Developers who agree to rebuild blighted areas in Jersey City have to give more than lip service to hiring local residents: they must contract with the Jersey City Public Housing Authority to ensure residents are put to work, one city official said. Well, my first reaction on seeing the headline was "finally, some corruption that will hurt developers instead of citizens. Cool." But then I read on and see that it's for "developers who agree to rebuild blighted areas." So developers of prime real estate get tax abatements and developers of blighted lots that might actually improve JC get costly regulation. So it's not cool, it's business as usual.

People can't "move out" out of assisted housing because of the recent rent increases in Hudson County. Even if they are working a full time job. You used to be able to rent a 3 bedroom for 800 bucks now you would be lucky to find a studio in Jersey City for the same price.

Doesn't it also seem a bit unfair that the state/city should give an advantage to people who need help finding and maintaining employment over those that may otherwise be relatively successful construction workers? By this I mean that relatively successful construction workers, who does not live in assisted housing, have a smaller pool of jobs to compete for because the state/city feels the need to "reserve" a certain number of these jobs for people in its care. If this is part of the state's plan to move people out of assisted housing through worker training, i'd be all for it. However, my guess is the jobs allotted to the NJHA workers will be the most unskilled and menial of tasks.

More bureaucracy to discourage business, seems like the liberal way.

Hiring JC residents is good, but to jump through hoops to meet a quota is inefficient.

Not to sound too cynical but if the JCHA is as efficient as the other JC agencies then this is definitely anti-business.

Redevelopers to be forced to hire Jersey City residents
Monday, October 23, 2006
By KEN THORBOURNE
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

Developers who agree to rebuild blighted areas in Jersey City have to give more than lip service to hiring local residents: they must contract with the Jersey City Public Housing Authority to ensure residents are put to work, one city official said.

"Your 'best effort' is now going to be working with the (Jersey City) Housing Authority, which has an outstanding track record at putting people to work," said Robert Antonicello, executive director of the Jersey City Redevelopment Agency.

"If the local residents can't benefit by this building boom, we have really done something wrong," he added.

The details are still being hashed out, but within a month, a deal will be in place whereby developers who agree to build in redevelopment areas would have to hire the Jersey City Housing Authority as hiring consultants, Antonicello said.

Using a section of its federal charter as leverage, the Jersey City Housing Authority has managed to get contractors they oversee to hire enough local workers to represent at least 30 percent of a job's "man hours," officials said.

But it's not easy, they added. Meeting the goal requires holding job fairs, monitoring, and in some cases, "hand-holding" would-be workers, said Jersey City Housing Authority Executive Director Maria Maio.

"We always met the goal," said Maio, referring to six multi-million dollar projects the agency has overseen. "The key was closing up the excuses and then monitoring it."