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Community Driven Redevelopment Process
The City of Jersey City, in its multiple attempts to revitalize the area around Martin Luther King Drive for over 25 years, learned firsthand the importance of community involvement and support to achieve redevelopment success.
Martin Luther King Drive, formerly known as Jackson Avenue, was once the premier shopping venue in the southern half of the city. Over time, the district and adjacent residential areas began to deteriorate, stores began to close and buildings erode. In an effort to combat the decline, the Municipal Council enacted a series of ordinances and redevelopment plans aimed at improving portions of the 26 block district.
By 1988, it was clear that the piecemeal approach to the redevelopment of the MLK Drive was not working. The district continued to lag behind other areas of Jersey City, particularly the "Gold Coast" or .Hudson River Waterfront, which was seeing new investment and rising property values and employment. The consensus was that there needed to be a comprehensive plan for the entire 26 block area with a single set of development guidelines and design regulations.
Despite consensus around the need to redevelop the area, there was considerable debate as to the form for that redevelopment. The Jersey City planning department drafted three plans, and each of them was rejected by the community at various Planning Board meetings. In order to avoid more lengthy and heated meetings, the Planning Board directed the staff to work with the community to create an acceptable plan.
The planning department then held a series of community meetings to discuss aspects of the plans with the hope that community support would follow. Unfortunately, the meetings produced more of the same frustration, until a local businessperson asked if the community could help the staff WRITE the plan, rather than make comments after the fact. The planning department agreed to the solution and a three-year, community-driven redevelopment planning process ensued.
The Martin Luther King Drive Redevelopment Plan was officially adopted in December 1993. At the core of the plan was the creation of a hub, or village center, to include 100,000 square foot shopping center, restaurants, a Village Green, a new US Post Office, and a new station for the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail Transit System. In keeping with the spirit of community involvement, the plan also specified the creation of a neighborhood development corporation (NDC) in order to maintain community involvement and control over the ongoing development project. The NDC is set up to work with the Jersey City Economic Development Corporation in order to get started, with the two entities serving as venture partners at first, eventually transferring ownership entirely to the NDC.
The Martin Luther King Drive Redevelopment Plan has been a success, thanks to the cooperative effort between the City and the MLK Neighborhood Development Organization. The Plan itself has received national and statewide awards and recognition for its innovative use of community outreach and implementation. The first phase of the project, the creation of the hub, is complete and the City and MLK NDC are activily pursuing the rest of the redevelopment plan as a team.
Contact: Jersey City Planning Department, Bob Cotter, 201/547-5050