Last night’s community panel discussion on affordable housing eventually turned into a debate on the merits of building affordable housing on the vacant land known as the Wildwood properties.
The meeting, sponsored by the Fourth Ward Collaborative and hosted by Fourth Ward Councilor Renée Baskerville, was part on an ongoing effort to address the increasing challenge that low-to-moderate income residents face in finding housing that does not cost more than 30 percent of their annual income. Panelists also discussed the disproportionate allotment of such housing in the Fourth Ward, which includes 525 of the 651 affordable units in Montclair — or 84% of the total. The First Ward has only two such affordable housing units.
Beverly Riddick, director of Homes Of Montclair Ecumenical Corporation (HOMECorp) and one of the panelists, cited the sense of civic pride in the township’s efforts to provide homes for a racially and economically diverse population that gives the community its strength. But she also noted that housing costs have risen and become more prohibitive. The median price for a house in Montclair was $475,000 in December 2011, a 35 percent increase over a decade earlier.
“That’s a good thing, as long as we’re content to remain here,” said Riddick, whose organization has built and restored 34 housing units and 65 apartment units since its founding in 1988. ”But where it becomes a little trickier is when you have folks who want to move into the community. ”
The panelists generally agreed on the need to provide such housing opportunities for middle-class workers such as teachers, police officers, firefighters and hospital employees. David Troutt, a Rutgers law professor specializing in community economic development who recently moved to Montclair, added that it was an investment in a community’s economic diversity. But Troutt added that affordability had to be distributed evenly to avoid socioeconomic segregation. He sought to allay fears that such housing would affect property values.
“Affordable housing does not diminish property values,” he said. ”In many instances, depending on the context and the type of housing, there’s in fact an improvement in them.”
Resident Howard Gardner of Grove Street did not mince words on the segregation issue, noting the saying it was “disingenuous” to suggest that there was equality in the distribution of affordable housing throughout the township with so much of it concentrated in the mostly black Fourth Ward.
Montclair Housing Commission chair Wendy McNeil concurred by noting that many Montclair residents have mischaracterized the concept of affordable housing with comments on Baristanet and in e-mails expressing oppostion to affordable housing in the First Ward. “I’ve taken to seeing it as the ‘Newt Gingrich-Rick Santorum syndrome,’” she said. “For example, in one case, it said, ‘Obviously, jobs in Willowbrook [Mall] and Newark are much more accessible via buses on Bloomfield Avenue, which happens to run through the Fourth Ward, and how would a low-income family get to work from the First Ward?’ Well, that’s a big assumption that someone is making in terms of the nature of affordability.” Gardner added that people need to be more educated on the issue to understand that affordable housing doesn’t necessarily mean public housing projects of the sort associated with Newark.
The meeting had already become focused on the Wildwood properties, with Councilor Rich Murnick spearheading the charge. With many of his constituents at the meeting insisting that the land remain undeveloped, Murnick re-iterated his reluctance to sell at a loss and cited the many residents who preferred to keep the Wildwood properties as open space, with the suggestion that existing housing could be utilized for affordabilty.
“I am in favor of affordable housing in the First Ward,” Murnick said.
Ilmar Vanderer of Edgemont Road urged that the housing needs of older people be taken seriously. He noted that many older residents, some of them still actively working, can’t afford their property taxes and are struggling to say in Montclair after having lived there all their lives. Tax subsidies, Vanderer said, are “not keeping pace with the increasing cost of property taxes and the general cost of living.”
Planning Director Janice Talley noted that Montclair has always sought to increase the availability of affordable housing, from passing ordinances allowing mid-rise and garden apartments to inclusionary zoning today. With four percent of Montclair’s apartments and detached houses considered affordable, Talley wants to get it up to ten percent.
“We’re not there yet,” she said.
Affordable housing is key to Montclair having diversity. However, everyone at all socioeconomic levels, is having trouble affording Montclair’s property taxes. The increasing costs and declining non-property tax revenues need to be addressed before anymore burdens should be taken on.
Another article that ignores the discussion of the purchase of affordable housing units in the 4th ward, as discussed last night. Keep sweeping it under the rug! The town keeps talking the talk of diversity throughout the town, but their actions suggest they intend to keep all the AH in the 4th ward.
That’s always the rub, isn’t it? Liberals want socialism just so long as someone else pays.
Indeed. The wildwood proposal appears DOA, though Montclair continues to commit to keep adding AH to the 4th ward. They’ve been arguing about having 2 meager units in the 1st ward for years, yet there are over 500 in the 4th ward, and none of them seem to care. How much more can we really sustain?
2 units in the first ward or 12 in the 4th. What’s better? I would say the 10 extra families that get to send their kids to Montclair schools would prefer the latter.
“Liberals want socialism just so long as someone else pays.”
—oh ROC, you read the liberal mind like a book—you are just like The Amazing Kreskin!
seriously, that’s one of the most ridiculously reductive things you’ve written yet. congrats!
“Ilmar Vanderer of Edgemont Road urged that the housing needs of older people be taken seriously. He noted that many older residents, some of them still actively working, can’t afford their property taxes and are struggling to say in Montclair after having lived there all their lives.”
And many middle age residents, still actively working AND with minor children to support, can’t afford the property taxes, either. I see no reason to subsidize the elderly when everyone is hurting–and many non-elderly have more dependents counting on them.
“2 units in the first ward or 12 in the 4th. What’s better?”
What would be better is to realize government has a terrible track record of socially engineering who should live where and under what circumstances.
The government should focus on equal services and protections to all citizens in whichever neighborhood they live or their income.
@jajabooty, instead of 2 units in the 1st ward, lets build out the wildwood property with 16 AH units, maximize our sale of the land, and let 16 families with kids go to Montclair schools. That sounds like a plan to me.
I agree 100% with ROC…let the free market work itself out. The reality is that some people can afford to live in Montclair and some can’t. Not sure why we have to jam affordable housing down people’s throats when the reality is that the only people that want affordable housing are the ones that can’t afford to live in Montclair. There are many less expensive alternatives like Bloomfield and Nutley, that’s life. Furthermore, unless you also give these folks a tax break as well, the model doesn’t work.
nocorzine, you remind my of cousins from the Bronx who now lives in Georgia, big supporters of the Tea Party — they use your talking points, but keep quiet about the fact that they grew up in public housing, because my aunt and uncle barely got by and couldn’t afford anything better back in the 1950′s.
The free market didn’t “work itself out” back in the day – if it was up to the private sector alone, they’d have memories of a rat infested cold water flat over their heads, instead of that boxy but leafy public housing project in the Bronx, made possible by the government’s subsidies.
If the aim is affordable housing for Montclair’s public employees, why not simply increase wages?
Housing prices everywhere are at their lowest in a long time (as are interest rates), including Montclair, although in Montclair (as in Essex Fells, parts of Millburn, and North Caldwell) they may be above average due to the desirability of the community. But if people are still putting offers on said houses (sometimes overbidding), then that is what the market will bear. I agree with Nocorzine: Some people can afford to live in Montclair, others cannot. You buy what you can afford or you find yourself in hot water.
And some people want to live in Monclair and some don’t. Given the trend in property taxes, reductions in services, the tyranny of the parking authority, and the outrageous prices at the farmer’s market, I opt out of being a Montclair-wannabe. Problem is, Bloomfield seems to be heading down the same track. And we moved out of Caldwell because we could not find a desireable residenece without getting into bidding wars. If diversity means a lot at both ends and very little in the middle, what makes that something to strive for? Unless you are a 1%-er, of course.
The number one thing that kept us out of Montclair was the property taxes. Secondly, the prices. What will buy you a home in near-pristine condition in surrounding towns such as West Orange (which is VERY diverse, by the way), may get you a fixer-upper in Montclair.
Perhaps its time Montclair starts to think about how to make the town affordable to everyone, especially those who already live here, and not just those who qualify for AH. We can’t sustain the runaway property taxes.
Affordable housing, diversity .. there goes the neighborhood!
If the libs get their way they will ask again in a few years “why are property values dropping, services being eliminated and property taxes going up”?
Typical liberal idealist mindset that has gotten Montclair in the financial mess that it is in. In a perfect world we would have 10% affordable housing, bike lanes, electric car charging stations, green everything, etc etc. Newsflash: the world isn’t perfect. If you can’t afford to live in Montclair, choose a less expensive neighboring town that you can afford. There is no money sitting around for hand outs. The facts are not “ideal” but those are the facts. Focus on lowering the cost to live in Montclair for the people that actually live here, not those that would like to.
Has anyone noticed that Montclair is not so special any more?
Yes, nocorzine, we can’t all have everything we want. Yet you know that you picked favorite AM radio talk show lib targets. But we’re talking real estate here, so would you also go along with taking churches and synagogues off the exempt status and start paying real estate taxes like you and me?
“…would you also go along with taking churches and synagogues off the exempt status and start paying real estate taxes like you and me?”
I hope I live long enough to see this. I never understood this exemption.
Troutt added that affordability had to be distributed evenly to avoid socioeconomic segregation.
But we already have economic segregation, to a high degree, so it’s not a question of avoiding it, it’s a question of what to do about it. So how would building affordable housing this one site help?
And what do we mean by “affordable”? To whom? Cops, teachers etc? Or people living below the poverty line?
It’s all a little abstract.
Would this have to be part of an overall plan to bring the town into some kind of socioeconomically integrated future? I don’t say this to demean the idea, but what is the ideal, the thing we’re aiming for?
The word “segregation” has a pretty definite racial overtone. Is that intentional?
Does Fourth Ward Councilor Renée Baskerville live in the Fourth Ward?
“…would you also go along with taking churches and synagogues off the exempt status and start paying real estate taxes like you and me?”
all other not-for-profits like labor unions, arts organizations, too?
I have the same questions, Roo.
By the way, I would like to live in Alpine, NJ but I cannot afford it because of my income bracket. So, are they *required* to build a hovel for me on some small corner of the golf course? Should I write to the Mayor of Alpine and tell him what color vinyl siding I’d like them to install??
Is there still some COAH-type requirement with which towns must comply? Such as, for every x-number of new housing units, x-number must be ‘affordable’? Who defines affordable? For a family of four making x-dollars a year? With a 10% down payment? Or 30% down payment? At what mortgage rate? What if they have a $600 lease payment on a brand new Lexus?
What if a town isn’t building (or approving) any new units? Is there still an overall percentage of units which are required to be affordable? Does the town then have to buy up properties and convert them? What exactly are the obligations?
Why can’t Montclair just sell the Wildwood property to the highest bidder so we can maximize the profit (if the town’s objective is still to sell it)? Maximize the revenue too – no tax abatements! I mean really, it sounds like they want to give away the farm.
Personally I’d like to keep the open space but I know that plan would have its own associated opportunity cost (and later, expense). But I need a nice sunny spot for tomatoes!
What Montclair calls affordable housing sounds like the what Bloomfield calls luxury housing. Montclair & Bloomfield could merge and suddenly Montclair would have the affordable housing it claims to need and Bloomfield would have the luxury apartments it believes there’s demand for.
Montclair & Bloomfield could merge and suddenly Montclair would have the affordable housing it claims to need and Bloomfield would have the luxury apartments it believes there’s demand for”
There would just be the small outstanding issue of Czechoslovakia, oh I mean Glen Ridge.
Essex County just awarded HOMECORP $30k this week as part of $5.9M in block grants announced this week.
http://www.thejerseytomatopress.com/stories/CDBG-Grants-Awarded-Today-in-Essex-County,9164
The larger issue of making all housing in Montclair more affordable, by reducing taxes, seems irrelevant to this discussion. The trend is up, and the average resident has a clear choice: earn commensurately more, get squeezed, or leave.
The more pointed question is whether we decide to not give up entirely on economic diversity and accept that if we pick a small number of winners, the township will be richer in spirit in the long run. As David Brooks wrote on Monday (http://nyti.ms/wIbmXF) “the real social gap [in the USA] is between the top 20 percent and the lower 30 percent.”
So the question in my mind is, with limited tools and resources, in a time when the middle 50 percent is squeezed, do we do something for the lower 30% in Montclair?
ROC not a bad idea – the merge –
but I was certain someone with your outlook would instead suggest Montclair merge with the Upper West Side or Park Slope, or maybe even San Francisco.
“The wildwood proposal appears DOA, though Montclair continues to commit to keep adding AH to the 4th ward.”
This statement appears to present a false choice. It isn’t either-or. Given the number of properties on the market today, and a combination of [relatively] depressed prices and low mortgage rates, we’ve the opportunity to convert existing housing stock to affordable housing. That can be done in any ward w/o either selling town assets or giving up open space.
But the property tax issue does need to be addressed. Any serious analysis must include that in the ongoing cost when considering what is “affordable”, and Montclair’s ever-expanding taxes hinder affordability once that is no longer ignored. Any buyer considering Montclair today must not only consider today’s taxes, but the direction in which they are moving.
In the short term, we may have tools like PILOT to address this. But if this comes at the cost of continuing the expansion of property taxes, then the general affordability problem will only grow worse over time.
There is a lot the town government can do to help affordability, but these continue to be ignored. What ever happened to the study of outsourcing some town services? Why, when we did outsource to the Parking Authority, did the town not see a drop in expenses as maintenance and other costs associated with parking facilities were picked up by the new Authority?
It seems a somewhat odd to be addressing affordability from the perspective of making a town investment while ignoring affordability from the perspective of saving.
…Andrew
RoC, maybe more like Lesotho.
Montclair, like most of this area is pretty much “built out”. You can’t add 4% or 6% of anything without razing or converting something else. If the Wildwood tract is used for parkland it will cost the town very little and be a irreplaceable asset for everyone for generations to come. Parkland,playgrounds,playing fields,gardens, etc. are used by everyone from all income levels. Especially by those of us “affordable” folks ! This is probably the last opportunity to add any significant parkland to our town. Let’s not blow it !
Force Glen Ridge into the mix by witholding fire department services. Real politik in action.
Montclair Housing Commission chair Wendy McNeil concurred by noting that many Montclair residents have mischaracterized the concept of affordable housing with comments on Baristanet…
Oh, snap! Congratulations, Baristas! Many happy returns on the day.
I want to hear from Troutt, who seems to actually know something. Where is he? Paging David Troutt. David Troutt please report to the blog.
nocorzine wrote: “Typical liberal idealist mindset that has gotten Montclair in the financial mess that it is in. ”
I actually take offense to that. Being fiscally incompetent has nothing to do with being Liberal or pretending to be Liberal, but everything to do with being foolish. Foolishness and pandering to a majority crosses any political color.
The “typical liberal idealist mindset” contributed mightily to the voting rights of women and blacks, who, unlike the earlier days, are now casting ballots. Nothing “foolish” there, nocorzine.
There IS affordable housing for low to moderate income people… It’s called Newark.
Multiculturalism is a state-sanctioned grievance industry that stokes division and resentment, while always under the delusion that it is doing something positive, called “celebrating diversity.”
What a load of rubbish!
Hey Albert G. The liberals that did the voting rights etc. are not the same as the liberals today. What nocorzine calls the “liberal mindset” should really be characterizes by “typical radlib hard left socialist mindset”. And Cunningham you do so continue to blat your proud memebership in the DB Hall of Lame
Segregation and diversity aside, law enforcement provides for the removal of antisocial behavior, which is the loci or focus of the cross-section that is created in the newly populated statistics. The population harbors and has been known to harbor outliers, averages, and percentage groups representing people with a historical tendency for antisocial behavior. The population is effected by the price level and behaviors historically associated the resultant population adjustments for behavior and wage variables. It cannot be said that antisocial behavior will cease to exist in any market segment, or population due to the fact that intelligence and past bias have placed certain people into a schedule of assistance payments in the form social security, pension/401k, or investment. When payments reach an inflection point within the distribution of scheduled payments we have what is called a central moment; the central moment is observed at many intervals throughout the populations distribution. What politics does is to create the perception that these dynamics are unobservable and that chaos is useful in placating the behavioral assumptions and motivations of all people included within the population who wish to address net cash balances at that moment. The populations instability will never be addressed because of the lack of intelligence despite social affiliations, and income disparity present due to the aforementioned continuation of assistance payments created by bias. The averages and group percentages don’t represent the outliers who are well established and well able to produce cash or liquidity when political sides are drawn. There often isn’t anything to argue when the mathematical/sociological approach to understanding behavior is always observed when we begin to interact with representatives among the population. What is often useful to people who deal with parameters and boundary problems is the explicit construct of an equation utilizing all coefficients or variables properly. You may recall y=mx+b, so keep in mind that exponential growth is constant(incarceration expense, living expense, democracy) so essentially we must observe y=X^2 and that xt = x0(1 + r)t is the best way of growing xt(at time measured) at x0(random time), x has to increase for many reasons. It just has to be taught to everyone that people must coincide with x(income level) at any given time, and we must all strive to put that individual closer to xt=1. Which reminds me of the Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture, but I digress because at the moment I satisfy the solution or proof to the conjecture I will need a benefactor to set aside some disposable income because 1 million dollars is nonequivalent to the function I wish to describe within the context of investment analysis and research for x’s and intervals. It has been shown, and reliably proven that the acceptance and understanding of this fundamental approach has solved for the 2008 stock market crash in advance, and the 2011 banking crash in advance, I should know I wrote the research papers in college. I’m also unemployed because people who do not wish to argue about their cash balance randomly are running on borrowed dollars and have not produced an adequate amount of intelligence or money to offset the percentage group wage discrepancy they belong to. Which is why politics and money go hand in hand, a simple group association can put you at a higher x without having been able to actually earn, raise, or warn people of the real x factor that they deserve in advance.
Bias is useful in describing actionable preferences in hiring; that is not illegal, the point is get over the term and accept it and its use within the context that I’ve provided. Very logical if you have a chance to start to begin to think about financial mathematics with a very small drop of sociology(a.k.a. what comes after the two aforementioned sciences.
In a town which boasts a median home value of over 500k, I think “Montclair” and “affordable housing” is a prime example of what we like to call an oxymoron.
I don’t know much about the proposal here, but does the AH route cost taxpayers relative to other alternatives? If that is the case I would rather see Montclair spend the funds on additional tax abatements or incentives for new businesses to fill the host of retail vacancies on Bloomfield Ave.
On a more macro level there is generally an over supply of housing at every price point. Lets not mess with that, many of the posters here are correct in that the free market needs to be allowed to clear this inventory. Focus on jobs and small business.
What people want is for crime to be “permanently removed” and for people “who are allowed to focus on jobs and small business to continue to do so.” People who are allowed to focus on jobs and small business is the problem, when there are “more” people competing for these jobs or simply living in an environment conducive to better education people do not realize that the statistics do not change, and that intelligence and “old money” will prevail in the long run supply curve as they will have cash or liquidity. $500k isn’t a property tax fund or a present yield for an annuity that job security(real intelligence), and cash flow expenditures do not solve for. Real intelligence: people who are not employed after loosing the population large sums of money ensuring socioeconomic security remains status quo. Cash flow expenditures: increasing with higher rates as credit becomes stricter due to posing intelligentsia’s true numbers plummeting south. Needless to say posing intelligentsia has not taken a hit, because large numbers of consumers who were once spending more are being helped with unemployment, mortgage, or underemployment. Eventually the inflection point will shift the distributions average including more people in the middle, because they cannot purchase goods at inflated prices, but the prices will maintain their value as the rates of borrowing are practically zero. This means there are more people to be included in this average, the real central moment for Montclair and other towns(not wall street) is after the nonessential and essential jobs have been taken and one cannot populate an availability for a job with high turnover due to availability of better qualified manpower. This is happening now as the real-unemployment rate was overstated last month due to the cyclical re-certification period that occurs during that month. When the next cycle of college graduates are displaced or unemployed we can use that number as a true gauge of essential or fair wages for scarce skill sets. It will not become how can a $600 touchpad better inform me as a wannabe member of the middle class, but how can a paycheck be used to provide affordable housing, and pay off tuition, and how do we define middle class today. Once advertising is almost completely automated you will find little compensation for advertisement, and sought after financial advisors being connected like a ratings and review service similar to Amazon, MTV, Spotify, the key here is to recapture(identify with the investor) the banking sector which suffers hits and identity issues. Historically I combine lost generation and their parents into poor and working class, largely because they were extended credit and now have none, another sandwich generation. Secondly property ownership in working class and middle class neighborhoods is sustainable however these are still largely working class and middle class neighborhoods regardless of what route lesson enabled a few generations to attend secondary education, secondary education is running on borrowed cash flows, and cannot support the third generation within that class. Revisiting secondary education will show that most Americans lack the skills to compete in technology innovation, and are more suited to be consumers and liberal arts educated. This double layer of liberal arts can be observed in the working, middle, and more affluent classes as a trend and indicative of globalization’s locally trivial effect. The point is that a law degree and most career outlets for liberal arts education don’t provide for innovation or monopolization in producing physical or technological widgets. Manufacturing is a useful service which begs the question, how do we define the middle class or working class, statistically on an IRS income bracket we know the numbers are bulging and not being fudged because of Wall Street. If it makes you feel any better to know that Posing Intelligentsia at Bank of America has taken a 25% pay cut, and the financial sector has lost more than 225,000 jobs combined with pay cuts last year, in addition Wall street isn’t hiring, they’ll post jobs and hire who they know and from within. It’s good the market has begun positively this year, we all know we need more positive from the people who’ve been under-performing.
Well, I think I’ve found a drug-free solution to my insomnia.
Yikes!
Dag, are you still awake, too? This is an awful lot of text on this thread, eh? I’m kind of busy and don’t have time to read it, so can I ask a favor? Would you please wade through all of this and summarize it for me? Thanks doll, I knew I could count on you.
I tried Walleroo I really tried.
Quite a thread.
It managed to rouse the ever-ignorant algb/whatsup and prompt the usual incoherent rubbish.
It managed to coax another “let them live in Newark” tough guy in the form of trebor from under his/her rock.
It allowed ROC his kneejerk liberal/socialism bleat.
And it introduced us to the verbose if incomprehensible gifro220!
You’d have to score this thread as a winner, given all of the above.
I have to confess though, I think that I met gifro220 on the M50 bus one day, mumbling pretty much the same things. For reasons unknown, the other riders seemed to be giving him a wide berth.
Thanks for trying, Dag. I hope you didn’t stay up all night. However, no worries, because it looks like cro has risen to the challenge. Bravo!
C’est un sale boulet, mon ami. Mais il faut bien que quel’qun le faisse.
Personne ne fait mieux
ROC,
FYI, Czechoslovakia went through a “velvet divorce” 20 years ago – now the Czech Republic & Slovakia. Bloomfield and Glen Ridge had their divorce in 1895. Bloomfield and Montclair in 1868. Is there a reason you want everyone to get back together?
I thought that Bloomfield gave birth to both Montclair and Glen Ridge!
I have to say I waded thru giffro220′s post twice and came up empty. Noam Chomsky & David Wiggins are easier to understand….
The elected officials and appointed committee members are not capable of understanding how to insert building projects correctly into our landscape. Neither for the economic feasibility, aesticics nor successful urban planning. They have only made huge mistakes in the past several years so I would suggest a moritorium on any such project until the right people are in place.
(Crisco, The Siena, Washington Street School..to name a few…the bash and builds and the unaffordable ugly subdivisions…)
The only proper way of unserting affordable housing into that Wildwood tract would be a contination of the surrounding urban fabric….thus, single family units….not a housng block. Lets learn from the history of the Columbus Houses of Newark, off Branchbrook Park, The First Ward St. Lucy’s neighborhood was demolished to create affordable government housing …the housing blocks were a failure, immediately became a slum and soon had to be demolished. Now there are single family affordable units that make for a nice neighborhood. Homeowners seem happy and maintain their properties very well. If there could be single family affordable units on the Wildwood Tract, the project would work, urbanistically, but perhaps the business plan would’nt work, with economic feasibility. A big housing block, even like the beautifully well maintained Orange Road residence in the South End, would not work urbanistically in the Wildwood Tract because it would be dissimilar as a built form, with regards to the surroundings, and also extremely inconvenient for the eventual residents since there is now affordable near by shoping and no accessable public transportation.
The project can’t work successfully unless you build single family units. Give up!
….no afordable near by shopping…(i intended to say)
… A good reminder to practice the pithy post!
What? I had no problem understanding giffro220′s gibberish. But, then again, at my age, I immediately forgot it.
And here’s the news around Baristaville today …..ZZZZZZZZZ.
Has anyone read the article in the Montclair Times? Can someone explain to me how the numbers work on this again? The land for each lot alone is worth triple the cost of the proposed sale price for the finished house.
“The two affordable houses to be put up on the Wildwood Avenue tract would sell for between $105,000 and $219,000, according to Montclair Planning Director Janice Talley.”
“The prices of the two affordable houses would vary based on whether they were three- or four-bedroom, and would depend on the income levels of the families seeking to buy them. Under the council’s plan, one of the houses would be for a low-income household and another for a moderate-income family. The remaining two new houses would be sold at market-rate prices.
Under state rules, low-income earners could be charged from $105,000 to $135,000 for a three-bedroom and up to $153,000 for a four-bedroom house. A moderate-income family could pay a maximum of $195,000 for a three-bedroom and $219,000 for a four-bedroom residence, Talley said.
The mortgage payments for the homes would be limited to 30 percent of the homeowners’ incomes, and the residents would get a tax break, she said.”
http://www.northjersey.com/topstories/montclair/138545724_Already_1st_Ward_s__most_diverse_street__.html
The project can’t work successfully unless you build single family units and the numbers for the single family units don’t work either (unless someone donates the $$$ to Homecorp or the Township)
I assume that once whoever buys it, the oversight on trades stops. So you are effectively subsidizing an initial purchase, plus giving a tax break, for a house that on the open market would be worth far more than they are pegging the initial value, especially given the location by the park. So a year down the road, can’t they just sell it for double what they paid and its no longer “affordable” anyway?
Some of the stats that came out of the meeting are interesting:
—Some 40 percent of Montclair residents are renters.
—About 48 percent of Montclair’s housing stock is single-family detached; 13 percent is two-family housing; and 38 percent is multi-family housing, which includes apartment buildings.
Doesn’t this suggest that there are far more options available here than other communities for people of various income levels? Is this really about affordable housing or something else? All i can say is i wish i was renting!
I will need a benefactor to set aside some disposable income because 1 million dollars is nonequivalent to the function I wish to describe within the context of investment analysis and research for x’s and intervals
When I saw this last night I thought it was one of those Nigerian email scams. (yes ‘Roo, I was there, but my battery died before I could tap out an answer)
“I assume that once whoever buys it, the oversight on trades stops.”
Nope. The oversight lasts forever. There is a state financed authority (or three) which administers sales. When you want to sell a COAH house they tell you how much you can sell it for to the next eligible person.
“The Housing Affordability Service (HAS) of the New Jersey Housing and Mortgage Finance Agency (NJHFA) applies the The Uniform Housing Affordability Controls (UHAC, N.J.A.C 5:80-26.1) [which] govern COAH housing units. HAS makes sure that all applicable UHAC policies and regulations are followed when developing and occupying affordable housing for its clients.”
And people wonder why taxes are high.
p.s. it takes a lot of commissars to oversee a particular housing “market” .
ROC, thanks – very illuminating…and scary. no doubt thats why there are such aggressive “goals” so the bureaucrats will be able to ensure an ample supply of inventory to oversee.
My guess is you will see more and more conversions to multi-family homes as the tax burden is simply too great to amortize over one household. this in turn will put more pressure on infrastructure and require higher taxes and so on and so on.
Once interest rates increase we are really in trouble, both from increased debt service on town debt, and the direct impact on housing due to even higher carry costs.
gifro220 is actually the head commissar of the NJHFA.
Frankly, I’m not very concerned about the poor.
He’s our very own John Kerry, cro. Totally unelectable.
I like what Krauthammer had to say:
“The real problem here is that it shows he doesn’t have a fluency with conservative ideas. Conservatives are not the ones who engage in the war of the classes or in a division of America into classes. Obama and the Democrats will win that kind of argument every day. The moral case for conservative economics is that our policy is going to help everybody, including the poor.
Two examples: school choice, which will help those trapped in the inner cities and tyranny of the teachers’ unions, [so they] will finally have an education, have the skills to get a job. And you lower the marginal rates of taxes so you encourage economic expansion and creation of jobs.
The idea that somehow we consign the poor to the safety net and we patch it — dependency is a liberal idea. It’s not our idea, and Romney is a guy who came late to his new ideology and still can’t speak it very well.”
Are we going to get a Thursday thread soon?
People are free to live where they can afford to live. My wife is still mad at me for making the decision to move here. Personally, I’ve had enough of this nonsense. Upper Montclair needs affordable housimg like a fish needs a bicycle. The time has come to seriously consider moving. Good luck with all of your diversity and integration issues and whatever else is on the agenda. I have other priorities, and this community is not where I want to live anymore. Good luck
If the goal is to end “socioeconomic segregation” then why sell the units in the first place? Why not build them and let them, like “council flats” in the UK? Wouldn’t that be more affordable?
I just don’t understand what the rationale is here. Would someone please ‘splain?
(Troutt, that’s your cue. Troutt! Speak up, man! Oh, what a snob.)
I am so sorry for your party’s troubles, ROC. I wish you strength in these difficult times. We are keeping you in our prayers. I would like to offer a word of succor, if I may:
Bwa ha ha ha ha HHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!!! He heheheh HEHEHEHE HEH EHEH E!!!! Ho ho hHSHOHOHOHOHOH!!!
The time has come to seriously consider moving.
Devastating. I am devastated.
Don’t let the door hit you in the arse on the way out, deadeye!
Who else can I offend now?
It’s no wonder Troutt stays away. Run, Troutt, run and don’t look back!
I think the rationale is walleroo, that council flats like our housing projects of the 70′s breed dependency. (and in the case of the US, crime). So, the theory goes, if they “own” a house they’ll be more invested and will seek a financial gain upon sale, thus enjoying the fruits of the middle class. The fact that it can only be “owned” with substantial (ongoing) subsidy and the price at sale is dictated by the state (and, therefore sure to be meager) seems to escape everyone.
Yes, I can see that, ROC. For one thing, that seems to be an outmoded theory of homeowership. Who in their right mind would want that part of the American dream right now? Also, how do you rig it so that a person who “makes out” by reselling subsidized housing doesn’t do so at taxpayer expense? And how do occupants of such housing get chosen in the first place? By being friends with Joey D? Lottery? Character test?
Just curious–who among the posters on this thread ever assumed that if they could not afford to live in a given neighborhood on their own, that the government should subsidize them to live there? My wife and I never did–ever since adulthood, we’ve only lived where we can afford, even if that meant living in dangerous neighborhoods, in tight quarters, or far from work or shopping. (We’re in GR now, but you should see some of the places one or both of us lived in previously, for many years.) It would never have occurred to us that the public at large should subsidize our living.
” And how do occupants of such housing get chosen in the first place? By being friends with Joey D? Lottery? Character test?”
Why by corpulent state bureaucracy, of course:
http://www.nj.gov/dca/hmfa/consu/buyers/ownprg/
Here is (literally) the “money quote”
“Debt-to-income ratios are as high as 33 percent (housing debt, i.e., mortgage, taxes, insurance) and up to 38 percent (total monthly debt load).”
“It would never have occurred to us that the public at large should subsidize our living.”
You’ve got to get with the times!
So, ROC, you’re take on conservative thinking is motivated by, among other things, looking out for everyone, even the poor souls crippled by the big government safety net.
That might include the now rich Tea Party cousins in Georgia I had mentioned, stridently Anti-gubmit, all the while playing down their impoverished 1950′s and 1960′s childhood in that big government safety feature known as public housing. Taxpayer sponsored. Sort of like the proposed WIldwood project, only bigger.
That’s all their parents could afford, along with their commute to work in that other big government safety net known as subsidized mass transit. Taxpayer sponsored.
Good thing they lived near Bronx Park, where they could get out of their apartment and enjoy fresh air in that third big government safety net known as public parkland. Taxpayer sponsored.
Although they did play stickball in the street back then, often losing their spaldeens down the grating of that fourth big government safety net known as public sewers. Taxpayer sponsored.
And it is amazing that they weren’t crippled by all those safety nets as you seem to indict, since they went on to become rich and happy entrepreneurs.
I like what Krauthammer had to say:
Figures. Krauthammer is a hack of the highest order. When he’s not being morally bankrupt, he’s being plain ignorant of the facts.
Conservatives are not the ones who engage in the war of the classes or in a division of America into classes.
ha ha ha ha ha ha! That’s hilarious. The rich have been waging class warfare in this country since the 70s. They only started calliing it class warfare when the rest of us noticed.
Obama and the Democrats will win that kind of argument every day.
A telling admission. One should wonder, why is that?
Two examples: school choice, which will help those trapped in the inner cities and tyranny of the teachers’ unions, [so they] will finally have an education, have the skills to get a job
“school choice” totally ignores reality. There are not enough private schools to support the “voucher” program republicans want to implement. Its a thinly veiled attempt to take funding away from schools that need it most.
And you lower the marginal rates of taxes so you encourage economic expansion and creation of jobs.
This current right-wing trope has been debunked so many times you should call it Sasquatch. The highest rates of job creation recently were during the Clinton years, when taxes were higher. The Bush tax cuts are 10 years old now. Where are the jobs?
It’s not our idea, and Romney is a guy who came late to his new ideology and still can’t speak it very well.”
Another interesting admission. Because aside from “cut taxes!” the right has no ideas.
When we do move, in all likelihood, we will keeping our home as a rental. My wife has looked into it, and the corporate rental market is strong. Then I can write off the depreciation. I fantasize about renting to a rapper who could have loud parties and invite his friends over. It would be my own little social experiment.
Interesting point about the council housing, ROC, breeding dependency. Too bad it didn’t work for my cousins. They are independent as all get go. So are my other cousins, also from public housing. All are now home owners with nice nest eggs, some voting conservative, others liberal.
Come to think of it, my grandparents lived in public housing, too.
I come from a long line of wards of the state. How do you figure that all of us in my generation of Quayles are either business owners or white collar employees? That dependency theory of yours is full of holes.
FWIW, I have neen involved in the construction, finance, and as an investor in subsidized housing for many years. The smart and necessary kind, not this twaddle they are proposing here. We have a town governance problem. Recognize it for what it is.
“It would never have occurred to us that the public at large should subsidize our living.”
That’s IT! I am taking my picket sign and driving up to Alpine City Hall RIGHT NOW! I will camp on their municipal lawn until they build me an affordable house! (oh wait, that’s assuming I can get past the armed guards at the entrance gate.)
deadeye, you bought in the wrong location if you want to rent to a rapper. Bond Street in Manhattan is a better deal. Will Smith is renting a nice place there for 55,000 per month. No joke. Of course, he’s an actor, not just a rapper like you’re looking for….
http://ny.curbed.com/archives/2010/12/09/25_bond_streets_newest_tenant_is_will_smith.php
We have a beautiful house in one of the the best neighborhoods, and it is diverse and pleasant. I don’t need some a—– with a social agenda trying to change things for their own perverse interests. I find that infuriating.
I’m sure your house is great, deadeye, since Montclair has so many remarkable properties.
One person’s perverse interests are another’s utopia.
I wrote earlier, way, way up this thread, that the question in my mind is whether we as a township should make any efforts to help the poorest 30% in the town (very few of whom are likely on this forum).
I think we need a new paradigm. These days the Federal and State governments’ commitments to affordable housing have withered and COAH is dead, removing the pressure of unfunded mandates. There is a nearly blank slate, which makes it a great time to innovate. That said, with a tax base dependent on housing we can’t willy nilly decommodify large numbers of parcels. Any thought leaders out there?
Here’s one : What happened to the idea of rehabilitating Montclair’s EXISTING housing stock in order to create affordable housing ? I simply cannot believe the “give away” mentality of some of our officials.
The May elections cannot come soon enough.
croiagusanam spare me the fallacy of composition and prejudice and emotional undertone. There is nothing that can be understood as problem solving when coming to terms with a hidden agenda, a plain delineation of law and order from a brown guy(gifro220) and not some racial euphemism. Race is not the issue. “It just has to be taught to everyone that people must coincide with x(income level) at any given time, and we must all strive to put that individual closer to xt=1.” What I allude to is an identity problem mathematically or physically, “man know thyself,” gather what you need cro to make enough so that there isn’t a self imposed I.D. problem where people are exposed to violent extremes of nature that YOU IMPLY are hidden between every word and event. You’re currently pathetic and ridiculous brown, tan, or white. Try putting words into context, try Wikipedia, or take a communication class at a community college, the bus is the medium people who you use to associate with normal expositions of violent extremes of nature, when in fact it is only you who harbors your viewpoint. We’re on the internet, a medium used to craft, connect, and preserve our ideas independently which is why our posts are presented separately. You may need medication, I’d consult a doctor for a second opinion if I were you. A million dollars is a drop in the bucket when you apply it in the form of investment and not as a lump sum cash payout, economics 101. If you’d like to go out and ruin your credit and not have any financial control go directly to the point of sale or point of contact with a Nigerian, preferably Nigeria, that way no brown, tan, or Caucasian person can be mistaken for your Nigerian. Sometimes in life all you need is a little help or attention, Nigeria a great target for your scam, as I’m sure no university or evidence of your TRUE knowledge can be found here in America. On second thought I wouldn’t want the Navy Seals to have to come and rescue you, that stakes would simply be too high no research, euphemisms, or racism need apply, stay in your world.
croiagusanam:
“Quite a thread.
It managed to rouse the ever-ignorant algb/whatsup and prompt the usual incoherent rubbish.
It managed to coax another “let them live in Newark” tough guy in the form of trebor from under his/her rock.
It allowed ROC his kneejerk liberal/socialism bleat.
And it introduced us to the verbose if incomprehensible gifro220!
You’d have to score this thread as a winner, given all of the above.
I have to confess though, I think that I met gifro220 on the M50 bus one day, mumbling pretty much the same things. For reasons unknown, the other riders seemed to be giving him a wide berth.”
Mambo dogface to the banana patch!
I’m no Harvard trained psychologist by a family member is;
croiagusanam.
“managed to rouse the ever-ignorant…it managed to coax another let them live in Newark, liberal/socialism bleat…verbose…winner…bus.” LOL, you’re a closet bigot, who wishes to target liberal socialist agendas, verbosity(as if reading were difficult), engendering a sense of gamesmanship, and wielding a negative image of public transportation.” If I’m reading this correctly you are a baby-boomer suffering from a deficiency in self esteem, literacy, and racism. If you’d like a political agenda you won’t be able to leach it from the body of knowledge that I attend to(Americans don’t negotiate with terrorists), I’m primarily concerned with health, wealth, and mathematics. Everything comes with a price, Mark Zuckerberg the athiest received $100k from his father so that he could provide a parasitic advertisement laced social network. You’re upset about verbosity, try reading Federal Reserve transcripts, and the chanting of financial ruin emanating from occupy wall street and broke dysfunctional racists. I’m glad I don’t take the bus or live in New Jersey you are a trip, and I’m sure the authorities are quite aware of you doings, the internet is a funny place for the verbose.
Very succinctly put gifro220.
Well, they say that brevity is the soul of wit, so there you are.
Now, I’d love to chat, but the bus is quite bumpy and its hard for me to type. I’m anxious to get home and dig into some Federal Reserve transcripts.
However on a serious note, I owe algb/whatupwith an apology. He is NOT the craziest person on this blog.
deadeye if you do move on please don’t stop posting here. Thanks for the smile cro.
This is an amusing thread. I wonder how many readers are trying to make sense out of gifro220′s posts, as did Kit a while back.
Nice band-aid croiagusanam, but you’ve already been leaked.
The mortgage payments for the homes would be limited to 30 percent of the homeowners’ incomes, and the residents would get a tax break, she said.”
“Debt-to-income ratios are as high as 33 percent (housing debt, i.e., mortgage, taxes, insurance) and up to 38 percent (total monthly debt load).”
66% of Americans have less than $1000 dollars in savings or investments.
http://www.ebri.org/files/FS2_RCS11_Prepare_FINAL.pdf
http://www.huduser.org/portal/datasets/il/il2012/2012summary.odn
So for say a Single Black Male with no criminal record, he could be placed, and after taxes and mortgage expense, would have $1356.9 minus say college tuition repayment (440)average state university= 916.9, minus insurances(250)= 666.9, minus food(200)= 466.9; and 1345.5 at the higher income bracket, and at the lowest income level the guy wouldn’t be able to repay tuition, pay for food, and insurance. Hopefully the guy doesn’t moonlight into a non profit bearing venture with his 466.9, or 1345.5. He could theoretically sell the home and move into a better neighborhood and get married if his income rises to 1345.5/m, but most desirable people know that non-business related relationships are expensive and highly unprofitable. JPMorganChase, Merrill Lynch and others have investment advisors and Money Market Funds, treadmills, and bickering on Baristanet keep guys of the street.
Noam Chomsky & David Wiggins or Anti-Democracy/Antisemite and Philosopher who solves for moral philosophy is pointless. Most Affordable Housing recipients have heard of Hitler and Martin Luther King. I wouldn’t admit to understanding Chomsky and Wiggins as that combination alludes to a chaotic, dysfunctional, and antisocial combination for excellence. I wouldn’t have any brown guy aspire the standard that you’ve come to bear as exemplary. And why have you contrived to confabulate my description of the view that people who wish to participate in society as employed financial contributors should do so without debate. I even assert that the community should encourage meaningful participation as it reinforces that positive identity. Keep your chaos and mores soup in a state of dysfunction, only functional people who wish to observe the addressed subject matter need apply their energies to a community contribution from which taxes are involved.
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
Gif, There’s a spot for you on the town counsel! With that kind of cold reasoning, you’d fit right in.
If A admits not understanding B then there’s no reason to listen to A’s conclusion regarding B.
The trouble with the town’s preceived obligation to follow the formula out of Mt. Laurel I and II, NJ Supreme Court 1983-85, is that for every permitted new construction, the town believes it must somehow shoe-horn “affordable” housing which is artificially priced and subsidized by below market factors such as land costs, builders profit, tax assessments, deed rrestriction on selling in the future and more. What has happened in fact is, the towns have over built more than the market will accommodate, saddled themselves with more denser population than they should have, burdened their towns with extra taxes to support extra services and finally increased traffic already too burdensome. If they would just interpreted the requirements to take care of existing population with adequate housing according to the finances of its citizens, upgrading as needed without increasing the burdens of taxes and density, everyone in Montclair would continue to do what they will according to their needs and wishes for a place to live. Haynes bulding became 25 units, Marlboro Inn became 16 units, hardly affordable by lower and middle income standards, but affordable to those who purchased them based on the criteria of the banks lending them money. In short, a fine mess our council has put is in. I suspect, because they are ill advised and lazy. But it is volunteer job, right?
Thankfully, the building on Wildwood will not happen because it makers no sense. Today, I noticed the regular beeping sound of trucks backing up to tend the mulch pile., That pile will still be there and tended to. Imagine new home buyers of any type or condition, saying yes to constant beeping from trucks. Lazy I tell you, lazy.