New Apartments, Tax Credits for Newark

Joint venture partners in the 44-unit, four-story housing complex are Community Urban Renewal Enterprise, Inc. (CURE), a Newark-based public/private organization, and the Jersey City-based J.P. Affordable Housing Inc. The complex is a trendsetter for the South Ward, the initial seniors housing facility in a neighborhood that itself has recently shown new signs of life. The facility is located across the street from a new firehouse, as well as the new Malcolm X Shabazz High School campus. Units will offer seniors such amenities as a community room, library, security services and a range of social services.

Units will rent for about $450 a month, according to Gene O'Connell, who heads J.P. Affordable Housing. His company has developed over 300 residential housing units in Newark over the last decade, and expects to get into the ground on another 26-unit apartment complex within the next several weeks.

In the other piece of good news, Newark has gotten the go-ahead to participate in the federal government's Renewal Communities program. The city, along with Camden in South Jersey, has been added to a list of nearly 40 other cities that are entitled to offer companies job-related tax credits of $1,500 to $3,500. The credits are doled out on the basis of the number of jobs created within specific boundaries, people hired from high-unemployment groups and welfare-to-work hirings.

Other benefits for companies in cities involved in the program include tax deductions for new plant and equipment expenditures, site remediation credits, the elimination of capital gains taxes on assets held for at least five years and access to bond financing. The total pool available to cities in the program, which is administered by HUD, is in the range of $17 billion.

Newark officials have been trying for almost a decade to get on the list of participating. What worked this time, according to officials, was evidence that community-based organizations are able to use such federal funding efficiently. Newark's sharp drop in crime was also seen as a plus, according to a HUD spokesman.

Demographically, about 40% of Newark's 24-square-mile land area falls within the Renewal Community zone. Altogether, nearly 60% of the city's resident population lives in that designated area.