Jersey City council reviews Affordable Housing Trust Fund spending plan and related mortgage actions

The Jersey City Municipal Council reviewed a draft spending plan for the city—9s Affordable Housing Trust Fund and heard related housing items during the April caucus meeting.

The spending plan proposed that roughly half of the trust fund be devoted to rehabilitation of existing units, about 30% be reserved for affordability assistance (including emergency rental assistance, emergency health and safety repairs, down-payment assistance and buy-downs to deeper affordability), and up to 20% be used for administrative costs including right-to-counsel services, according to a staff presentation. The plan was described as a draft to be submitted to the court before money could be spent.

The proposal matters because the council adopted a development-fee ordinance in June 2022 that established the dedicated revenue stream; that ordinance was approved by the Superior Court in January 2024 and the court remains part of the spending-plan review process. The staff member presenting the plan said the city must file a spending plan with the court "in order for us to be able to spend any of this money." Beth McManus, the consultant who worked on the plan, told the council she had discussed a county partnership for emergency rental assistance and that the county had provided a draft shared-services agreement and "seemed pleased to do so."

Under the draft, rehabilitation would be prioritized to meet a city requirement covering about 3,700 units. Affordability-assistance examples discussed included emergency rental assistance for residents of deed-restricted affordable housing, health-and-safety repairs for homeowners, a down-payment assistance stream limited to deed-restricted for-sale units (the plan proposed up to $50,000 from the trust fund for those transactions), and a program to buy down units to deeper affordability (for example reducing units from 80% or 50% of area median income to 30% AMI). Administrative funds were described as available for right-to-counsel and program support.

Council members asked how the proposed down-payment assistance would relate to existing programs such as the Golden Doors program; the presenter said the trust-fund assistance would be limited to deed-restricted affordable-for-sale units and therefore would operate differently from the broader program run by the Community Development department. On emergency rental assistance, the presenter said the county would be able to report back and that the county and city had discussed a shared-services agreement to administer the funding.

Separately, Brian Rance of the Division of Community Development presented three housing-related items: a request to subordinate the city—9s mortgage encumbering 102 Cambridge Avenue Unit 11 to allow a financing purchase by an income-qualified buyer; acceptance of an award of $497,214 under the federal Community Services Block Grant (CSBG) administered by the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs; and a request for a partial discharge of an affordable-housing mortgage that would discharge the affordability restrictions on 305 Whitten Street Unit G2 after foreclosure. Rance said the Whitten Street unit—9s deed restriction contained language terminating the restriction upon foreclosure, and staff found no legal defense had been filed in that foreclosure, which is why the discharge request is being made.

No final votes were recorded on the spending plan in the caucus transcript; the spending plan was presented as a draft, and the CSBG acceptance and mortgage items were presented for council consideration without recorded roll-call outcomes in the caucus log.

The council received answers to several technical questions during the presentation and was told further details could be supplied in subsequent budget and committee hearings.

The council will consider these items on the public agenda and, where required, submit the spending plan and related documents to the Superior Court for approval before releasing trust-fund money.