By a split vote, the Newark City Council on Wednesday gave its preliminary approval to amendments to Newark’s land use ordinance that would expand the number of streets where apartments are permitted, allow smaller minimum lot sizes for residential buildings, and make other changes to encourage construction at a time when Newark’s real estate market is hot.
The zoning changes proposed by Mayor Ras J. Baraka’s administration could also lead to more affordable housing, thanks to an existing city law requiring newly constructed buildings to set aside a fifth of their units, at capped rents, for people with low incomes.
The council approved the changes on first reading during Wednesday’s 12:30 p.m. regular meeting and could adopt them on Oct. 18.
Council President Lamonica McIver said she believed the administration had listened to residents and incorporated at least some of their concerns into the zoning changes.
”You’re never going to get a 100% perfect ordinance,” McIver said. But, she added, “I think we’re at a comfortable place.”
That said, McIver would not rule out additional modifications before or after the council votes to adopt the changes.
”I think it’s a great start,” she said. “If it comes a time that we have to make changes, no one is afraid of that.”
The council’s vote of 5-2 with two abstentions reflected the controversial nature of the changes. McIver and council members C. Lawrence Crump, Patrick Council, Dupré Kelly and Luise Scott-Rountree voted in favor, with Carlos Gonzalez and Luis Quintana voting no, and Michael Silva and Anibal Ramos abstaining.
The proposed changes, developed by a city consultant, Heyer, Guel & Associates of Red Bank, include permitting a wider variety of uses in a particular area — bars, laundries, pet shops and other commercial uses where only houses had been permitted. They would also increase the maximum height of apartment buildings and reduce the minimum setbacks from the curb, sidewalk or neighboring structures.
For example, the changes would allow two-family homes in residential zones previously limited to single-family homes and allow 3-family homes where only two and single-family homes had been permitted.
They would also allow apartment buildings with ground-floor commercial space along thoroughfares that had been limited to multi-family houses with no retail stores. One controversial change would permit small houses or apartments on the same lot as an existing house to provide affordable living space for elderly or young adult family members — a proposal critics say would eat up open space, strain the city’s aging water and sewer lines, and lead to confusion over addresses.
To create affordable housing, the zoning changes rely on the city’s existing “inclusionary zoning ordinance,” which requires developers to set aside 20% of apartments in new buildings of 15 units or more for people who earn less than the median income for the surrounding metropolitan area. For example, in a new building with 100 units, 20 would rent for below-market rates and be reserved for tenants making less than the Newark metropolitan area’s median income for a family of its size, figures calculated by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD.
But a former Newark city planning director representing community groups opposed to the changes says that even if the city produces new apartments, many Newarkers couldn’t afford them, including the ones labeled affordable. And, says urban planner and designer Damon Rich, a 2017 recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship — a.k.a. “Genius Grant” — increases in density and expansion of permitted uses will create crowding, have adverse environmental and health effects, and alter the character of residential Newark neighborhoods.
“Based on our analysis, the ordinance before you still contains thousands of changes to current law and rewrites rules for how development happens on every block of our city in ways that our clients fear will increase environmental injustice, harm quality of life, and injure public health,” Rich told the council during a work session on Tuesday when members discussed the zoning changes and other matters ahead of Wednesday’s regular meeting.
Rich, 48, was the city’s planning director under Baraka but left the position in 2016 to found the Newark-based consulting and design firm Hector. The MacArthur Foundation credited him with “creating vivid and witty strategies to design and build places that are more democratic and accountable to their residents,” key elements of contemporary planning.
The South Ward Environmental Alliance, a coalition of groups from the historic Forrest Hill neighborhood, hired Rich last winter to analyze the proposed changes in response to concerns that increased density and other changes might negatively impact their communities.
Rich said the problem is that the Newark Metro area comprises Essex, Morris, Sussex and Union counties, all with wealthier communities than Newark. Therefore, the Newark Metro AMI is much higher than the City of Newark’s median income.
Specifically, HUD’s 2022 AMI for a family of 4 in the Newark Metro area was $115,000, in contrast to the comparable median for the city, which was $41,335 in 2021, according to the most recent figures from the U.S. Census Bureau.
Since maximum permitted rents for the affordable units under the ordinance are based on Newark Metro AMI, Rich said those rents are much higher than average Newark families can afford.
Allison Ladd, the city’s deputy mayor for economic and housing development, said the creation of affordable housing is far from the only goal of the proposed zoning changes. Other goals include creating market-rate housing for Newark residents and newcomers, which is still less expensive in Newark than elsewhere. Other plans involve revitalizing neighborhoods that may lack retail shops, restaurants, dry cleaners and other street-level amenities.
Ladd acknowledged that Newark has an acute shortage of affordable housing, which is why Baraka created the Office of Affordable Housing in 2019. She stressed that there are other city programs to develop affordable housing apart from zoning, which include direct funding of affordable projects, including a recent $20 million city appropriation to create housing for people making 30% of the Newark Metro AMI. Some projects are 100% affordable — meaning all the units are income-restricted and developed with the help of state or federal tax credits.
“Land use and zoning are just one technique” for creating affordable housing, Ladd said.
During Tuesday’s work session, Councilman Carlos Gonzalez told Ladd he was concerned about negative feedback on the proposed changes. Ladd responded that she was happy to hear more from the council but that the administration had been taking community input on potential zoning changes for the past nine months, highlighted by a series of public presentations in the city’s five wards in August.
West Ward Councilman Dupre Kelly asked Ladd whether the administration had responded to concerns about allowing small houses or apartments on lots already occupied by homes. It had, she said, telling Kelly the city had scaled back provisions for such housing. For example, the units would be limited to R-1 zones for single-family homes and subject to approval from the planning board and, when proposed for a historic district, the city Landmarks and Historic Preservation Commission.
Kim Gaddy, who heads the South Ward Environmental Alliance, said after Tuesday’s work session that she was pleased to hear the administration was responding to residents’ concerns, at least in terms of the small houses.
“That’s why it’s so important for us to continue to have conversations with the city and to not rush it,” Gaddy said of the zoning changes. “The city can actually refine and modify what they want to pass.”
But on Wednesday, Gaddy said she was disappointed that the council voted to approve the changes on first reading, setting up a possible adoption vote in two weeks.
“That pretty much tells me of the need for me and all Newarkers to show up and get them to change their mind,” Gaddy said. “Otherwise, it’s going to be a done deal.”
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NOTE: This article was updated to include Wednesday’s vote by the City Council and reactions to it.
Steve Strunsky may be reached at sstrunsky@njadvancemedia.com