Terrence T. McDonald/The Jersey Journal

Jersey City residents who live near The Hub shopping center had a sneak peek tonight at Jackson Green, a $7.6 million residential development that community leaders hope will help transform the trouble-plagued area.
The Rose Avenue development is still about six months from completion, but a handful of the three-bedroom modular homes are nearly done and were available for a walk-through tonight.

Tameka Chandler, 43, could watch the construction from her Carteret Avenue home. On the model home?s fourth floor deck, which has a clear view of Lower Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty, Chandler said she was mostly impressed.

?I love it, but too many stairs,? she said as she took a seat after walking up three flights. ?It?s too far to get to your bedroom, it?s too far to the door.?

By December, there will be 22 homes on either side of Rose Avenue, just around the corner from The Hub. It?s a neighborhood plagued by crime and dotted with foreclosed homes. The lots now home to Jackson Green were vacant for decades.

?It?s going to change our community,? said Ellen Wright, of Arlington Avenue. ?We?re going to make this look like Downtown Jersey City.?

The project has its beginnings 30 years ago, when congregations in Jersey City and Hoboken formed the Interfaith Community Organization in an effort to bring affordable housing to the two Hudson County cities.

The effort was sidelined early on, and then for the next three decades the group focused on cleaning up portions of Jersey City contaminated by chromium waste. But the group, now part of New Jersey Together, has shifted its focus back to affordable housing.

The project is funded mostly with federal grants, with about 11 percent of the funding, or $457,000, coming from the Jersey City Redevelopment Agency.

The homes will be a mix of affordable and market-rate housing, with prices ranging from $118,000 to $205,000.

Helen Syria, of Monticello Avenue, said she?s been waiting for years for housing to come to her neighborhood, saying it will be a ?new beginning? for the area.

?I hope it doesn?t take them another 40 years to finish this,? she said, ?because I?ll be 117 years old.?