I need a website, let’s chat.

Kolby’s in Bloomfield is where my girl goes. She hasn’t had her hair pressed in years but said they can do it there.

They’re only mistimed if you don’t know the timing! Suckers!!!!

Joking. Yeah, shits way off.

You’re thinking too hard. Developers want to get the most money they can for their money. They can build 4 houses in a block or a large building with 40 stories and 600 studio’s for rent.

It’s not a big plot to change who you are or how you function, it’s just capitalism.

This is an asinine comment. Helping the current residents of the city doesn’t make Newark a “24sq mile welfare hotel”… whatever that means.

You should read a bit about how investments into communities have guaranteed economic returns. Make cities more walkable? More commerce emerges. Make transportation better and free? More people freely move about to commercial centers without clogging streets with cars and traffic. Provide housing and social services? More people have the capacity for work, paying taxes, buying products and housing, having children, getting educated, and leaving our streets safer and cleaner.

It’s all basically guaranteed based on multiple historical reference points from multiple parts of not just this country, but the world. It’s not even up for debate.

Or we can keep building residential towers like New York City and MAYBE we’ll have some huge companies headquartered here and the employees of those companies might drop a couple of penny’s on our homeless as they step over them on their commute home. Again, historical evidence everywhere.

If you REALLY want the city to succeed, you should want the city government to be the backbone helping the PEOPLE of the city MAKE it succeed.

I think the city has spent too much time trying to change the demographics within the city by building new housing and getting large companies to move 2 towns over for a huge tax break. None of this actually helps Newark residents since those tax breaks come at the expense of our ability to pay for public education and those companies are bringing their workforce with them.

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Investing in the people currently in the city is how I think that they should spend their energy. What doe this mean... Firstly, a housing first agenda. There is zero reason we should have homeless people when we have the ability to solve the problem morally. There are solutions to "solve" the homeless "problem" by just moving homeless people out of the city. This is morally wrong and doesn't solve the problem. Give them homes, no questions asked.

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Second is to increase social services for everyone in the city. This includes people in the housing first program as just getting housing isn't the end solution for the problems some people face. Drug addiction, PTSD and other mental health issues, lack of training, etc. These are all problems the city can solve while transforming the once homeless population into members of the workforce.

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Thirdly, reinvestment in education. A lot of buildings have tax abatements which eats directly into our education funds. I know teachers/principals from multiple places in the state and can confidently say the problems Newark teachers face in the classroom can be resolved with simple things like free school lunches, after school programs, and mental health services in school.

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I won't keep going but there is a lot more. Electrifying and sprucing up our public transportation, creating more green spaces like parks, adding tree cover to our city streets so they're more walkable, transforming driving streets into walking only sections (like Ferry St. or Halsey St.), or even opening up community gardens so we have fresh fruit and vegetables available in grocery stores all over the city and not just at Whole Foods... There is A LOT that can be done that doesn't involve building another residential tower to bring in more people from outside of Newark. That's just an attempt to "solve" the problem by displacing the current residents (pricing them out). It is the same effect as moving the homeless population out of your city to say you solved the problem.

Did you know that NYC also has more empty housing than homelessness? Did you know that the majority of high end housing in NYC at the top of skyscrapers are empty and still on the market?

Almost like continuing to develop new rentals for the sole purpose of making more money for the developer isn’t actually a solution to anything the city needs.

Also - none of the affordable units that will be going to are 2 bedrooms. Families don’t need affordable housing? The developer included the absolute minimum affordable housing because this project isn’t designed to help Newark - it’s designed to turn a profit as quickly as possible. I’m not mad at the developer for this - it isn’t their job to use their money to fix Newarks problems. But we’re talking about the city government approval boards here. And as a city government, this isn’t where we need to focus our energy.

ESPECIALLY if there is ANY kind of tax incentive. We need to stop leveraging our education fund in Newark for the sake of more developments. (Education being funded with property taxes).

Building more market rate housing with only the bare minimum allocated to affordable housing is not going to solve the housing issue in Newark. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again - there is already more empty housing than homelessness in Newark (and every other city/town/county/state in this country) and the residential buildings that have been going up over the last 15 years hasn’t done anything but cause average rent prices in Newark to skyrocket.

This doesn’t help the community. This helps the developer make more money. That’s all.

No, you’re incorrect.

Newer and more expensive housing raises housing prices in the area and locks the existing residents out of the market.

In addition, tax credits for developers and companies to move to the area trading our education fund - since that is paid for with property taxes - for the development. Companies like Panasonic took advantage of the tax credit but brought their work force with them providing a negligible amount of new jobs to actual Newark residents. Some people moved to Newark for the job further helping displace and price out the current residents (this is essentially part of how gentrification works).

Lastly, your “pray” for returns with this type of investment is not needed when investments into a community - whether that’s education, housing, transportation, social services, etc - all have a GUARANTEED return on investment based on historical data from multiple parts of the country throughout multiple times in history (plus congressional investigations into the subject showing the same).

Moreover - thinking that the commodification of the housing market can be mutually exclusive from housing the homeless is the funniest take in this thread. There’s a reason why policies like Housing First were attempted, showed success, and discontinued.

You seem to abhors the fact that homeless people are in the city and not the fact that there are homeless people as a direct result of policy decisions. Homelessness is a solvable problem but building more expensive housing doesn’t solve it, it exacerbates it.

For one, opposing the construction of this building that isn’t going to help.

But just so we’re clear here, I’m not the person with a bunch of money looking for a way to make more… I’m a resident of Newark standing up for those you won’t even bother speaking to.

I don’t hit the streets daily to try and stop police brutality but I’m opposed to that too.

I don’t go to North Korea to try and free the people, but I oppose that too.

I’m not in Ukraine fighting off Russia but I oppose that invasion also.

Plus, you asked us to voice our opinions about this. I did. Your “well you aren’t doing enough so shut up and sit down” is very telling.

Go away.

Do me a favor. Head over to Penn Station tonight and ask some of the homeless people there how this new skyscraper is going to help them. Ask them about how much the current Newark residents like themselves are going to benefit from this construction.

Let me know what the consensus is.

Yeah, I see you keep saying “Newark isn’t a city or poor people.”

I’ve lived here 30+ years. Newark is a working class city and most working class people can’t afford these buildings.

Nothing I said is speculation. The glass WILL make the city hotter. The housing ISNT needed. And comparing a building designated for business to a residential one as evidence of it producing jobs is ignorant. You’re not goi g to get a job in someone’s apartment because this building is going up, you’re just going to welcome more competition from outside for the jobs that are here.

And again, there is already more empty housing in Newark than there are homeless people with many new residential buildings already going up.

This. Isn’t. Needed.

So many reasons…

But the most basic reason I will give is that this doesn’t help the residents of Newark. There’s ALREADY more empty housing available in Newark than there are homeless people and this won’t solve our homeless problem. There’s already too many glass buildings and not enough canopy cover for walking around, and this will contribute to the problem. There’s already issues with parking and this provides no additional parking while, as just mentioned, making the city more uncomfortable to walk in.

I oppose trying to change the population of the city over reinvesting in what the people of this city actually need. Especially since, as you very well know, there are ALREADY a bunch of developments going up.

This development includes 20% affordable housing - the absolute minimum they can include - and I guarantee that the 20% won’t be affordable to the majority of people in Newark that need housing help.

So I oppose it.

Unfortunately I’m not in favor of this project and I doubt Calvin will convey my disapproval as it is counter to his objective. I’ll try to find the meetings and show up in person.

When are the board meetings and do you have emails for the board members and the city?

How do “tent cities” cause a “deteriorated” cost of living… are you saying that homeless people make it cheaper to live in a city and thus LA is super affordable right now because of how many homeless there are or that people not being able to afford the cost of living and being forced to live in tents causes the cost of living to go up…?

Because neither is true… so I’m confused.

The scheme is sue would get diapers using EBT which doesn’t allow for diapers or other non food items.

I wouldn’t exactly call that a scheme. Poor woman. Hope she got help.

That’s blaming the victim.