There are parts of Jersey City right now where rents are at 2022 levels.

Christian Gomez wrote this great piece on why Jersey City can't reform parking and struggles to approve new housing: a political culture that mistakes endless community meetings for leadership.

The engineering schematic

Fun find this afternoon: In 1957, the Port Authority did the engineering work to link the downtown PATH to the Lexington Avenue subway local tracks.

This project is batshit insane and nobody’s paying attention. $11bn is enough to make good progress on regional rail, moving riders from slow, uncomfortable, high-operating-cost buses to trains. Instead it’s happening in isolation from Gateway/Penn planning, resulting in no major new transit service

If we could fund better transit in NJ through a new revenue stream, how would you do it? Didn't Pompidou reveal we could be using special improvement districts for regional/localized public goods?

@upzonenj.bsky.social @3underscores.bsky.social @mdasilva.bsky.social @eaconner.bsky.social

My vote is for HOT ("Lexus Lanes") on I-78 and I-80 and demand-based variable tolling on Turnpike and Parkway.

The World Cup is coming. So is congestion and pollution. A call from our president, Johan Andrade, on the need for getting Hudson County World-Cup-ready with quick build bus lanes, bike lanes, and pedestrian corridors before it's too late.

Link to article: betterblocksnj.org/2026/04/06/p...

Silverman as a housing developer is good!

Silverman as a rent-seeking landlord who tries to prevent new market entrants is not good!

A neighbor filed a zoning complaint against a Jersey City café for baking cinnamon rolls in-house.

The “evidence”? They paid a grease trap fee. (Every coffee shop does.)

“The Cinny” is baked off-site. Jersey City planning confirmed it twice. The complaint is still moving forward.

It's pretty bad if Ambrossi got bodied out of primarying an extremely vulnerable county commissioner. I have nothing against Lipski, but isn't she the poster child for not campaigning? There's really value in her getting to be lazy? It's not like that race would have been full on civil war.

Jersey City's existing 15% mandatory IZO downtown has been in place since 2021.

Affordable units built under it without a PILOT? Zero.

The new mayor ran on the promise to expand this IZO mandate to 20% and make it citywide.

Learn more about what IZOs are.

betterblocksnj.org/2026/02/08/t...

Boosting Jersey City: The Case for More Housing Supply Explore Jersey City's housing policy and its impact on affordability, urban vitality, and economic opportunities in our insightful article.

New "luxury" apartments in Jersey City actually make rents cheaper for everyone nearby. Studies show new construction cuts surrounding rents by ~6%. Here's the evidence politicians ignore when they fight new housing.

betterblocksnj.org/2025/12/15/w...

Tax abatements, exemptions, and PILOT agreements are some of the most misunderstood tools in municipal finance.

In our latest article, we explain the history and use of these agreements debunk three of the most common myths circulated on social media around tax abatements.

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Uncanny, actually.

Additionally, to your point, there is some worry about how a universal 15% or 20% IZO might either kill development completely or accelerate PILOT usage to an unsustainable degree.

I’ll investigate that in the next article on funded IZOs.

I think this is one reasons why the last administration diverted 10% of PILOT revenues to the schools directly.

I maintain it’s a wash either way but you could use that Rutgers report to calibrate the exact amount to “cover” the expected number of new school aged children.

The first two ordinances Better Blocks was tracking went to a vote after second reading so we finally have data for our council vote tracker and score card.

Lavarro falls to last place voting against Better Blocks' supported positions. Everyone else is batting .500 raw votewise.

We are working on building a subreddit where we will share not only our posts but hope to create a repository for all the research articles that @3underscores.bsky.social and @eaconner.bsky.social end up reading and using.

If folks have good econ papers on housing they want to share, post there!

One of our volunteers researched and wrote this analysis of the SciTech Scity project, which was one of then-Councilman Solomon's favorite punching bags on the campaign trail.

He decried the development as a giveaway to luxury developers for $10 but the reality is much more nuanced. Worth a read!

The deal between Jersey City and Liberty Science Center that sold land for "just $10" is frequently misrepresented.

We looked into the project to see how this deal was actually structured to benefit Jersey City and the beloved local non-profit science center.

betterblocksnj.org/2026/03/10/b...

As a political advocacy group, we support candidates and make endorsements, but we need to keep our local electeds accountable too.

We are publishing issue trackers and scorecards to see how well local officials stack up on housing, transit, safe streets, and public amenities.

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Does Unfunded Inclusionary Zoning Produce Affordable Housing at Scale? Part IV in our Housing Policy Series

The post discusses the challenges of…

betterblocksnj.org/2026/03/03/does-unfunded...

This is one of our best articles yet. We look at how badly Boston et al messed up housing production with an unfunded IZO. Jersey City beware!

The next posts will look at how you can build affordable housing through funded and voluntary IZOs using more real-world examples.

We got the city council to recognize the bird-glass ordinance has costs.

They amended to 1) lower height to 85 ft; 2) exempt projects that don’t require a site plan; and 3) exempt 100% affordable housing.

More affordable housing builders should reach out to educate council on ordinance costs.

What a home, though!

Oh. Duh! This is Halo.

Everyone thinks of developers as an unlimited ATM but these projects are tricky, timelines are long, and margins are tight, tight, tight.

If you support transit-oriented development and want to help solve the housing crisis in Jersey City, local advocacy is one of the best things you can do.

E-mail the council. Tell them you support dense, transit-oriented development downtown. Here are their emails:

docs.google.com/document/d/1...

Notably that idea is *wrong* because Planning assumes curtains and blinds are an acceptable mitigation technique under the ordinance; unfortunately, as the ordinance is written, they aren't!

And the materials costs are considerably higher than 0.38%.