Housing Authority Vision Plan Wins Smart Growth Award

A project to transform Hoboken’s World War II-era public housing into a transit-oriented, mixed-use, mixed-income neighborhood has won a 2011 Smart Growth Award from the non-profit New Jersey Future.

The Hoboken Housing Authority Vision 20/20 Plan was cited in the category of Comprehensive Neighborhood Redevelopment Strategy. It calls for sustainable affordable housing to replace the agency’s current public housing stock, which is obsolete, below current safety and environmental standards and costly to maintain.

The new construction will be phased in, with residents relocated into new buildings in order to vacate the older buildings one at a time. Each empty building would then be razed to create a development site for a new residential building. At the completion of each phase, the number of new units would exceed the number of decommissioned units, ensuring that existing residents won't be displaced and providing for a variety of mixed-income housing options.

“Two recent developments gave the Housing Authority an extraordinary opportunity to proceed with a rebuilding plan,” reads the citation honoring the project. “Completion of NJ Transit’s Hudson-Bergen Light Rail, with stops at Second Street and Ninth Street directly adjacent to the HHA campus, greatly improved access to the neighborhood. This, together with relatively high property values associated with the recent influx of new market-rate luxury housing directly adjacent along Jackson Street, created a unique set of conditions ripe for total transformation.”

For a complete description of the Hoboken Housing Authority Vision 20/20 Plan, click here. 

The honorees will receive their awards at New Jersey Future’s 10th annual Smart Growth Awards ceremony on June 9, 5:30 to 8 p.m., at the Newark Club. Tickets to the celebration are $100 until May 27 and $150 thereafter. Proceeds benefit New Jersey Future. For more information, call 609-393-0008, ext. 101.