EDA RLFs: Planning, Local Structural Change, and Overall Performance

The Impact of EDA RLF Loans on Economic Restructuring

The Impact of Planning on EDA RLF Performance

EDA FLFs -- Performance Evaluation

TCRP: Costs of Sprawl--2000

The Costs and Benefits of Alternative Growth Patterns

EDA Public Works Program: Performance Evaluation

EDA Defense
Adjustment Program: Performance Evaluation

Explorations in Planning Theory

Hudson River Waterfront Corridor Housing Market Study

Transportation Planning in the New York Region {3 volumes}

The New Practitioner's Guide to Fiscal Impact Analysis

The Adaptive Resuse Handbook

Energy and Land Use

The Fiscal Impact Handbook

Westchester County Housing Needs Assessment

Hudson River Waterfront Corridor Housing Market Study

I. INTRODUCTION

This report examines the housing market of the Hudson River Waterfront Corridor. It provides a detailed market analysis for the corridor and its major geographic components. It also provides a computer model for projecting future growth within the corridor and for analyzing the relationship between the size and income of projected new households and the size and cost characteristics of the projected housing supply.

The Hudson River Waterfront Corridor is a group of nine New Jersey municipalities located adjacent to the Hudson River. The corridor extends northward from the City of Bayonne to the Borough of Edgewater (see Figure 1), including the municipalities of Bayonne, Jersey City, Hoboken, Union City, Weehawken, North Bergen, West New York, Guttenberg and Edgewater. Of the nine municipalities, Union City is the only one with no waterfront property, while Jersey City occupies roughly half of the corridor. Given the diversity of Jersey City's population and land uses, it has been further partitioned into wards: Ward A, Greenville; Ward B, West Side; Ward C, Journal Square; Ward D, Hudson CityiThe Heights; Ward E, Downtown; and Ward F, Bergen. Wards A, E, and F all possess Hudson River waterfront land; however, only Ward E possesses significant pofential for waterfront development. Wards A and B are also bounded on the west by Newark Bay. For municipalities and wards with land parcels located on the banks of the Hudson River, the study will discuss both waterfront and off-waterfront housing.

In geographic terms, the corridor is a peninsula bounded by the Hudson and Hackensack Rivers, by Newark Bay, and to the northwest by the Hackensack Meadowlands. Within the corridor, the dominant geographic feature is the Palisades of the Hudson River. These rocky cliffs begin in Jersey City and form a barrier to easy access from the waterfront to the uplands. Hoboken and Edgewater are isolated from their immediate off-waterfront neighbors by the Palisades. The Palisades also separate the waterfront portions of Weehawken, West New York, Guttenberg and North Bergen from the remainder of their respective municipalities.

In the last decade, the Waterfront Corridor has become one of New Jersey's fastest growing areas. Previously dominated by deteriorating industrial and transportation facilities, the waterfront is being transformed to a zone of office centers and luxury apartment complexes. Waterfront redevelopment began with the conversion of an old Penn-Central refrigeration terminal located at the foot of Exchange Place in Ward E into the high-tech office complex now known as Harborside. The redevelopment activities occurred between 1979 to 1985. Paralleling this activity, the Newport mixed-use complex began construction in 1985. Additional office, commercial, and residential projects quickly followed. In the 1980s, developers announced plans to construct nearly 39,000 residential units on the waterfront. These units, along with over 30 million square feet of commercial office development, were projected to be completed by the year 2000. At present, more than 3,500 waterfront units have been built and another 842 are under construction. Developers have secured at least some of the necessary permits and regulatory approvals for more than 12,000 waterfront units, and have proposed more than 21,000 additional waterfront units. Given the current state of the economy, however, and negative local reaction to several large development projects, the actual volume and timing of new construction may well be scaled back.

The focus of Hudson River Waterfront Corridor study is the housing market for the waterfront and off~waterfront portions of the corridor. The study uses several basic data sources. These include the U.S. Censuses for 1990 and 1980, demographic and other data provided by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, and surveys of housing and planning experts representing each of the corridor's nine municipalities. Other sources include interviews with waterfront developers and property managers, and surveys of waterfront residents and employees.
Included in the analysis are:

· A review of national and regional economic and demographic trends affecting the Waterfront Corridor;
· An examination of the factors shaping the geographic scope of the housing region;
· A review of demographic and housing trends within the municipalities and the six Jersey City wards of the corridor;
· Socioeconomic profiles of waterfront residents;
· An inventory of waterfront development;
· An assessment of the waterfront and off-waterfront housing
· A discussion of the corridor's potential for future development and of issues relating to affordable housing and housing price change.

The study also provides: 1) an introduction to housing market models; 2) a detailed description of the structure, data requirements, and assumptions of the Hudson River Waterfront housing model; and 3) a user's guide to the model. Finally, it presents three alternate growth scenarios for the corridor's twenty-year development future using the housing model.