With a statewide housing crisis, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Steven Fulop today released his campaign’s policy proposal to double affordable housing access for all residents within the first 100 days of his administration.
“First is that we have a commitment to double the affordable housing production that has existed in New Jersey, that’s very, very clear, and you have how we will get there,” said Fulop, the three-term mayor of Jersey City. “The second part about this is we have said this will be the first major piece of legislation we will tackle as our administration takes office, and we have a commitment in the first hundred days to make that a reality.”
Housing, Fulop argues, is critical to expanding access and improving the state’s economic vitality.
Fulop would like to see affordable housing projects, for example, sprout up around mass transit centers, ensuring residents have easy access to transportation.
“When you talk about affordability in New Jersey, most campaigns talk about taxes. That’s kind of where they say, ‘taxes, taxes, taxes,’” Fulop said. “And the reality is that the conversation around affordability is much more complicated than that – and housing is a key part of that.”
Fulop, the lone announced candidate for governor, unveiled the plan today at an event in South Orange, where he was joined by Sheena Collum, a housing expert and the Village President, and Assemblywoman Sadaf Jaffer (D-Montgomery), both of whom have endorsed Fulop and serve as key policy advisors to the campaign.
The event was held at Taylor Vose, a mixed-use development in South Orange that includes apartments, affordable housing units, and storefronts, perhaps symbolizing what Fulop would like to see become more widespread in the state.
Other components of the Fulop Plan: meeting and exceeding New Jersey’s Fair Housing Act; reinvigorating communities through redeveloping stranded assets, such as old shopping malls; empowering local communities by reworking the New Jersey Economic Development Authority’s (EDA) incentive program; incentivizing accessory development units (ADUs); and expanding the low-income housing tax credit (LIHTC).
Renters are also an essential aspect of the proposal, arguing that increasing housing will make rent more affordable and help more residents gain access to a comfortable living situation.
“I think it’s very important there’s a focus on renters,” Jaffer said. “In conversations around housing, I think in New Jersey, too often it’s as if the only or the main problem is property taxes, but to pay property taxes, you have to own property – and the majority of, especially of Black and Hispanic, communities in New Jersey don’t even own that property, so what are we doing to make sure they have housing ability? And I think providing that stock is really what’s going to make it affordable for people to rent”
Housing projects inherently require working with developers and contractors. To this end, today’s proposal specifically focused on reforming long-term tax abatement policies.
A Fulop administration would like to set a unified standard across the state that ensures affordable housing units are built and stabilizes the government and investors.
Such mutual relationships are vital to promoting better development. Collum, the executive director of the American Planning Association’s New Jersey chapter, argued that to solve the housing crisis, municipalities and developers are working together.
“There is a massive misunderstanding of what tax abatements are,” Collum said. “They are weaponized against local governments under the assumption that somehow a big, greedy developer is getting an unfair advantage, and that is not correct. The development community are our partners in actually achieving our affordable housing milestones.”
While collaboration between local government and developers is key to enacting more affordable housing, such relationships have drawn increased scrutiny. Just last month, State Sen. Michael Tests (R-Vineland) re-upped legislation that would more aggressively go after corruption between local governments and developers.
Asked about this proposed legislation, Fulop said any public contract – for developers, especially – needs to be transparent.
“Any parameters you can put in place, protections to limit corruption is a good thing, at every level of government,” he said. “I think that’s a good thing.”
Even more, when he was asked today about donations his campaign has received from contractors and developers, Fulop argued that he prioritizes transparency and following the rules.
“I think you do your best to be transparent, follow the rules, file in a prompt way who your donors are,” he said. “There were restrictions in Jersey City that were very, very robust. We were the first in the state to adopt those pay-to-play laws.”
Today’s proposal is the second of what will be eight sets of in-depth policy ideas his campaign releases as part of its FixNJ plan. Last month, Fulop unveiled his transit policy.
