{"id":184244,"date":"2026-04-03T06:45:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T06:45:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/184244\/"},"modified":"2026-04-03T06:45:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T06:45:13","slug":"solomon-asks-scutari-to-change-njdeps-real-proposal-to-aid-affordable-housing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/184244\/","title":{"rendered":"Solomon asks Scutari to change NJDEP’s REAL proposal to aid affordable housing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jersey City Mayor James Solomon wrote a letter to state Senate President Nick Scutari (D-22) today asking him to change parts of a New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection\u2019s (NJDEP) proposal to aid affordable housing efforts in urban cities.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Facebook photo.<\/p>\n

By John Heinis\/Hudson County View<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are not asking the state to abandon climate preparedness, instead we are asking for rules to be reasonably tailored to the needs of cities like Jersey City,\u201d the mayor wrote on Thursday<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur top planning and infrastructure officials have reviewed the REAL [Resilient Environments and Landscapes] regulations, and based on their analysis we believe that the rules\u2014in their current form\u2014would impose serious, unworkable burdens on development, rehabilitation, and renovation in Jersey City, critically including our efforts to build substantially more affordable housing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Solomon further stated that while there is no need to start from scratch, adjustments need to be made in order for this plan to be fair and equitable for all, not just municipalities down the shore.<\/p>\n

Noting that both the city and their municipal utilities authority (MUA) took action to prepare for climate change in the wake of Superstorm Sandy, he went into some detail about which aspects of the state-led effort could be detrimental to Jersey City.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe requirement to elevate all new and substantially improved construction four feet above current FEMA flood standards for a 100-year storm would dramatically increase the cost of building and rehabilitation across the city. These are costs that will ultimately fall on tenants, small businesses, and families,\u201d Solomon asserted.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe proposed Inundation Risk Zones extend deep into historic residential neighborhoods like Van Vorst, Paulus Hook, Hamilton Park, and Communipaw, where compliance would be extremely costly or even physically impossible, and would in many cases significantly conflict with Historic Preservation requirements in these neighborhoods.\u201d<\/p>\n

Adding that \u201csubstantial improvement\u201d is not clearly defined and that the underlying climate map doesn\u2019t take into account existing infrastructure such as the Long Slip Canal, Solomon notes that he fears this approach will make housing projects \u201ca last resort.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile the NJDEP has included a theoretical exemption for affordable housing projects, it is already apparent that the process to get such exemptions will be murky and onerous on top of a process that already includes numerous regulatory hurdles that increase costs,\u201d he also said in the letter.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn practice, the increased costs of construction and rehabilitation driven by these rules will make affordable housing development significantly harder to finance and build. We cannot accept a framework that treats affordable housing exemptions as a last resort rather than a genuine priority.\u201d<\/p>\n

The NJDEP adopted REAL rule amendments on on January 20th, with the full document<\/a> longer than Leo Tolstoy\u2019s \u201cWar and Peace\u201d at a whopping 1,531 pages.<\/p>\n

Scutari\u2019s office did not return an email seeking comment on Thursday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jersey City Mayor James Solomon wrote a letter to state Senate President Nick Scutari (D-22) today asking him…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":184245,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,100,99,13338,74120,74121,9,24,74122,74123,74124,63,74125],"class_list":{"0":"post-184244","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brooklyn","8":"tag-brooklyn","9":"tag-brooklyn-headlines","10":"tag-brooklyn-news","11":"tag-james-solomon","12":"tag-new-jersey-department-of-environmental-protection","13":"tag-new-jersey-sentate","14":"tag-new-york","15":"tag-new-york-city","16":"tag-nick-scutari","17":"tag-nj-legislature","18":"tag-njdep","19":"tag-nyc","20":"tag-resilient-environments-and-landscapes"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=184244"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184244\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/184245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=184244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=184244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=184244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}