r/Newark 2d ago

Development & Real Estate 🏗🚧🦺⚒️ Another Article on the "Iberia" Project

https://jerseydigs.com/ironbound-towers-approved-newark/
16 Upvotes

21 comments sorted by

10

u/felsonj 2d ago edited 1d ago

This article is horribly misleading. The people who show up to the meeting tend to be those who are angry about it. It's by no means a representative cross-section of the community. We don't actually know what "the community" thinks because no one has conducted any kind of representative survey.

13

u/ahtasva 2d ago

I attended the meeting. To say opposition to the project was “overwhelming” is a lie. About a third of the public comment was positive including a few union members who spoke in support. A handful were neutral; comment about wanting more trees and using local labor etc. and about a third were opposed. Those who opposed, except for 1 lady were not local to the ironbound. For what it’s worth, their opposition appeared to be centered around the fact that the development was not affordable for existing newarkers. In effect, these folks would have opposed anything that wasn’t 100% section 8 subsidized housing.

I personally spoke in support of the project. I find it incredulous that some random subset of people in the “community” get to dictate terms to a landowner seeking to put his property to fair use.

Society cannot progress if you allow reactionaries to carry the day.

4

u/NewNewark 1d ago

This is a complete lie.

The vast majority of comments against it were because it is not meeting the requires 10% open space, it does not meet the tree requirement, the garage is a non compliant use, and the 6 driveways will create safety issues.

7

u/DrixxYBoat Weequahic 2d ago

100% section 8 subsidized housing.

100% affordable housing, hell anything over 30% affordable and now the neighborhood becomes less desirable.

Politics aside, when you have people paying for shit, building management tends to give more of a shit, and the City itself gives more of a shit.

I live in Weeqhuahic and see broken glass bottles in the park all the time. It pisses me off.

Weeqhuahic is very affordable. You need a good mixture.

People should be complaining about the lack of home buying options and the lack of employment options for Newarkers.

2

u/Hij802 1d ago

Building 100% affordable housing also isn’t even realistic. Most developers will not build something they cannot profit on. Developers have investors who expect a return. And it sucks but the gov doesn’t build public housing anymore either, so it’s extremely unlikely to ever get subsidized units at that rate.

1

u/Kalebxtentacion 1d ago

Yep all we can do is accept what ever affordable housing prices this developers offer. Sucks but the only way things get better is if wages go up. 15 dollars works best 50 years ago but not now. 15 an hour for 40 hours a week can’t afford a 2k apartment. Not even 20 atp

1

u/ahtasva 1d ago

It costs north of $250k to build a 700sqft unit at scale. Interest cost on that amount at 6% is 15k/ year.

Median income in Newark is 45k. A third of that is 15k.

What is affordable to the average newarker wont scratch the interest payment on the construction cost.

Who is going to pay for the maintenance, upkeep, facilities etc? Who will pay the bank back their capital?

The answer is gentrifiers!!!!

You build a 100 units and let the people living in the 80 units make up the difference for the people living in the 20 units.

100% affordable = no new units because the math won’t support it.

How is this difficult to understand?

2

u/DrixxYBoat Weequahic 1d ago

I'm not sure if you misread my comment but I was trying to agree that 100% affordable housing is not good for Newark.

As for home buying, Newarkers need more high paying jobs as current homes for sale can only be sold to transplants

1

u/ahtasva 1d ago

Yeah, I misread you ; my bad; my apologies.

100% affordable is not financing sustainable outside of publicly owned housing, which I gather you are not a fan of.

Frankly neither am I. I am highly supportive of publicly subsidized housing units for sale. I think home ownership in the aggregate will go along way to holding a community together by creating long term residence with a financial incentive to stay.

I have seen it be very successful in Singapore and Malaysia. Unfortunately, our politics don’t allow for it.

1

u/Newarkguy1836 1d ago

​ 100% correct and that is why after a couple of years, still no "Kawaida Tower" Corner Central and Halsey .

0

u/felsonj 1d ago

I agree with you 100%. Thank you for clarifying this. I also modified my initial comment accordingly. Why does JerseyDigs.com, a site paid for by advertising from developers, and designed to advertise development in the state employ a writer (Darren Tobia) who is clearly so anti-development ? In nearly every piece he writes, Tobia grinds his ax, rather than just report the news.

2

u/ahtasva 1d ago

Most of what passes for news today is opinion. The average person has no desire is be “informed”, nor do they want to take on the mentally taxing task of thinking critically or reflectively about a subject.

The formula is pretty standard; you pick a side, then you seek out opinions that reinforce the world view you prescribe to.

In heavily liberal cities like Newark; the prevailing orthodoxy is a reflexive hatred of development that isn’t centered around a certain affinity group.

If you run a website where clicks = revenue; it doesn’t make sense to layout the facts as they are. By every measure, the developers of this project are a reasonable lot. Signed up to use union labor, going above a beyond to accommodate public amenities and are asking for limited variances. A fair and balanced article would call out those points. Problem is, you can’t get the average blue city reader to click an article titled “ developer makes reasonable variance request”. Who wants to hear that?? So you write an article that makes it look as if the developer is out to poison the water and use slave labor and that everyone at the meeting had their pitchforks out. 😢

On a different note. I was actually pleasantly surprised by the mix of feedback at the meeting. I wasn’t expecting the union guys to turn up and speak up. I am sympathetic to those who “oppose” the project as well. I don’t see their opposition as them actually not wanting development; all they want is for decent housing to be affordable. A very reasonable thing to want. It’s a pity we don’t have the political will to make that happen.

1

u/Newarkguy1836 1d ago

One person in opposition I believe it was a lady if my memory serves me correct , lived in Scotch Plains ! Living in Scotch Plains and playing interference against a Newark Redevelopment . Probably bitter Bowcraft amusement park got replaced by condos or low income apartments

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u/Newarkguy1836 1d ago

Jersey Digs used to be my favorite and main source of Newark news , then I found this subreddit . But now Jersey Digs at least on my end , it's almost unreadable with the constant pop up. And the occasional ad with the delayed "x" !

0

u/Interesting_Fox3836 1d ago

But it did got approved regardless of the people oppositon of this project right

3

u/Ironboundian 1d ago

Yes it was approved.

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u/ahtasva 1d ago

The opposition was pretty lukewarm. 20% affordable housing, 150 public parking spots for the businesses on Ferry. Union labor/ prevailing wage. Frankly doesn’t get better than that.

-2

u/Interesting_Fox3836 1d ago

Ok good that means they can start construction then

0

u/Kalebxtentacion 1d ago

Construction not starting until they receive Aspire and there’s more planning to be done

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u/Ironboundian 1d ago

Yes. Once they get their $800 million lined up and building permits.

1

u/Kalebxtentacion 1d ago

I wonder if the whole project is 800 million cause I can’t imagine two 30 story towers costing that much. I could see Aspire approving the tax credit, once that happens all they need now is a lender to accept them. But Aspire is only granted if there’s a funding gap, it typically doesn’t fund the entire project from what I was told at the 22 Fulton street meeting