Jersey City Breaks Ground on 508 Homes in Bergen-Lafayette

Jersey City broke ground on Canal Crossing, a redevelopment in Bergen-Lafayette whose first phase will bring 508 homes to the neighborhood, including 102 affordable units with rents below $1,000 and $1,500 a month.

That makes about one in five homes in the first phase affordable. The project will include family-sized apartments with three bedrooms and is expected to be built with union labor on a former brownfield, a polluted industrial site that has to be cleaned up before it can be reused.

“Every Jersey City resident deserves the opportunity to find a home they can afford and build a future in the city they love,” Mayor James Solomon said at the groundbreaking. The project is part of his Building for Working Families housing initiative.

Ward F Councilman Frank “Educational” Gilmore said the project has to serve the people already living there. “Development in Ward F has to benefit the people of Ward F,” he said. “It’s about making sure the people who helped build this community have an opportunity to remain here.”

“It’s important that any development in Greenville reflects and serves the needs of the people who live here,” said Sandra Lovely of the Greater Neighborhood Association.

Mike Hellstrom, vice president of the Laborers’ International Union of North America, called it “a brownfield-cleaning, job-creating, home-building project.”