Newark Residents Get ‘First Dibs’ On Affordable Housing Under IZO

NEWARK, NJ — Families who have made Newark their home for “generation after generation” will get a boost from a recent amendment to the city’s inclusionary zoning ordinance (IZO), officials say.

On Wednesday, Mayor Ras Baraka announced that Newark residents will have “first dibs” on all affordable housing created under the IZO for 90 days.

According to a statement from Baraka’s office, an Aug. 2 amendment to the ordinance – initiated by the mayor and approved by the council – will allow the city to exclusively market new affordable units to Newark residents for a 90-day period.

“This is a step forward in ensuring that families who have lived in Newark generation after generation, and others who share pride in city residency, can stay here,” Baraka said.

“Our original inclusionary zoning ordinance was a national model for producing affordable housing,” the mayor continued. “This amendment expands Newark’s leadership in housing innovation.”

“At a time when corporate LLCs are turning affordable homes in our city into high-cost rentals, this initiative is creating new affordable housing reserved for the people who live in Newark,” Baraka added.

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The mayor’s office noted that the city issued a request for qualifications on Sept. 8, seeking entities to serve as inclusionary zoning administrators to administer the program under the oversight of the Newark Department of Economic and Housing Development.

The selection process for available affordable housing will include “a process by which currently income-eligible households are selected for placement in income-restricted units such that no preference is given to one applicant over another except for purposes of matching household income and size with an appropriately priced and sized affordable unit by a lottery system.”

All available units will be listed on the city’s searchable database, NewarkHousingSearch.com.

According to Allison Ladd, deputy mayor and director of economic and housing development, other recent housing programs launched by the city include a $20 million investment to support the creation of units affordable to Newark families earning $32,000 or less, more than $20 million in emergency rental assistance to help Newarkers impacted by COVID-19, the creation of the first land bank in the state of New Jersey, and neighborhood development plans that “prioritize affordability and the use of MWBE developers and contractors.”

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