“Jersey City is one of the greatest renaissance stories in the entire country.” – Mayor Fulop
JERSEY CITY, NJ - Mayor Steven M. Fulop delivered his 11th annual State of the City Address from City Hall Council Chambers on Thursday to highlight the important progress made throughout his tenure along with his compelling vision for the city’s future. The entire State of the City event was also available via livestream to promote civic engagement.
See below for highlights from Mayor Fulop’s State of the City Address:
AFFORDABLE HOUSING & DEVELOPMENT
- As a result of our new policies, we have more approved units of affordable housing than ever before in Jersey City’s history. That is proof that the IZO and the Affordable Housing Overlay Zone are a big success.
- Last year in a tough economy, we added $1.4 BILLION in new ratables to our tax rolls. This speaks to the health of our city. To accommodate this growth, we launched an online portal under HEDC to expedite the thousands of permitting forms submitted annually under HEDC and the MUA.
- The Bayfront Redevelopment project moved forward last year and will break ground in 2024. The 8,000-unit project is 35% affordable housing, located on the West Side of Jersey City and representing one of the largest projects in the north east United States.
- We are reimagining outdated public housing and turning it into mixed-income communities such as what we are accomplishing at Holland Gardens, the largest new public housing project in New Jersey. Additionally, we will offer homeownership opportunities to residents who may not otherwise afford their own place to call home.
- Last year, we opened the doors to Public Safety Headquarters located on MLK Drive. The fourth and final building completes the vision we initially articulated to establish greater access to critical services and thousands of jobs while driving critical investment into the Bergen-Lafayette neighborhood.
ARTS & CULTURE
- Next month, we will break ground on the Loew’s Theatre restoration project to revive the iconic theatre, bringing world-class shows back to Journal Square once again and attracting thousands of visitors from all over the region. That translates to countless people year after year coming into Jersey City, dining at our restaurants, staying at our hotels, and spending at our local businesses.
- The Centre Pompidou is the largest collection of modern and contemporary art in Europe, and Jersey City will soon be the only North America location. We deserve the best, we should inspire our children with the best in the world, and that is what we will be doing here.
- There is a lot of progress happening in Journal Square, and it will once again represent the heartbeat of our city. With all of this progress, affordability is key to our plans, and Journal Square is a key part of that plan.
- We are supporting public art and arts education through the Arts and Culture Trust Fund in an unprecedented way. In the first two rounds alone, we awarded $2 million in grants to 200 local artists, and this year’s installment already has a 50% increase in applications submitted.
- Jersey City’s nonprofit arts and culture sector generates $46 million in economic activity annually while supporting over 500 jobs and $28 million in personal income to city residents.
PUBLIC SAFETY
- In 2023, we had the lowest number of homicides in Jersey City’s history. The data shows we had the lowest homicide rate of the top 100 cities along the entire East Coast and everywhere east of Texas. Furthermore, we had a lower homicide rate than New York City for the first time in decades.
- For the first time, we closed out 2023 with a 100% solve rate in homicides - taking the most violent criminals off our streets and putting them behind bars.
- In a few weeks, we will open our new De-escalation and Training Center with a simulator to recreate a range of emergency scenarios to provide officers with top-notch training on better protocols in high-stress situations. One of the best parts of the new Training Center is that it will be open to the public to experience firsthand what it’s like to be in a situation where every second counts.
- Last year, our firefighters responded to more than 17,000 calls for service. There is no greater responsibility than the safety of our community, and safety leads to investment elsewhere.
- Since 2013, we’ve hired 823 police officers and 377 firefighters, and we will continue to make the investment to ensure our public safety personnel have the training and resources they need to stay safe.
PARKS & OPEN SPACE
- In 2023, we completed one of the largest citywide park improvement plan in decades, with over 25 park updates.
- We also created 12 new plazas and public spaces throughout the city, including the new Bethune Park; we created the new Fairmount Park; added the new Coles Park where none previously existed; and we have set the way for the new 3-acre Courthouse Park, which will soon be the first large park in Journal Square.
- After 30 years of discussions with little action, we will reopen Reservoir 3 to the public next month as the bridge nears completion. This will create a safe, cohesive walkway around the entire reservoir with greater public access.
EDUCATION
- Next month, we will open the doors to a new public library in Bergen-Lafayette. The Communipaw Library will extend well beyond books to promote S.T.E.M. education and advance equitable access to state-of-the-art technology.
- The Fulop Administration has been a part of creating 5 new schools that are either completed or under construction, for a total of 3,000 new seats. We did this without any state help. No other city in NJ can speak to anything near that.
- Liberty Science High School will break ground in the next few months, and it will be one of the region’s best STEM schools, providing generations of students with real-world experiences that include the 100 start-up companies on site.
- For, Scholar’s Village went before the Planning Board last month and is scheduled to break ground in the summer. Also happening at SciTech Scity, later this year, work will start on Edgeworks, the incubator space for start-ups.
HEALTH & HUMAN SERVICES
- As part of our outreach efforts, Health and Human Services launched mobile testing to deliver services directly to communities across the city and encourage everyone to stay healthy.
- Last year alone, the HHS team took 6,400 seniors on field trips, and served 200,000 meals to senior residents, a 15% increase from 2022.
- At the same time, HHS hosted 300 substance abuse prevention workshops, and we also created the Veteran Suicide Prevention Coalition as a lifeline for our veterans in need of support.
- Older adults are dependent on community resources now more than ever for a safe and active social life. To meet the growing demand, next month, we are opening a new Senior Center on Central Avenue that is unlike anything the city has ever had before.
- The recent transition to full-service Animal Control, now run by the city under HHS, was no easy endeavor, but it will guarantee humane treatment and enforcement for animals in need. By bringing these services in-house, we can have longer operating hours to encourage more adoptions and licensing.
TRANSPORTATION & SUSTAINBILITY
- Since becoming the first in New Jersey to adopt Vision Zero five years ago, we have become a national leader in creating safer streets for pedestrians and drivers with a wide range of safety improvements. To date, we have installed nearly 700 speed humps, 550 intersection upgrades, and over 20 miles of protected bike lanes.
- Despite launching Via Jersey City during the pandemic, we have established one of the nation’s most successful programs of its kind in terms of ridership, efficiency, and social impact - with 80% of rides serving people of color and 60% serving low-income residents. Our Via program recently reached the major milestone of 2 million rides.
- We are leading the country in electrification and sustainability to achieve a healthier and more equitable city.
- We are incorporating greener technology as it is a cost-savings and a long-term investment that benefits the environment, taxpayers, and most importantly, our health. Through grants, we have integrated electric vehicles into our fleet, while retiring older gas-powered vehicles.
- We recently became the first on the East Coast to deploy fully electric garbage trucks. To take our efforts a step further, we are powering our EVs with solar panels installed at the DPW campus, which also supplies electricity to the entire building.
- This year, we will expand to 90 public and municipal charging stations throughout the city at no cost to taxpayers to strongly encourage and promote more EV use.
RECREATION & YOUTH DEVELOPMENT
- Since expanding the Department of Recreation to include Youth Development, we have successfully established new programs and enhanced existing recreation to be more inclusive of everyone’s abilities and interests.
- In 2023-2024 we have put a greater emphasis on expanding services for children with special needs.
- The city has seen a big boost in engagement since the June launch of our online portal for more accessible field scheduling. As a result, 140 different organizations were issued field permits between June and December, impacting thousands of children.