Gov. Christie invests $9M in Trenton housing
TRENTON » The capital city continues to be the recipient of Gov. Chris Christie’s goodwill.
On Tuesday at Mill Hill Park in Trenton, the Republican governor announced an investment of $9 million in state funding for marketrate and affordable housing in the city.
“We know that the availability of high-quality housing in Trenton, along with the safety and quality-of-life initiatives we’ve announced previously, is essential to our comprehensive effort to attract and retain residents and employers as well as visitors,” Christie said. “We’re going to continue to work hard with private-sectors partners and with our partners here in the city to make sure that we do what we need to do to revitalize the city of Trenton even more under Mayor Jackson’s leadership.”
For the development of the market-rate housing, $4.5 million in funding will be provided by the Downtown Living Initiative program through the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs (DCA) to support the development.
“These projects can be new construction or conversation but consideration will be given to substantial rehabilitation projects in buildings that have been vacant for at least two years and are deemed to be critical to a Trenton neighborhood,” Christie said. “Priority is going to be given to projects that demonstrate how a market-rate rental project can be integrated with or provide stimulus to other development projects, such as retail, office space, or urban home ownership.”
The funding will be used to redevelop the downtown, Hanover Academy, Mill Hill and train station sections of Trenton. The state will provide the monies in the form of a 0 percent, non-amortizing loans that must be repaid upon future refinancing or sale of a project, Christie said.
Additionally, DCA pledged $4.5 million in State Housing Trust Fund monies to pay for the construction of 60 affordable housing units in Trenton.
“The Trust Fund provides a critical source of gap financing to support the construction and preservation of permanent, high-quality housing, housing that’s affordable to our low- and moderate-income individuals families here in Trenton,” Christie said, noting homelessness has dropped significantly in the state over the past five years.
Trenton Mayor Eric Jackson, who was by Christie’s side at the press conference, said the funding will give Trenton “another tool in the tool belt”
“We want to put a focus on cleaning up and building up our downtown,” the firstterm mayor said. “I’m excited that we can have that opportunity working with state government to infuse these dollars for economic and housing initiatives in these four communities.”
Christie has been on a torrid pace to redevelop Trenton during his final six months in office.
Two weeks ago, Christie announced an $18.5 million plan for a new Trenton park along the Delaware River that will be connected to the downtown by the construction of a pedestrian bridge over Route 29. The pedestrian bridge will start at the top of the Statehouse parking garage to the 4.5-acre piece of land that will be called Trenton Falls Park.
A day before that announcement, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection presented the city with $2.3 million in funding to restore the historic Cadwalader Park, which had fallen in disrepair in recent years. The multi-phase project includes linking the park to the Delaware and Raritan Canal State Park and the D&R Canal path, upgrading and relocating the picnic grove area
so that each picnic table will be equipped with a grill and
installing an enhanced playground. The old picnic grove site is also slated to be transformed into a concert area and handicap-accessible pathways will be erected between sections of the park.
That was preceded by the governor’s announcement in May that Trenton would receive $11.5 million in state funding to demolish 500 vacant properties. The state also pledged $786,000 to install 150 surveillance cameras in Trenton to help police with public safety initiatives and vowed to improve street lighting in the city.
Asked why he didn’t make commitments earlier in Jackson’s term, the governor
responded, “We worked with Mayor Jackson to come up with a plan.”
“These are the results of a lot of hard work between me showing respect to Mayor Jackson’s administration so they can get a handle on what they wanted to be done in the city,” Christie said. “And what we’ve tried to do is to bring whatever ideas we had on the shelf that we couldn’t do with previous administrations because they were corrupt and to work with Mayor Jackson’s administration because we now have an honest, hardworking, intelligent administration to work with. The reason for the announcements now is this is when we have
been able to come to agreement on what the city wants.”
Christie said he didn’t want to “impose things” on the city and wanted to partner with Jackson.
“We have great plans here and I’m making sure the money is available for us to be a full partner with the city,” the governor said. “Some of it’s by getting the money ready and more of it was in making sure that we were agreement with the mayor on what needed to be done. And he’s still got a list from what I understand. He’s got some more things he’d like me to do. So we’re going to continue to go over that. This is an ongoing process, not a completed one.”