Councilwoman Castellano's Affordable Housing Plan for Hoboken

I grew up at 332 Hudson Street and have raised my two boys in the same house. I want every other resident of Hoboken to have the same opportunity. To keep this tradition alive we have to make sure that affordable housing is a core value of this community and is everyone's responsibility.

It's nice to know your house is worth more than you paid for it, but pricing real estate out of reach for middle-income wage earners like school teachers, and municipal workers is counter to everything Hoboken has ever stood for. We need to make sure that all sorts of people can live here. Hoboken can't become a town of just wealthy folks. To do this we need to protect existing housing stock and create new housing.

Protecting Existing Housing Stock

Extending Rent Control Protection

Hoboken has a strong history of inclusive housing. 30 years ago we pioneered the drive for affordable housing by taking advantage of HUD programs and drafting legislative protection for tenants. But these rent protection laws never extended to cover those living in HUD subsidized buildings. That hasn't been a problem until recently, but now protecting these houses has become critical. A lot of these mortgages are now being paid off and tenants are in danger of losing the HUD protection. I addressed this potential devastating situation by introducing an ordinance to extend rent control to blanket the existing tenants and protect them from having their rents skyrocket.

Lobbying State Government and Management on Behalf of Tenants

Even with HUD and rent control protection, tenants in these buildings are often threatened with enormous rent increases and problems with services. I've made countless trips to Trenton on behalf of tenants and been successful at keeping planned 15% increases to levels of only around 2%. I've done this by establishing a good working relationship with the Housing Finance Mortgage Corporation and the Division of Community Finance. I've also been successful at negotiating with the City of Hoboken to extend services to these buildings so that costs could be kept under control and rents could be kept lower.

Council members Castellano and Russo were contacted by tenants at 77 Park Avenue – They were asking for help! Their rents are being increased by leaps and bounds – all legal. The Legislation exempts newly constructed multiple dwelling units from local rent control ordinances.

Councilwoman Castellano and Councilman Russo quickly reacted by passing a resolution asking the Legislature to revisit this practice and impose a limit to these increases and also to "grandfather" in existing tenants.

Councilwoman Castellano, Councilman Michael Russo (r) and friends at the recent fire victims' fundraiser

Original image from Hoboken411.com

From that liason, Castellano
and Russo struck up a great relationship. The Hoboken
Country Club Charity
Organization evolved and
they are teaming up to raise
money for the fire victims of
the Jackson St. fire.

Creating New Housing

Public Private Partnerships

Hoboken has been successful in the past in creating new housing by tapping into public/private partnerships. About 20 years ago this kind of initiative helped create the Caparra Homes. More recently we've used these partnerships to take advantage of Mount Laurel set-asides. Using these initiatives, we've been able to create new affordable housing. We need to work creatively to explore more of these partnerships.