote carefully."

Louis Manzo suggested the city give tax credits to landlords who provide affordable housing. He also said commercial developers should be required to provide affordable units as well as residential developers.

Manzo also suggested that the city create an affordable housing board, with "teeth," that would have to approve development projects to make sure they provide the required affordable housing units.

And finally, Manzo said the city needs to stop illegal conversions to condominiums, which are forcing people out of affordable rentals.

"We need to stop illegal condo conversion," he said. "It's wrong. It's almost evil. It should stop and when I'm mayor I'm not only going to correct it, I'm going to prosecute those that let it happen."

About 50 people attended the debate, which was sponsored by the Jersey City Affordable Housing Coaltion and St. Peter's College Department of Sociology and the Urban Studies and Public Policy Program.

Jersey City mayor Jerramiah T. Healy did not attend, citing a prior commitment, but sent an assistant, David Donnelly, to read a prepared statement.