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A Post-Racial Change Is Gonna ComeBooker’s Community Development Initiatives

A Post-Racial Change Is Gonna Come: Booker’s Community Development Initiatives [For Newark and its new mayor, resolving the city’s numerous problematic urban issues proved to be a difficult feat during his first term. The one significant policy area that Booker attempted to resolve was Newark’s community development. Whether it was because the city’s residents had increased concerns about urban redevelopment due to policies of the former mayor, Sharpe James, and his administration’s controversial land sales or because Booker tried to proactively respond to revitalization in Newark, the new mayor centered many of his policies around community development.’ Because James had designated all of Newark as needing rehabilitation, he and other officials were able to sell and transfer city properties directly to developers instead of putting land up for sale in public auctions. The city was initially able to sell land at $4 a square foot (and some land for $1 a square foot) when private lots were easily selling for ten times as much. Some of these sales included significant discounts, especially for politically connected buyers. After Booker filed suit against the James administration to suspend land sales in 2006, the Superior Court prohibited the city from selling publicly owned property, which was an unusual ban.2 Even the 2006 newly elected city council (including several members who had initially supported the previous administration’s development proposals) voted to rescind two $80 million redevelopment trusts for neighborhood projects in light of ongoing concerns about these land sales.3 And once Booker entered office, he tried to have the city reclaim 250 lots sold by the previous administration to 32 builders, who had failed to build on the land within 18 months.4] http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png

A Post-Racial Change Is Gonna ComeBooker’s Community Development Initiatives

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Publisher
Palgrave Macmillan US
Copyright
© Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Nature America Inc. 2013
ISBN
978-1-349-44733-6
Pages
97 –135
DOI
10.1057/9781137277725_5
Publisher site
See Chapter on Publisher Site

Abstract

[For Newark and its new mayor, resolving the city’s numerous problematic urban issues proved to be a difficult feat during his first term. The one significant policy area that Booker attempted to resolve was Newark’s community development. Whether it was because the city’s residents had increased concerns about urban redevelopment due to policies of the former mayor, Sharpe James, and his administration’s controversial land sales or because Booker tried to proactively respond to revitalization in Newark, the new mayor centered many of his policies around community development.’ Because James had designated all of Newark as needing rehabilitation, he and other officials were able to sell and transfer city properties directly to developers instead of putting land up for sale in public auctions. The city was initially able to sell land at $4 a square foot (and some land for $1 a square foot) when private lots were easily selling for ten times as much. Some of these sales included significant discounts, especially for politically connected buyers. After Booker filed suit against the James administration to suspend land sales in 2006, the Superior Court prohibited the city from selling publicly owned property, which was an unusual ban.2 Even the 2006 newly elected city council (including several members who had initially supported the previous administration’s development proposals) voted to rescind two $80 million redevelopment trusts for neighborhood projects in light of ongoing concerns about these land sales.3 And once Booker entered office, he tried to have the city reclaim 250 lots sold by the previous administration to 32 builders, who had failed to build on the land within 18 months.4]

Published: Oct 30, 2015

Keywords: Master Plan; Charter School; Broad Street; Housing Voucher; Retail Space

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