Submitted by Towers_Oh_My27 t3_ygbav9 in Newark
Comments
Towers_Oh_My27 OP t1_iu98skm wrote
I get it, but I seen all the people I grew up with bave to move to irvington or east orange, or stay in the projects that is slowly being condemned. While richer people are moving in, owning houses they won't live in, while artificially inflating rent prices...
TenzeFiyer t1_iu99yss wrote
I wouldn’t call them “rich”. Do they make more money? Yes! Nothing wrong with people coming in “buying” property to live in. When people purchase a property they take care of it. These are properties that the majority of Newark natives wouldn’t have purchased any ways because the majority of us are renters. I think newark residents rent at a staggering 80%. And with the new developments these are places where no one was living anyways. It’s empty lots that make the city look back. Taxes and costs of materials and maintenance are up. Let me ask you this; So should landlords do nothing to make those properties look better and function well just to keep the rents low? Or should they put money in thier investments to make the place livable and nice? But that do come at a cost which will cause rent to be higher. No one stays anywhere for long. People will have to move out eventually. It sucks but it’s the way it is. Hoboken and jersey city wasn’t always as nice as it was. Newark is next on that list. Areas change all the time. I’d like to see Newark in a much better light before I leave this earth. It would be a great thing to see Newark at its best.
surrealchemist t1_iu9irut wrote
Landlords and property owners don't make things look nice to make it nicer to live there. They make it nicer to justify charging the rent. If you just keep letting more and more in without any pushback then the other landlords are going to look at the market and start raising it as well because the whole average gets thrown out. Then it just spirals. There isn't much push back because people just see construction and new shiny things and think its good because it looks pretty and you can go to a starbucks or whatever.
sutisuc t1_iu9j83f wrote
It’s like half the people on this sub haven’t seen what happened to jersey city over the years. Couldn’t possibly build more in a city of that size over the last 20 years and it’s more unaffordable than ever. Why people want to price themselves out of Newark I have no idea. Maybe there’s more property owners on this sub than I’ve realized
VroomRutabaga t1_iu9lywa wrote
I would argue this sun is 80% a mix of developers and property owners foaming at the mouth.
twinkcommunist t1_iua7k15 wrote
This country has freedom of movement. You have no choice but to let as many in as want to move in. What you can control is whether enough new housing gets built to accommodate newcomers or if they have to compete with residents for existing homes.
surrealchemist t1_iua95p2 wrote
There are other types of housing though the city can encourage. Things like renter co-ops, low income units, non-profit housing. They can put caps on rent if they wanted. The recent push to put extra tax on vacant properties is good as well if it can prevent landlords from sitting on a unit to wait to replace it with a higher rent tenant.
twinkcommunist t1_iuaa0zo wrote
I'm fine with those other things if theres actually enough money behind any of them to actually get them built. Price caps usually have really bad second order effects. I don't think a vacancy tax would be useful because less than 6% of units in Newark are vacant which usually just means that landlords wait a month or two between tenants; things aren't sitting empty long term. (Especially in a city that has a lot of structures that aren't habitable but would count as vacant because they have walls and a roof). I'd rather just have a universal higher property tax that goes to a public housing developer that builds apartments to rent slightly above the cost of maintenance.
DrixxYBoat t1_iuak98c wrote
A city needs a prominent middle class in order for it to have a flourishing economy.
New developments attract this middle class.
The displacement of people is real and the rent increases aren't good, but we can't be a poor city just for the hell of it. Mars doesn't want to hire our citizens as they are now.
In order to stave off gentrification, Newarks school system must be stellar. A city with a good school system is a city that prepares its kids to graduate college and be able to work and play in the city.
WaltzThinking t1_iu956s3 wrote
Old buildings are a catch 22. They're beautiful but often need excessive maintenance, especially if neglected for a period of time like many buildings in Newark. Empty, deteriorating buildings are a real hazard. But a parking lot?! I hope that's not true. That's the last thing downtown needs. In fact, they desperately need infill mixed use development in place of all the existing parking lots downtown. Newark should be made a walkable city.
pineapple_swimmer330 t1_iu905kz wrote
Newark already has so many empty lots, I don’t understand the point of tearing down these buildings. It’s much cheaper to renovate an existing building than tear something down and build new.
Towers_Oh_My27 OP t1_iu990ot wrote
Exactly, contractors would rather pay the taxes on property for years until the city finally grants them money to tear down a building and building their shitty "out of style in 5 years" condos.
AsSubtleAsABrick t1_iudavmj wrote
The same 2-3 people own all the empty lots and are land banking them until they hit some unknown level of value.
It is more often than not more expensive to restore an old structure like that. Plus they can make it bigger.
sutisuc t1_iu7vq95 wrote
Oh yeah that’s been knocked down for a while now. They’re putting in a….wait for it…. A parking lot in its place
Towers_Oh_My27 OP t1_iu7wo4p wrote
yea, the building across was knocked down a few months ago. Luxury Rentals being built behind Fornos, condos across river Bank Park, the building where the clock on Ferry is just about finished with demo, and the building next to lexington ave finished its demo a while back. + Shaq's apartment complex in the BG is almost finished. It's crazy out here. hate to see it.
crustang t1_iu9xveb wrote
Awful
Atuk-77 t1_iu98k1y wrote
A parking lot would be more useful than the empty building that was sitting there for years.
ryanov t1_iuabft1 wrote
Why?
ahtasva t1_iu970p9 wrote
How is this gentrification ? That building was abandoned and empty for a long time. Apparently word have no meaning anymore🤷🏾♂️
Towers_Oh_My27 OP t1_iu99an1 wrote
Literally a functioning bar pre-covid with housing being occupied. Post covid boomed demolishing work, and I swear a new house was being built on every block, which are owned by people who won't live their, and artificially inflate rent prices.
Ironboundian t1_iu9wp0i wrote
It’s not gentrification if a building with a restaurant and apartments upstairs gets torn down to become commuter parking lot.
ahtasva t1_iua1czg wrote
Even it if were, what’s wrong with that? You take a building with 4 units down and replace it with 40 units, that’s a 1000% increase in available rental units. The 20% affordable quota creates 8 affordable units. Assuming the 4 units lost were housing low income residents, those units have grown by 100%. How is this not a win all around.
twinkcommunist t1_iua8w58 wrote
Owning houses you don't own only makes sense if property taxes are relatively low and you expect the price to keep going up forever. Prices are rising because despite the surge of construction, there isn't actually enough housing near jobs and transit for everyone who wants it. The empty luxury housing thing is mostly a myth but the solution is higher taxes and more constructuon.
ahtasva t1_iuatse2 wrote
The answer is actually increased domestic spending on things that really create value for the people who live in this country. Large scale public housing being top on that list. The myth that private developers will resolve our housing crisis is a myth that has been so utterly discredit that one has to be borderline brain dead to continue to buy into it.
The entire sub-urban housing stock built in the post war building boom was heavily subsidized by the federal govt. But for those subsidies, the so called boomers would be just as broke as the melenials. No one talks about it in those terms today because the beneficiaries of those subsidies were almost exclusively white and today form the core of the neo liberal establishment.
The so-called progressives that are supposed to be challenging the establishment are now squarely co-opted; voting for war, increased military spending while ignoring the domestic crisis that plague their constituents.
twinkcommunist t1_iuavhdb wrote
I'd support public housing but we don't have the tax system that existed post-war to fund it, and raising taxes enough to do so would be nearly politically impossible.
I don't think the idea that private developers are capable of lowering housing prices is actually discredited. New construction tends to be very expensive, but places that allow lots of building are overall cheaper than comparable places that don't. Upzoning slows rent growth in adjacent areas, and in some cases where it's done on a huge scale (like Sydney and Minneapolis) it actually has decreased overall rents.
Atuk-77 t1_iu98dxb wrote
Does replacing empty buildings count as gentrification? They are not displacing anyone, Gentrification is been used too widely, I’m against it when developers displace locals who live in a safe neighborhood but taking over empty buildings or crime infested areas is certainly a plus for the city as it bring new opportunities to locals.
Towers_Oh_My27 OP t1_iu99tn7 wrote
How did it get to that point. It was abandoned post-covid when the bar couldn't operate... my gripe is always with luxery rentals, condos because people won't own land, but a piece of a building... New money coming in, and rent is crazy, and getting crazier.
allyouneedissleep t1_iu7xxls wrote
I walk by it often on my way to the bus and it's been in progress for months. It's annoying because I can never anticipate when they're going to work on it and be in the way of the sidewalks. The cranes have already torn up the crosswalk.
VroomRutabaga t1_iu9mief wrote
Not providing an alternative carved out area to walk on when the sidewalk is blocked cause of construction should be fined heavily. Especially that stupid building on the corner of polk and market street, fucking idiots. It’s literally a safety concern
1Pichi t1_iu9fujk wrote
Edison Parking tore it down to expand their parking, the only thing they did was convert the warehouse into the Mars/Wrigley office building, I’m surprised they didn’t turn that into a huge parking garage.
funkyish t1_iu9ouyy wrote
The building is being replaced with an expansion of the ParkFast parking lot, but it's important to note that was approved only as a temporary use. The entire block is part of a redevelopment plan that only allows mixed use development, so within a few years it can look very different.
Ironboundian t1_iu9witl wrote
It won’t. There is no limit in the length of time of a temporary use” and it will be a parking lot as long as we have cars that don’t fly.
funkyish t1_iu9wszm wrote
You're right that there's no limit for the temporary use, but I really think that with the push for redevelopment in the city and how well located this site is, it won't be too long before a new developer comes in. Perhaps I'm naive, but I don't see the parking lot remaining for another 10 years.
thatGUY2220 t1_iu9snlo wrote
I am sympathetic to your position here but a city like Newark has a hard time balancing investment and maintaining connections with its history.
When investment doesn’t come we hear about red lining and white slight.
When investment comes now it’s gentrification. Most likely someone was paid off.
ryanov t1_iuabb2l wrote
Such a great mural on that one too.
TBrown1970DwULM t1_iuazuc9 wrote
I literally can’t wait till one of those buildings go up and it’s residences/condos I’m snatching one it’ll be my show piece Manhattan without the Manhattan prices !
16Vslave t1_iu9z01p wrote
People still went in there to eat? The building still up in the photo had to pre date the restaurant by a few decades. Sucks there will be a parking lot but would still prob be cheaper and environmentally friendly to knock down that old building with prob asbestos and lead in it then try rehab it.
I miss driving by the mirrored building that was where the parking lot is now,,,,was TAP airlines,iirc.
Due-Cryptographer434 t1_iu8pzos wrote
Knock it all down down and start from scratch. Newark is a embarrassing disaster that is taking the lives of young and innocent alike.
VroomRutabaga t1_iu9nap3 wrote
Oh boo hoo, go cry a fucking river. How about participating in contributions towards building a community instead of just being a nihilist.
TenzeFiyer t1_iu8ukht wrote
A little gentrification is OK. If everyone is poor in the city, the city won’t generate enough taxes to keep things going and making a beautiful. This is coming from a guy who was born and raised here. I’m OK with a little gentrification because what has been happening for the majority of my life here in the city wasn’t working.